Shortly after Harriet Miers’s nomination was withdrawn, somebody (Bea, I think) asked me to dig up the old posts where I had mentioned the various conspiracy theories that were floating around right after Miers was picked. Well, here they are:

I read somewhere this morning (I can’t remember where now) a comment, presumably tongue-in-cheek, suggesting that the Miers nomination is a ruse; Bush nominated Miers knowing she’ll be rejected (or eventually withdrawn after a bitter fight), and figuring he can then nominate a qualified but far-right conservative, because the public won’t have the stomach for a second consecutive Senate bloodbath, and the new nominee’s judicial credentials will look stellar compared to Miers’s.

Far-fetched, and almost certainly false, if for no other reason than that I can’t believe Bush, Mr. Loyalty, would throw a long-time confidant under a bus like that. But who knows? It might work out that way for him accidentally…

…

The Anchoress [writes]:

She may not make it to the Supreme Court. Bush may not even intend for her to get there. She may be, rather than the ‘misdirection’ many expected, an out-and-out decoy, floated to allow both the liberals and the conservatives to blast her out of the water so that Bush can then put up another candidate that both left and right - after having behaved very badly over Miers - will get behind.

I’m still finding that “throw Miers under the bus” theory hard to believe, but who knows? Only time will tell, I suppose.

So, what did time tell us? I still seriously doubt Miers was thrown under a bus. But the “might work out that way for him accidentally” thing is looking pretty good right now. Still, with the Left girding for an all-out war over the new nominee, I’m not sure if things are really that much different than they would have been if Bush had skipped Miers and gone straight to [Sc]Alito in the first place.

Meanwhile, the jury is still out on my conspiracy theory about the “evil-genius Rovian plot to deliberately lose the 2006 elections.” :)