" What would Kristol do? "
If you were watching the FOX roundtable on election night at about 6:45pm EST, Kristol announced that the reason GW had lost the election to Kerry was because he had not sold the Iraq war to the American people.
Kristol was wrong , but, not entirely.
President Bush and the WH Communications Office has been stumbling for quite awhile.
Their message delivery system has been AWOL.
The WH should have been touting Harriet Miers to conservatives and skeptical Senators long before the announcement.
The Re"public"can fighting could and should have been avoided with more deft behind the scenes communication.
There isn't a person alive who could walk into the Oval Office, even if his father had been president, and know how to anticipate every single reaction to every single action he/she makes. Bush DID consult with key Senators ahead of time. The Senate is supposed to take these nominations seriously under advisement and make their collective judgments on whether or not to confirm after the vetting and hearings. It's the same old same old stinking American impatience -- give us the results before we take the quiz garbage. It's the same as the media making instantaneous calls on what caused this or that problem, ON September 11, when the New Orleans levees broke, etc. "He who makes haste with his feet [or mouth] errs." Proverbs 19:2
Having said that, I agree, W might have saved himself some difficulty if he'd put Miers' name about ahead of time. OTOH, he might have prejudiced an audience of traditional skeptics even more by letting her blood drain into the public shark pond before shoving her into the water.