Miers takes a dive

Probably the best thing that could have happened, when you can't get support from the Right or the Left you're pretty much sunk for SCOTUS. Had John Roberts been a less-stellar pick, she might not have suffered so much by comparison, but in truth she's never been welcomed by the Right, she opens Bush up to charges of cronyism at a time when he is vulnerable in that area, and she's not part of the conservative farm team in the Judiciary that the Right has been building for decades.

My guess is that Edith Clements will be the next choice, though she had face-time with Bush (allegedly) when Roberts was nominated and didn't impress enough for Bush to pick her over Miers this go-round. Not really sure of the strategy with this Miers thing, I imagine that Karl Rove repaired to the office and took a couple of Advil when Bush told him that Miers was his pick.

It's also possible that the Bush team knows that Rove or Libby is going to be indicted and wanted to get the Miers issue off the table to avoid dealing with two public relations disasters at once without Rove around to help. I hope not, I don't see someone that goes to the Grand Jury FOUR times as being evasive, and I don't think Plame's identity was even protectable under the 1982 law that was the genesis of Fitzgerald's investigation.

Saw a talking head lawyer from Chicago on Fox this morning talking about how much of a straight-arrow non-political guy Fitzgerald is, there seems to be an effort to lock in his credibility as a Crusader for Truth and Justice prior to any indictments being handed down. Were I running things on the Democrat side, I would feed the 24-hour news beast as many people that "knew" Fitzgerald, up to and including his 3rd grade teacher, who would say he is completely above reproach, especially if some of the elves in the process had let slip the precise indictments that were coming down. The guy this morning didn't even claim to know Fitzgerald personally, he did parrot the line that Fitzgerald is apolitical and above reproach.

Tomorrow may be even more interesting than today. Were I Karl Rove, I would be hanging out near the Courthouse to avoid the perp walk as much as possible, Joe Wilson is a documented liar (Senate Intelligence Committee, bipartisan no less) and I would do whatever it took to avoid the 'frogmarch in handcuffs' Wilson wanted to see. But I assume that Rove being Rove, he already knows that.