"Even if they would have filibustered, so what?"
Ok, let's think this through. You can't get Miers through. Good or bad, it's a reality. Who's next?
Al Gonzales? I can tell you, it won't encouraged anyone, conservative or otherwise, who was THINKING of putting themselves forward as a candidate, to put themselves through what Rush has accurately described as a long drawn out public anal exam.
Seriously...if that is the outcome with a nominee that many of the CONSERVATIVES are opposed to, how likely is it really that you would get a second nominee MORE conservative.
I'm not saying that is how it should be. It's like that old Jack Nicholson movie..."It's doesn't have to make sense. It's Chinatown."
"It's Washington."
I agree with you that all the options look bad at this point. I was talking about before he picked Miers. If he picked Miers to avoid a fight, obviously that has been a disasterous miscalculation. Now there is no face-saving way to back out, and even if she gets whacked by the Senate, the president can't nominate one of the justices he overlooked without appearing to be capitulating to his base. My point is, he got a fight either way. Had he or his team been smart enough to see that coming, then he could have picked the fight with the bad guys instead of with us. But I think this pick just shows what the president is truly made of, and that's not a compliment.