I suspect that it was all Karl Rove's doing--Harriet Miers was intended to be a red herring, and when the GOP 'turned' against her, it gave the Dems/Libs false encouragement that they thought they could use in attacking any future nominee--Judge Alito was the true nominee all along, and this was all meant to draw out the overconfident libs into making fools of themselves on national television (and on the world wide 'net).
That's my take, and I'm sticking to it.
;-)
That's what it smelled like to me...
I've suspected just that when she pulled out. W's administration just doesn't make those kind of mistakes. LOL