Adding my $.02 to the Miers Withdrawl

Fester is asking the following question:

Given the shit that's, supposedly, about to hit the fan, why would the Bush Administration allow Miers to withdraw now?

He asks it in a more polite way, but you get the drift. 

 

A couple of scenarios off the top of my head:

 

(1) It's a smokescreen.  Obviously she went down, in part, because the Right Wing of the Republican Party was unhappy on some of her seemingly heretical positions on reproduction rights and Church/State relations.  [This was compounded by the fact that no one knew what her positions actually were, but I digress.]  The Right Wing has effectively told Bush to send back a more acceptable (read: explicitly conservative) nominee. 

 

The Democrats, one would hope, would fight tooth and nail to ensure that such a nominee would not pass and the media coverage would be extensive.

 

That is, unless some other, BIGGER story eclipsed it, allowing Bush to effectively sneak in a conservative nominee. 

 

(2) It's now or never.  Right now, polls indicate that people think Bush sucks, but despite the chants of the Democrats ("We Told You So!"), Bush ain't going anywhere until January 2009.  If indictments come down or if they don't, he will still have to nominate someone to the Supreme Court.  Better to bail now when things are bad, then to have a rejection by the Senate when things are worse and dirty laundry is being aired.

 

(3) The whole thing was a sham from the beginning.  Bush knew that he wasn't going to get Miers passed any committee, but, in the off chance that he did, he'd have a strong ally on the bench.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?.  Bush now has an opportunity to mend fences with the Right Wing and reestablish his base by nominating someone more to their liking.  When times are tough, it's good to have a few friends around... and what better way to make a few new friends? 

 

(4) Miers knows something.  Just speculation on my part, but could Miers be privy to some portion of the Fitzgerald investigation that we, as of yet, don't know about?  If that's true, it would be a bad, bad move to send her before a Senate subcommittee where she would be compelled to answer questions on the administrations dealings.  Of course, it might not just be the Fitzgerald investigation, it could be something else that they want to keep secret... although you'd think that they would have thought about this prior to the nomination, right? 

 

That's what I have off the top of my head.  Any other suggestions?