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That sounds great on paper. And...I completely understand your position.

But I spend a lot of time with less plugged in GOP voters and ALL of them LOVE the Miers pick. They are so fed up with the news channels and even people like Rush, Hannity, Coulter, O' Reilly and the like.

I had one person tell me that they usually couldn't wait to turn in...but these days it was making them so angry they just turned it all off. "It's a sad day when you can't tell the difference between CNN and Rush." She said, "They are being so mean."

The rank and file is standing with the President. None of this strategy, elitist, good ivy league school stuff matters to them. They don't want a fight. They want a good and decent person on the court.

So while many loud activists are screaming all over cyberspace and the radio, the average person looks and Miers, and looks at the President and says "you know what, she is one of us. He is actually representing us."

It may not be what the activists like, but from my experience, it is only improving the President in the eyes of the average American. He appears to want to do what's right for THEM, even if it gets him in trouble with his own party.

It's pretty hard to get the American people to not just pass someone off as a "politician." But that is how the President is coming across. Like it or not, it's a big win for him.

I *AM* "rank and file" and I'm not with the President on this one. Sure, I support his pick, but I still think he punted. Republicans will support Miers just because Bush nominated her. Nothing at all wrong with that. But that does not mean Bush did what he was elected to do, and that will haunt Republicans in 2006 and 2008. Many Republicans expressly went to the polls in 2000 and 2004 electing candidates - including Bush - who would finally put an end to Democrat games in the Senate.

But thanks to this pick, President Bush has told the Democrats they are still firmly in control of the confirmation process to the point where a well-known conservative CANNOT be nominated and expect confirmation. There were many other picks equally as good or even better who had unqualified conservative track records and would have appealed to the rank-and-file just as much as Miers does. Meanwhile, the left nominates radical left-wing ACLU lawyers who get confirmed without a peep.

Bush had a chance to end that and he gave in without a fight. Some of the rank-and-file is merely making the best of a bad situation, but there are a lot of others who may be disinclined to vote next time around or could end up helping to split the vote, opening the possibility for not only a Democrat in the White House but a Democrat controlled Senate. Then God only knows what we'll end up with on the Court.

Bush may have won the battle getting another conservative on the Court, but he has done serious damage to the overall cause. He's starting to act like the Senate Republican leadership, and between the two, I think there are going to be much closer races the next time around.