The Miers fiasco explained

From the Washington Post via MSNBC:
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By nearly all accounts, the 24 days of the Miers nomination was hobbled by a succession of miscalculations. President Bush bypassed his own selection process to pick Miers, his onetime personal lawyer and White House counsel since February. His aides ignored warnings by some of the administration's closest conservative allies that she would prove difficult to confirm, and took for granted that its base would ultimately stick with the president.

And in perhaps the biggest misjudgment, Bush assumed that Miers would somehow shine in a Washington klieg light she had never before faced.

It did not take a call from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to convince the White House that Miers's nomination was in trouble. By the time Miers withdrew her name from consideration yesterday morning, her own colleagues had all but despaired of rescuing her nomination. With top Bush aides facing possible indictment as early as today, the White House concluded that it was time to move on and brace for the more threatening crisis.

"This thing never got off the launching pad very well," said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because public airing of self-criticism is not encouraged in the White House.

"What we ran up against may be a different bar and maybe discomfort with the unfamiliar," another official said. "Did we learn anything? I don't know."
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