Unforced error or homerun?

White House Counsel Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court last week is fraught with questions. But the most important question is: Why?\nConservatives have waited a generation for this moment, when a Republican president and Senate could cooperate to replace a moderate justice with a true conservative. And when the iron is hot, rather than appointing a well-accomplished GOP stalwart and running roughshod over the Democratic minority, filibusters be damned, it looks like George W. Bush has blinked.\nDemocrats are scratching their heads, while conservatives such as George Will, Ann Coulter, Bill Kristol and Rush Limbaugh are livid, feeling betrayed by the lackluster nomination. Bush must have realized people would react this way and decided it was worth it. So the question is: Why?\nHere are some possibilities.\n1. Loyalty. Maybe Bush thinks he owes this seat to Miers for all she's done for him through the years, and it's just good karma to repay kindness for kindness. Cynics call this cronyism, but whatever it is, there's ample precedent for it, e.g. Justices William Douglas and Abe Fortas.\n2. Religion. Bush and Miers are self-described "born-again Christians." (Full disclosure: so am I.) Perhaps Bush believes he owes the Almighty a favor and Miers will be mindful to seek divine guidance in her opinions.\n3. Stealth. Miers has never sat on a court and most of the work she's done for her clients -- including Bush and the White House -- will fall under attorney-client privilege, to say nothing of the executive privilege Bush guards so zealously. Miers could be so conservative she makes Antonin Scalia look like Susan Sarandon, and we'd never know until it was too late.\n4. Decoy. Getting Miers on the Court might not be Bush's real goal. Perhaps he's counting on Miers being torpedoed so he can take his case to the American people, Reagan-style, in a primetime pout: "This obstructionist Congress crucified a woman of impeccable credentials and decent values. Shame on the senators. The Senate should confirm my new nominee immediately."\nThis seems too risky. With midterm elections a year away and Bush's fellow Republicans raising the biggest anti-Miers ruckus so far, his charges of obstructionism could hurt the party.\n5.) Lame duck. With Iraq and Louisiana in shambles, Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff under indictment, Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby under investigation, Bush's poll numbers are in the toilet. Maybe he's considered what it'd take to get another Scalia confirmed and has decided he's not equal to the task. But I doubt it: If there's one fight in his second term worth having, one that could seal his legacy as a competent conservative president, this court seat is that fight.\nMy money's on No. 3. This is Bush's last shot at glory, and he's not about to screw it up.\nI remember another embattled leader who, despite great ridicule, sent a dark horse to do a giant's job. I'll bet Miers is more akin to David than David Souter. Unless the Senate learns whose Goliath Miers has been sent to slay, it must not confirm her.