11:58amEST
MIERS STEPS ASIDE, BACK TO THE BUNKERS:I Before I ever took what became an exceedingly unpopular decision to allow Harriet Miers to be heard from before we decided to make her the pinnacle of all that is evil in the conservative movement, I advocated a different name for the remaining Supreme Court vacancy.
I did not know that it would come down the way it did, but after reading today's piece by Charles Krauthammer I think it is fair to point out a couple of things.
1. Mier's nomination (as Krauthammer pointed out) did not betray conservative principles by Miers or the President.
2. The administration's mistake had to do more with strategy. The President awoke a fairly sleepy political base in an off-election year, where people were yawning their way through the nomination of John Roberts. Not only did he wake them but he made them angry and hungry for a fight.
Many will acknowledge these two truths and say that President Bush had made a mistake of historic importance. That now he may serve the rest of his term with his head between his legs, pouting in the corner like a whipped puppy.
Catherine Crier will now have the opportunity to update her latest book and dedicate an entire chapter to the "crazed right" in America and how their dangerous agenda even whipped one of the most socially conservative presidents of our lifetime into submission.
And liberals can smile to themselves and think aloud, "ha - we got those rabid right-wing crazies to embarrass themselves in front of the nation for the last month - ha - how sweet it is." (Can't you just see Chuck Schumer saying this to a television camera somewhere?)
And conservatives might agree with him right?
