Matt Drudge, in his capacity as Assistant Water Carrier for the Bush Administration (Robert Novak, of course, being the Chief Water Carrier), is forwarding a Karl Rove-esque (cross thyself) description of the nomination process that finds a way of shifting the attention back to those testy Democrats, and away from a nominee who unsettles a number of conservatives.
I nearly laughed when I read this:
I'm reprinting it in full, as I'm confident that Drudge will take this down as its transparency becomes evident:
Rove Told Dobson Other Candidates Refused Consideration
Wed Oct 12 2005 00:54:39 ET
Before President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court, his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, called influential Christian leader James Dobson to assure him that Miers was a conservative evangelical Christian, Dobson said in remarks scheduled for broadcast Wednesday on his national radio show.
The LA TIMES reports: In that conversation, which has been the subject of feverish speculation, Rove also told Dobson that one reason the president was passing over better-known conservatives was that many on the White House short list had asked not to be considered, Dobson said, according to an advance transcript of the broadcast provided by his organization, Focus on the Family.
Dobson said that the White House had decided to nominate a woman, which reduced the size of the list, and that several women on it had then bowed out.
``What Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn't want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it,'' Dobson said, according to the transcript.
Developing...
Imagine: Long-serving jurists with developed patterns of Constitutional interpretation — people dedicated the US court system, committed to the conservative cause,
turning down a nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States because they were afraid of the nomination process in a Republican-dominated Senate. Further, this assertion is being made after Democratic Senators sent John Roberts on his way to the Chief Justice slot with no more than a teasing punch in the arm.
When Dauphin President Bush gets away from his minders and nominates a candidate who exposes the deep divisions in modern conservative America, his men scurry, desperate to deflect attention from the real issue and to vilify the sideline-standing Democrats.
This is spin, folks. Revel in it for all its nihilistic, misanthropic beauty.
On the first hour of the first day, he will restore decency and integrity to the Oval Office... They will offer more lectures, and legalisms, and carefully worded denials. We offer another way, a better way, and a stiff dose of truth.
Citizens,
As if to provide evidence that we now live in an alternate dimension that only vaguely resembles a pre-Bush reality, conservatives of all stripes are going after SCOTUS nominee Harriet Miers as if blood were in the water. Their arguments against her candidacy range from entertaining (that she's not prejudicial enough) to the entertainingly legitimate (that in 
