Am I the only one who thinks of Peppermint Patty's Marcie whenever I see Harriet Miers talking about George Bush? There's something about how she always refers to him as "sir," with such butch devotion, that reminds me of Marcie.

So I see Harriet withdrew her name from consideration for Supreme Court nominee. Interesting development. Will this taint Bush, make him stronger, or have no general impact? Time will tell.

Things do get interesting now though. Who comes next-- the wacko crazy extreme right wing creationist, as sop to the Religious Right? And if so, does that make Miers a bait and switch kind of thing? My guess-- because it would be good strategy-- is that the next pick is decidedly un-vanilla; somoeone who draws a whole lot of the media glare. Maybe Gonzolez. Maybe some social miscreant I've never heard of. But someone spicy. Someone who can take up, say, 25 minutes of a one-hour news program each evening.


The Democrats are trying to walk a very fine line, the goal clearly being to blame Bush for picking an unqualified candidate, AND SIMULTANEOUSLY to blame the Republicans for making that candidate withdraw. I think they're going to have to pick one or the other. The positioning is exemplified by Ted Kennedy, who says, "The nominee deserved better." As in, deserved not to have been nominated?

APW ANALYSIS: THE BOTTOM LINE. In the wake of Katrina, the country is turnung away from the Republicans. And the party is responding so badly you'd think they were-- well, Democrats. See, maybe 30% of the population always votes Republican; another 30% always votes Democrat. That leaves a middle 40% who determine elections. All along, the general impression this middle 40% had of the administration was, "Well, they seem to know what they're doing." And in American politics, that goes an awful long way.

Then comes Katrina, and tens of millions of people are doing a double take at the TV. "What the f--?" Even Anderson Freaking Cooper is incredulous! And if it turns out that the administration doesn't, in fact, really know what they are doing, suddenly everything else starts to matter a whole lot more.

WHich makes the Miers withdrawal another ill-timed example of the White House very publicly not to seeming to know what they're doing. And the common thread of cronyism (Miers, Brown) that links this bungled nomnation with FEMA and Katrina makes it worse.

For 5 years Bush has walked the razor's edge between cocky and clueless. He almost had us fooled.

Now the Democrats are keeping very mum. Because once they open their mouths, it will become obvious that they don't know what they're doing either, and everything will go back to the way it was. If only they could keep Kennedy and Feinstien off CNN.

Labels: The politics