Who Killed Harriet Miers?

According to the National Journal Hotline, the White House wants us to believe Miers died at the hands of executive privilege.

I don't buy it. For one thing, there's no reason to believe that what Miers said and wrote in her capacity as White House counsel surpassed in excellence, competence or conservatism what we say from her publicly. In other words, they weren't protecting executive privilege. They were protecting what was left of her reputation, and Bush's besieged political fortunes, by suggesting that Miers had the right stuff, but it had to remain secret.

Me, I was skeptical even before the recent revelations about her past speeches that she was really as rabidly conservative as Karl Rove wanted (some of) us to believe. Which makes me worry about who Bush will nominate to replace her. That said, if the Democrats can muster the intestinal fortitude for a fight, it might be worth it.

I do, however, in Marc Ambinder's reporting for Hotline, find signs of future trouble for Pres. Bush. Specifically, Ambinder suggests that Miers failed not solely because there was opposition, or solely because of concerns about her credentials, but because even Bush's allies were, at long last, applying fact-based criteria to his claims. I've added emphasis to Ambinder's write-up:

...GOP Senators privately communicated to WH CoS Andy Card that unless they had access to hard evidence that Miers was conversant in constitutional issues, there was no way she would be confirmed. Her performance in private meetings was weak, at best, these senators told Card...

It remains to be seen whether Bush's base -- defined religiously or otherwise -- is willing to return to assessing Bush in a faith-based manner. I find that unlikely, however, since their reliance on fact-based assessment was such a resounding success for them. Maybe we'll all be lucky enough for them to rely on it in more and more matters in the future. In which case, the culprit behind offing Harriet Miers could well strike again.