Sorry, Hugh. You fought to the end.
Under no circumstances should the nominee withdraw or the president allow this nominee to withdraw, because I think the exchanges are going to be very interesting, and very instructive.Problem was, "instructive" meant "destructive," as anyone except the most faithful, loyal, blinkered partisan could see.
Update: Orin Kerr has it just right.
My immediate reaction is that the system worked. Harriet Miers is by all accounts a good person and a solid lawyer, but wasn't particularly well-suited for the unique environment of the Supreme Court. As I noted last week, I think the tipping point was sometime last Thusday or Friday, when it became clear on the Hill that Miers just wasn't going to be able to deliver the kind of performance at her hearings that she needed to deliver to get confirmed.
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If you listen to Hugh's show (as with my new travel schedule I now have opportunity to do twice a week), you'll discover that of all the conservative pundits, Hewitt is one of the most reasonable. He's upfront about his loyalties and he's had critic after critic on his show the last two weeks and discussed the issues with them.
Hugh has made some interesting points in the debate, and has been fairly persuasive that the Republican response as a whole has been politically damaging (which, it seems, has been his main argument--hence the anti-anti Miers language). His arguments against Frum's fundraising to campaign against Miers are also pretty persuasive.
I still would have liked to see the nomination come to the hearings. It would have been fun to hear Miers' responses to the criticisms.
All that said, Hewitt will have an article in tomorrows NY Times. It should be interesting.
Hewitt's arguments came down to
1. Trust Bush (which was demolished early on, in my view), and
2. The Base is okay with Miers (which may have been politically expedient--but when we're talking the Supreme Court, we're also talking about putting someone who's not just competent, but razor-sharp on the bench.) For someone who so vociferously denounced the Democrats' political opposition to Roberts, I find this argument ironic.
When the political damage came so early in the campaign, even Hugh could have realized that a "strategic retreat" was the least damaging option. He never really addressed the sheer inanity of some of Miers' writings ("the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection clause," "freedom of liberties"), that weren't exactly giving off a genius vibe, or the "insulting" answers she gave to the Senate's questionnaire.
Hugh may be reasonable, but after slogging through his website, it's hard to dismiss this feeling that his partisan loyalties trump his good legal sense. I'll reserve my final judgment until after the article, though.
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