Fred, call your office, your forked tongue is in

Fred Barnes has a piece up at the Weekly Standard commenting on Harriet Miers and her withdrawal of her nomination.

Some snippets:

The withdrawal of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers is the first step on the road to political recovery for President Bush.
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Battling for a highly qualified nominee, this time with conservatives on his side, would hasten the consolidation of his base.
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The president got into trouble with conservatives by not being bold in picking a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Bush wanted a woman and chose one--Miers--whom he figured wouldn't provoke a major confirmation struggle in the Senate. He sought to avoid a fight, an unusual tack for him, by not selecting a certifiable conservative such as Priscilla Owen, who is a U.S. appeals court judge.
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But a bigger problem was the possibility of embarrassment at the hearings for both Miers and Bush, followed by Senate rejection. Even sympathetic senators who met with Miers worried she might not be able to discuss constitutional law and specific cases with confidence and credibility.
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Chances are the successor to O'Conner will now be the real thing, a justice with unequivocally conservative leanings who tilts the ideological balance of the court to the right.

Wise words. Barnes speaks of the need to recognize the importance of a good pick to the conservative base, he speaks of now nominating a "highly qualified nominee", the "real thing".

You'd think Barnes has been a skeptic of the Miers nomination, and that he viewed as legitimate any concerns that Miers nomination was a mistake.

Well, you would be wrong.

As I wrote about here and here, Barnes referred to the skeptics and dissenters this way:

I mean, there are two groups here, the conservative intellectual priesthood, and they've thrown a tantrum...
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And my point was, in the piece I wrote, that [the fighting] never should have started in the first place...
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Instead, many jumped the gun, and I'm glad to hear they're finally quieting down...

Goodness. Am I speaking to the real Fred now? He does have chutzpah writing as the wise political sage, seemingly forgetting he was among those carrying pitchforks and torches ready to drive those Frankenstein's conservatives back into the darkness from whence they came.

Also standing in that agitated mob is the Hedgehog blog who asks this question:

If President Bush nominates someone to the Supreme Court who is exactly what the conservative Miers opponents want (i.e., someone on their approved list), is he unwisely rewarding them for their inappropriate conduct in opposing Miers?

A provocative question, indeed. And just the sort of bitterness that does not make for wise political decisions. If there is any such thought in President Bush's mind not to appoint a clear originalist conservative just to stick it to those in his base who disagreed with the Miers pick, he ought to go for a long walk in the cool fall air till he settles down. I hope folks like Mr. Brown are not advising President Bush to even consider such a thing with this next nomination.

The Radioblogger also has registered some thoughts on the morning's events:

I also hope the right gets over their three week snit and gets real serious, real quick, and helps force a speedy confirmation process.

Well, needless to say, I wouldn't characterize a debate over our most closely held principles a "snit". This argument over the Miers nomination arose precisely because we were real serious.

There is too much at stake to nurse grudges. The Radioblogger also mentions the Democrats are already baying about the next nominee. Why do you think that is so? It's because the Dems know they dodged a bullet in Miers, and now they worry they'll face the kind of nominee they envisioned in their whiskey-ulcer induced nightmares.

The first mistake in picking Miers was in worrying about what the Democrats and the backbone-challenged Republicans would say. They are not our friends. It is not the purpose of nominations like this to make our enemies happy. Let's hope President Bush makes the correct pick here, and we can fight together for it, instead of with each other over it.

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Bogus Gold has a good round-up of reactions. Doug also has some good thoughts here.

Chief at Freedom Dogs says Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!

Watchman's Words is on Sour Grapes Patrol.

Psycmeistr says onward and upward.

linked to Stop the ACLU open trackback post.

Captain Ed does a post-mortem.