The AP is reporting that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the Supreme Court. It appears that they've taken the Krauthammer route, blaming a separation-of-powers struggle over internal documents. While the Democrats made this an issue during the Roberts confirmation, he had enough of a paper trail of speeches and articles, as well as his time in the White House Counsel's office, that the Solicitor General's papers seemed like piling on. Time will tell if blaming the withdrawal of a poor nominee on a turf struggle is the wisest course of action. Given that another nominee is now due, it shouldn't be much time.
It's hard to escape the idea that this was the right thing to do. While an embarassment to the administration, in all likelihood, Miss Miers's name will simply become the answer to a trivia question, like Kimba Wood or Douglas Ginsburg or Harold Carswell. The political effect on a Presidency of a Supreme Court nomination is usually pretty minor during that Presidency.
The White House involvement is usually limited to the selection, and the nominee stands or falls on his own. In the end, rejecting clearly highly-qualified nominees has tended to hurt the Democrats more than losing them has hurt the Republicans. This is a live, winning issue now.
The President now has a chance to get it right.
