Power of the Punditocracy

In recent days, Frum helped found a group called Americans for Better Justice, along with such columnists as Mona Charen and Linda Chavez, an unsuccessful Bush nominee for labor secretary. The group raised $300,000 and began airing anti-Miers commercials.

"I don't think that's what journalists ought to do, even if they're in opinion journalism," said Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard. He was one of the most prominent conservatives writing that his ideological allies should hold their fire until the Senate confirmation hearings.

"I thought the conservatives who came out so harshly against Miers were off base, but they had some effect in keeping Republican senators from immediately jumping behind Miers," Barnes said.

At first, some White House supporters dismissed the early conservative critics as Ivy League elitists ganging up on a non-judge who attended Southern Methodist University. But the groundswell on the right spread: A skeptical Rush Limbaugh interview with Dick Cheney. A National Review editorial saying the "prudent course" would be for Miers to withdraw. A Wall Street Journal editorial calling Bush's move "a political blunder of the first order." A George Will column in The Post saying the Miers nomination "discredits, and even degrades, all who toil at justifying it."

As newspapers began digging out past speeches and writings by Miers on such subjects as affirmative action and abortion, right-leaning pundits grew even more alarmed that she was insufficiently conservative. National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg said he wound up channeling the views of lawyers and former Reagan and Bush administration officials who could not speak out because of "career considerations."

"We were all hearing from people in the know that this woman simply wasn't up to snuff," said Goldberg, who initially took a wait-and-see stance and then opposed Miers as her past writings surfaced. "We were putting forth an argument that wasn't just punditry. We were reflecting deep discontent within the conservative movement. We played a part in changing the climate simply because of the megaphone we have."

Now the dissenters are eager to move on from what they see as a family feud, saying they hope Bush will nominate someone the right can enthusiastically embrace. The message of the day: no gloating.

"I feel bad for Harriet Miers, who'd been put in the position of being set up for an unhappy end," Frum said.

"I know people see it as a meltdown," Krauthammer said. "I think it's a sign of maturity of a movement that can have a furious fight over principle."

No one, of course, had any warning. At 8:15 yesterday morning, Kristol was on the New York set of "Fox & Friends," flatly predicting -- with more confidence than he actually felt -- that Miers would bow to the pressure and withdraw. He walked one block to his hotel and was having a cup of coffee when his cell phone rang. "It was Fox, telling me to come back on the air," he said.

The morning papers are portraying Bush as in deep, deep trouble.

Todd Purdum in the New York Times : "The biggest question for Mr. Bush now is what he can make of the 39 months remaining in his presidency. For this horrible week has been months - even years - in the making. The 2,000th American fatality in Iraq was just the latest daunting milestone in a war that will soon be three years old. The C.I.A. leak investigation that threatens to indict a top White House aide or two on Friday grew out of the fierce debates over the flawed intelligence that led to that war.