The defenders of Miers, lacking solid arguments, have had to resort to crying "elitism", "sexism", "anti-Bushism", "snobbism", and here, Straw Man arguments.
The Straw Man rhetorical technique is the practice of refuting weaker arguments than one's opponents actually offer. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to your opponent.
One can set up a straw man in several different ways:
1. Present the opponent's argument in weakened form, refute it, and pretend that the original has been refuted.
2. Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.
3. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
Dude, that's not Tyrell.
And some ant-Miers folks are elitist, sexist, anti-Bush snobs who kill kittens. I could say something about straw men and searching for brains, but I'll forage that.
IMHO the biggest straw man in the argument is the Uber-Cons' manufactured perception of Miers which they torch with utter glee.