Our fight was not in reality Miers, but the fact that the process was Borked. I think you will find those of us who supported Miers are moving on.
I'm glad everyone is moving on.
The real problem with the last nomination came out as a side note on (if I recall) Washington Week in Review on PBS.
One of the conservative commentators made the point that of the potential nominees in the Scalia/Thomas mold who are women, they as a group are more strident, outspoken, and controversial than are the men on the list.
The commentator made the point that of the *women* with judicial experience and qualifications on his list, none could survive the confirmation process. Harriet Miers was probably the best woman he could get confirmed, whereas there are any number of men in the Scalia/Thomas mold who had extensive judicial and constitutional law experience who could get through the confirmation process.
To whatever extent that this is true (and I think that there is a lot of truth to it), it would seem that the fundamental underlying problem with the Harriet Miers fiasco was not whatever "Borking" went on (and having followed the Bork hearings extremely closely, it really doesn't even begin to rise to the Bork level), but rather the problem was the fact that the White House didn't choose the best confirmable nominee... but rather the best *female* confirmable nominee.
This kind of bowing to a quota system is not conservative, and should not be what we are about. Too much is at stake with the Supreme Court not to nominate the very best that we can hope to get through, even if it takes a fight. And fundamentally, that is that those of us who opposed Miers were ever saying.
On the WSJ television show last week, the WSJ editors made the point that it was precisely the Bork experience that led to all of this. After Bork was trashed in an unprecedented way, a movement rose up to basically create a "farm team" of conservative jurists with impeccable credentials, good judicial temperament, etc... who could, in the future, survive the process that Bork didn't survive.
By selecting Miers, the editors pointed out, W bypassed that entire body of work, and ignored the farm team where the people were to be found who both had the qualifications and philosophy as well as the ability to make it through the process.
I think that we will see Alito do just that, just as Roberts did. The Miers experience will increase Alito's chances of confirmation, since the RINO and fence-sitting Senators have seen how passionately many of us feel about the judiciary...
We already have many reasons to be grateful to Miers -- her loyalty to the President, her outstanding job in vetting judicial nominees. Those of us who just didn't think she belonged on the bench need not to forget that.