A Kick To The Nads From A Very Nice Lady

via Newsmax:

First Lady Laura Bush said Tuesday that some of the criticism of her husband's Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers, could be driven by sexism.

Asked by NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer if sexism was behind the attacks on Miers, Mrs. Bush said: "That's possible. I think that's possible."

I never thought I would ever write the following words, but they must be written: Shut up, Mrs. Bush.

Here (click on "Jim Ross gets fired") is a very good metaphorical depiction of what the First Lady did to her husband's core supporters this morning. It's just one more brick in the wall of separation the Bushies are building that will, absent a drastic course correction, carry away the Dubya presidency for good.

UPDATE: Cap'n Ed and Michelle Malkin noticed Laura's rhetorical placekicking as well.

UPDATE II: Bench Memos, too, where Matt Franck turns Bush's famous "soft bigotry" quote against Laura in some anatomically impossible ways.

UPDATE 10/12: David Frum argues that the President should be held responsible for his wife's slander because he put her up to it - and because of what it means for his presidency:

What a terrible and false position to put the first lady in! And what a sign that the White House has finally understood that it has lost the argument over this nomination.

By asking the first lady to defend the nomination, the White House is implicitly admitting that the President's word alone has failed to carry the day: That, in other words, when he said, "Trust me," conservatives said "No." The first lady's appearance was a dangerous confession of personal and political weakness by the President - one that will be noticed and exploited by the President's Democratic opponents. [my emphasis]

What does that suggest? That even if Dubya were to come to his senses this very day, withdraw the Miers nomination and appoint a top-drawer constitutionalist as he should have a week ago (and did with John Roberts), he may now have already weakened himself to the point where he wouldn't have the clout to propel that nominee through even a GOP-controlled Senate.

Thus is one more argument added to the pile supporting my suspicion that Harriet Miers is Alberto Gonzales' stalking horse.