The statement that Josh just quoted from Hewitt is patently absurd for the simple reason that Bush could have had a number of solid conservatives on the court - McConnell, Alito, Hatch, Clement, Cornyn - without a major confirmation battle. There would have been the normal sniping from the liberal interest groups, as there was against Roberts, but it would have been no more effective than it was in that battle. Any one of those people could have been confirmed with 65 votes or more, with no serious doubt that they would go through. And all of those people are far more qualified for the job than Miers. Personal friendship is the only rational explanation for this pick.

Frankly, I think Hewitt would cheer if Bush nominated an 84 Buick for the position. He long ago sold out his credibility to suck up to the President.

Okay, there WAS a comment from Josh here a moment ago that included a quote from Hugh Hewitt claiming that this nomination was motivated not by friendship but by Bush's understanding of the importance of the nomination.

Hewitt is right, by the way, that all the normal liberal interest groups will still line up against Miers. She attended some pro-life dinners apparently, and that is more than enough to trigger the usual suspects to throw around lots of outraged rhetoric. But they did the same thing with Roberts and it got them zip. With the Democratic leadership in the Senate behind her, there's no way that you get more than 25 Democratic votes against her. As one adviser to a conservative Senator said in a Time magazine story yesterday, the White House knows that the real threat to this nomination comes from the right, not the left.

Excerpted. Bill Scher's interesting take on the Miers nomination. His emphasis, not mine:

"...the base was eager to get an out-of-the-closet conservative, so they pushed hard for someone else.

Part of it is a lack of trust. They want to know for sure that the next judge won't disappoint them like David Souter did.

The other part is they want to win on the merits. They want to win because the person has a right-wing judicial philosophy, not despite it.

Because that will grease the path for the next generation of right-wing judges. They don't want the best and brightest to feel obliged to refrain from writing down their views in order to succeed.

Bush obviously concluded differently, that going for an overt right-winger wasn't a politically feasible option.

But he had a dearth of candidates like Roberts that lacked a paper trail and were pre-accepted by the base (despite Bush's best efforts to stroke).

Of course, picking a real moderate judge does not serve the Bush/Rove vision.

They are thinking long-term GOP majority, and they have long believed they need a strong base to get it.

Kicking the base in the teeth on its number one issue doesn't help the cause.

Temporary agita? That's more palatable than a serious kick. The base's whining will fade once the judge starts voting on cases.

So he had no choice but to pick a conservative who lacked a paper trail. Miers was one of the few options available who fit the profile."

That just requires some post-nomination stroking so things don't get totally out of hand.

I know it wasn't on purpose, Eric, but ... if you could please, please, please avoid ever titling a post again in such a way as to remind me of a Carpenters song, which I then can't get to stop cycling around in my brain -- well, if we could avoid such an outcome in the future, I'd really appreciate it, ok?

(Aaaahh getitoutofmyhead getitoutofmyhead....)

You know you like it, phil. C'mon, admit it. Just like that scene in Tommy Boy. ;-)

Ed,

I agree that Bush could have gotten a known solid conservative confirmed. But what if he believes Miers is just as reliable as a Clement or a Cornyn, but can get through with a less acrimonious confirmation hearing, and thus conserve some of his political capital?

I agree with everything that has been said about this being a historic opportunity to nominate a well-known intellectual conservative, but I don't agree that this is necessarily a case of cronyism.

Eric wrote:

I agree that Bush could have gotten a known solid conservative confirmed. But what if he believes Miers is just as reliable as a Clement or a Cornyn, but can get through with a less acrimonious confirmation hearing, and thus conserve some of his political capital?

There are a couple of reasons why I don't buy this. The first is that Bush had been told for weeks that if he nominated Miers, he was going to lose the religious right (Gary Bauer said so in the Times yesterday). The second is that as long as you have the votes to confirm a nominee, there is no capital to be expended. You only need to expend political capital to twist an arm, but with 55 Republicans in the Senate there is no way that a McConnell or several others would be at any serious risk of not being confirmed. The fact is that he created a situation requiring the expenditure of far more political capital than he would have had if he had nominated someone far more qualified and far more confirmable.

You can't make a case that she's more qualified than the others. You can't make a case that she's more confirmable than the others. The only possible explanation left, the only possible reason why she was nominated, is good old fashioned cronyism. Does anyone seriously think that if she was not a close confidante of the President, she'd even be listed in the top couple hundred candidates for the job? I can't imagine.