President Bush under attack from his own base. So we can take a break for now.

George Bush said one of the reasons he picked Harriet Miers for the supreme court was that he knew her so well. It says a lot about the president's current standing that the endorsement not only failed to save her: it may have helped sink her.

See? He is so damaged that just being his friend is the kiss of death!

The release of embarrassingly admiring notes Ms Miers had sent Mr Bush in Texas, when he was governor and she ran the state lottery commission, added a note of farce. "You are the best governor ever," she wrote in a typical example. But it also raised constitutional questions over how independent she would be as a supreme court justice.

Didn't Bush learn from Clinton not to give his girlfriend a job? It just goes to show, no matter how much ass you kiss there are some jobs you just can't have.

However, it was outrage among Christian conservatives that did the most damage. Ms Miers was a candidate to fill the seat being vacated by Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate swing vote on the court. The overriding goal of many evangelical Christians is to fill that seat with a committed and influential conservative, who would help forge an anti-abortion majority.

So the real problem with Harriet Miers is that they just were not sure she was wingnutty enough? I hate when the evangelicals say how much they just want to be part of the process when it is crystal clear that they want to control the process. Hypocrites!