Strange But True: Miers Submits Her Revised Questionnaire
When the deadline came and went for Harriet Miers to submit her revised answers to Senators’ questions yesterday, many took it as a reliable sign that her nomination was to be withdrawn. They were right about the outcome, but apparently not about cause and effect — at the very same time that Ms. Miers was asking the President to withdraw her nomination, she was submitting her revised questionnaire to the Judiciary Committee. The cover letters to Senators Specter and Leahy are dated yesterday; and I’m hearing that the answers were delivered to the Judiciary Committee “very late last night.”
A case of completing the historical record? Hedging her bets? Some other explanation? What, if anything, does this portend for her blog?
Wow — that blog (short for “blogosphere“, according to Steven Colbert) is really something. Or rather was something…
I don’t think this confluence indicates Ms. Miers was hedging her bets, any more than her withdrawl was purely of her own will and volition. She was not the one in charge of the lobbying effort and the counting of Senators’ votes, and was surely informed that the cause was lost.
Given that, it seems to me that Bush now looks even weaker, since he made her do the quitting.
Maybe she was asked to meet the committee’s deadline so the President wouldn’t get scooped on his announcement this morning.
Either way, if she didn’t respond then it could be said that she was dodging questions, which could become yet another cloud over her future. After all, when a Senator asks you to “jump” you should always answer, “OK, but it’s gonna be dumb…”
Meanwhile, Senator Trent “T-Lo” Lott offers up a bizarre parting shot, saying that nobody will remember her in a month anyway. Translation: Don’t let the door hit you on your way out, Ms. Meirs.
Comment by Bash — October 27, 2005 @ 3:21 pm
The most reasonable explanation seems to me to be that she really did want to demonstrate that she is qualified and didn’t want it to appear as if her withdrawal had to do with any expectation that she would fail to be seen as so qualified. If it’s about political realities she can’t change, she saves face, so submitting this helps establish that it’s not simply about qualifications.
Comment by Jeremy Pierce — October 29, 2005 @ 10:10 am