Miers Withdrawal Watch -- Part 1

It's going to happen.

According to The Washington Times, "[t]he White House has begun making contingency plans for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers as President Bush's choice to fill a seat on the Supreme Court".

RedState.org, which despite its concerns has generally thought that Miers would be confirmed, says this: "I no longer think she can be confirmed. Miers [sic] competency has now become an issue and that will bleed enough blood in the water to cause a political feeding frenzy forcing a withdrawal."

AMERICAblog asks the key question: "A strategic trial balloon or just wishful thinking by the right wingers?" Let's hope it's the former.

Why?

Armando at Daily Kos thinks that a Miers withdrawal and the nomination of a hardened conservative would be good -- yes, good -- for Democrats: "I think it would be great politically for Democrats if Bush caved in to the Wingnuts, withdrew Miers and then sent up Janice Rogers Brown or Priscilla Owen. That is a battle of ideas Dems should relish and Dems should win. Why? Because, that would prove, once and for all, that the Republican Party is beholden to the Extremist Wingnuts. It would force the Democrats to stand up for their values.

I absolutely agree.

**********

Meanwhile, the Post is reporting that Miers once embraced race and gender set-asides (i.e., proportional representation, of a sort): "As president of the State Bar of Texas, Harriet Miers wrote that "our legal community must reflect our population as a whole," and under her leadership the organization embraced racial and gender set-asides and set numerical targets to achieve that goal."

And what do conservatives have to say about this?

Confirm Them: "[T]his is another disturbing development."

Captain's Quarters has a very good post on Miers and affirmative action: "It's yet another red flag on a nomination that seems to have sprouted a number of them recently." (Still, Miers "pursued a worthy goal but through methods which conservatives largely find objectionable". "[P]rograms like mentoring, private scholarships, school vouchers, and the encouragement of small-business startups through enterprise zones do so much better at building business diversity rather than quotas." I tend to agree, though I do not support school vouchers. Instead, I think we need to focus on rebuilding the public school system.)

The NRO's Jonah Goldberg, one of the more thoughtful of them, has finally had enough: "It's not just that Miers was in favor of racial quotas -- we'd pretty much known that for a while. It's the fundamental confirmation that she's a go-along-with-the-crowd establishmentarian."

And he concludes: "I just don't want her. Start over."

Which is what I -- and many others -- been saying from the start. Whatever her political views, religious affiliations, and career accomplishments, there's no way she belongs on the Supreme Court.