My Tropical Depression

David Frum , the former Bush speechwriter who was the quickest conservative out of the box, isn't letting up on his National Review blog. After talking to conservative lawyers in Washington, he says, "it is hard to convey how unanimously they not only reject, but disdain, the choice of Miers.

"One commented on this news story that Miers' favorite reading was John Grisham novels: 'Look, it's inevitable these senators are going to ask you some obviously stupid questions. You just can't give them obviously stupid answers. How hard is it to say that you are reading Jean Smith's biography of Chief Justice John Marshall?'

"Another told me of a briefing session to prepare Miers to enter into her duties as White House Counsel. A panel of lawyers who had served in past Republican White Houses was gathered together. After a couple of hours of questions and answers, all agreed: 'We're going to need a really strong deputy.'

"It's been reported the reason Miers was named White House Counsel in the first place was that she had proven incompetent as Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. Her boss, Chief of Staff Andy Card, badly wanted to get her out of his office-- but couldn't fire her because she was protected by the president and the first lady. So he promoted her instead. Now we learn that it was Card who was the strongest advocate of moving Miers out of the West Wing altogether and onto the high court-- raising the question of whether the ultimate motivation for this nomination is to open the way to hiring a new Counsel by kicking a failed Counsel upstairs."

The ultimate Peter Principle?

Bill Kristol sees a silver lining for the conservative punditocracy:

"It's been a bad week for the Bush administration-- but, in a way, a not-so-bad week for American conservatism. George W. Bush's nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court was at best an error, at worst a disaster. There is no need now to elaborate on Bush's error. He has put up an unknown and undistinguished figure for an opening that conservatives worked for a generation to see filled with a jurist of high distinction. There is a gaping disproportion between the stakes associated with this vacancy and the stature of the person nominated to fill it.

"But the reaction of conservatives to this deeply disheartening move by a president they otherwise support and admire has been impressive. There has been an extraordinarily energetic and vigorous debate among conservatives as to what stance to take towards the Miers nomination, a debate that does the conservative movement proud. The stern critics of the nomination have, in my admittedly biased judgment, pretty much routed the half-hearted defenders. In the vigor of their arguments, and in their willingness to speak uncomfortable truths, conservatives have shown that they remain a morally serious and intellectually credible force in American politics."

Kristol again calls on Miers to bow out, saying: "Would a withdrawal be an embarrassment to the president? Sure. But the embarrassment would fade. Linda Chavez at the beginning of the first term, and Bernard Kerik at the beginning of the second, withdrew their nominations for cabinet positions and there was no lasting effect."

Andrew Sullivan sees the hearings making or breaking Miers:

"The first is that she'll be revealed in some fashion or other as completely unprepared or unqualified for her proposed job. Specter or Leahy or Biden may get a moment when she is revealed as simply too small for the shoes she is trying to feel. But she's a very smart woman, from all accounts, and she will be trained well. The second and, to my mind, likelier possibility is that she'll come off as Ross Perot in a Talbot's dress. She'll be direct, folksy, and the Senatorial inquisition will rally the public to her side. A little lady from Texas versus hair-transplanted blowhard from Delaware? No contest."

You read it here second.