[jwparkerjr]

I don't see this as a sign of weakness on the part of the President. Two things are vastly different from what they were just a couple of years ago. First, his party no longer controls the Senate where any nomination must be confirmed. Second, even when his party did control the Senate the other party had made it necessary to have 60 votes to confirm a nomination, not the majority ALWAYS needed since the beginning of our country.

Mr. Bush is simply being a realist. His party let a few of its own Senators shoot down any hope of returning the confirmation process to the process outlined by our founders. You can't blame Mr. Bush that Senators made the mistake of trusting those from the other side of the aisle.

As for the loss of control of the Senate in the first place, we have no one to thank but the host of Republicans who lost track of what the voters expect of them as conservatives.

President Bush is not without blame in this, his insistence on a 'new tone' sorta set his people up, but most of what were seeing right now is directly attributable to the GOP and how it lost its way!

[Leatherneck_MT]

"As for the loss of control of the Senate in the first place, we have no one to thank but the host of Republicans who lost track of what the voters expect of them as conservatives."

Amen

Amen

Amen

Amen

[flynmudd]

Reap what you sow. We are stuck with dem control for the next 2 years so we all need to get used to not getting our way in 95% of what we believe in.

[Tallguy]

I don't see this as a sign of weakness on the part of the President.

Yes, but why not go to a vote & just lose on that basis? You see by withdrawing the nomination, the Democrats will insinuate that the Swifboat Vets were not legitimate & that donating to them was a disqualifier from appointive office. If the nominee lost on a vote then the Republicans could at least say that they reject that charactarization.

I'm sure that the Democrats would find a way to keep the nomination in limbo if Bush had not withdrawn the nomination, however.