The Beginning Of The End?

The White House PR levees are continuing to spring more leaks than a Swiss cheese. Now actual insider names are beginning to be mentioned.

And, oh yes, the Miers SCOTUS nomination may be in the early stages of withdrawal:

The 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, conservative sources said yesterday.

"White House senior staff are starting to ask outside people, saying, 'We're not discussing pulling out her nomination, but if we were to, do you have any advice as to how we should do it?' " a conservative Republican with ties to the White House told the Washington Times yesterday.

Bet he won't have ties to the White House for long. But then if that happens, he'll have a lot of company:

The White House denied making such calls. "Absolutely not true," White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.

But a conservative political consultant with ties to the White House said that he had received such a query from Sara Taylor, director of the Office of White House Political Affairs. Miss Taylor denied making any such calls.

Ooopsy! Either she's going into business for herself (so to speak), or the Bushies are finally coming to grips with the reality of the situation but want to carry out a strategic retreat on their own terms. My guess is the latter. Only they miscalculated again in thinking that they can count on their erstwhile supporters "playing ball" with them by keeping these feelers quiet after almost three weeks of stirring up enmity and mistrust in their base like using dynamite to go deep-lake fishing.

In any case, the story was confirmed by a second source, even if s/he is also anonymous:

A second Republican, who is the leader of a conservative interest group and has ties to the White House, confirmed that the White House is making calls to a select group of conservative activists who are not employed by the government. "The political people in the White House are very worried about how she will do in the hearings," the second conservative leader said. "I think they have finally awakened."

"Absolutely false," Miss Taylor said. "Some of these conspiracy theories have risen to a new level."

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much. And I really don't see why. It doesn't take political genius to recognize that the Miers nomination is rising stern-first into the air and steadily sliding beneath the waves. Most of the conservatives ("intellectual," and/or pundits, and/or rank & file) who were in "wait & see" mode have now seen all they needed to see and have concluded what the early few of us recognized from day one - that Harriet Miers is professionally unqualified, philosophically unmoored, and too close to the President to merit confirmation to the nation's highest tribunal. And from the internal White House document demands of Senators Graham and Brownback - both Republicans, and one a previously avowed Miers supporter - the handwriting of "no Senate deference" is on the wall.

Nothing good can come from this continual metaphorical whizzing into the wind. Not for the White House, not for Harriet Miers, not for the conservative movement, and not for the Republican Party.

A president who is famous for "holding 'em" has got to know when to fold 'em as well. And that time has come.

Hopefully and prayerfully, even Dubya is coming to grips with that now.

[HT: Volohk via Bench Memos]

UPDATE: For NZ Bear's benefit, "I oppose the Miers nomination."