[Les_Miserables]

IMO The damage to the GOP has already been done by Bush. The nomination itself did the damage...as the traffic on these threads indicates. The question is can the damage be repaired. If she is confirmed and if her court opinions turn out, for example, to confirm her to be a closet feminist or advocate of affirmative action, to chose only one of her likely predelictions the damage will not be repaired. There are those that think the conservative wing of the "FR conservatives" have no option than to take what ever the GOP dishes up...well I don't subscribe to that and if Bush turns out in the final analysis to have screwed this up, we could find ourselves in '08 with a Republican Congress and a Democratic President..(if we make it through '06). Not something I contemplate with glee but certainly within the realm of possibility....You dance with he who brung you or you go home with somebody else.

[Ninian Dryhope]

"If she is confirmed and if her court opinions turn out, for example, to confirm her to be a closet feminist or advocate of affirmative action, to chose only one of her likely predelictions the damage will not be repaired."

On the other hand, if, as I and the President think likely, Miers turns out to be a reliably conservative vote on the Supreme Court, conservatives who overreacted will have been shown to be fools of little faith.

So why don't sit back, watch the hearings and see what happens rather than going off half-cocked with some stupid idea like a petition calling on the President to withdraw her name?