(When Miers said the blogs would be important, Confirm Them and Bench Memos were two of the key ones she had in mind.) And of course those blogs — and other conservative legal blogs like Patterico — didn’t exactly embrace her nomination.

Patterico,

Heh. Ms. Greenburg settled one lingering question. You have a conservative legal blog that occasionally covers the LA Times, not the other way around.

Well if questioning revealed she knew less about constitutional law than Kennedy or Biden I expect that would have hurt her chances of making it out of committee.

President Bush will tap a solid judicial conservative (i.e., Brown) if he gets a nomination this year. He wants to change the subject, and this is about the only issue he’s got left to rally the base. (If you guys can think of another issue that will keep conservatives together with Bush, let me know.)

I don’t know why anyone would think that Bush has a need or an interest in rallying conservatives. What’s in it for him?

Democrats ultimately would have opposed Miers in her Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

I disagree with this. Not only is it speculation it’s ungrounded speculation. Miers nomination was one that was suggested by Harry Reid [a la Hatch recommending Ginsberg to Clinton]. Not that that qualifies as a free ticket - but it’s good for a lot of milage, anyway. Chuck Schumer, a member of the committee, seemed to express some relief that Miers was “mainstream”. And finally, remember that Republicans outnumbered Democrats 10 to 8 at the time she was nominated. If she wasn’t going to make it out of committee, it wasn’t going to be because of Democrats.

Bush’s advisers insist that he didn’t throw in the towel on Miers because of the conservative opposition. They’re adamant that he believed the conservatives ultimately would have rallied to her defense, once Democrats starting firing at her. That’s what happened in the Souter nomination almost immediately. Within days, liberal groups came out against him, and conservatives rallied to defend him.

If Bushies believed actually believed this, they are teh dumb. When Souter was nominated, which blogs initially opposed him? Oh, blogs came later? Who are these conservatives that “rallied” to defend Souter? It’s silly because it ignores so much context.From an evidence perspective, what did the Bush advisors have that made them think people like Patterico and the NR crowd would “come around”? I’m still shaking my head.

I’d like to see Sykes and God save us from Gonzales.