President Bush announced the withdrawl of Harriet Miers as his nominee for associate justice of the Supreme Court this morning:

Today, I have reluctantly accepted Harriet Miers’ decision to withdraw her nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States.

I nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court because of her extraordinary legal experience, her character, and her conservative judicial philosophy. Throughout her career, she has gained the respect and admiration of her fellow attorneys. She has earned a reputation for fairness and total integrity. She has been a leader and a pioneer in the American legal profession. She has worked in important positions in state and local government and in the bar. And for the last five years, she has served with distinction and honor in critical positions in the Executive Branch.

I understand and share her concern, however, about the current state of the Supreme Court confirmation process. It is clear that Senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House disclosures that would undermine a President’s ability to receive candid counsel. Harriet Miers’ decision demonstrates her deep respect for this essential aspect of the Constitutional separation of powers and confirms my deep respect and admiration for her.

Excuse me, Mr. Bush, but it wasn’t because they wanted internal documents you wouldn’t give them… it was because she had no qualifications except that she had a major crush on you! While we might not have known all of John Roberts’s political and constitutional views, he is a respected, qualified lawyer. Harriet Miers was your Texs crony. She wasn’t going to get confirmed (in my opinion).

Looking at the story from another angle, the AP is reporting that Bush withdrew the Miers nomination due to political pressure from the convervative right.

Under withering attack from conservatives, President Bush abandoned his push to put loyalist Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court and promised a quick replacement Thursday. Democrats accused him of bowing to the “radical right wing of the Republican Party.”

The White House said Miers had withdrawn because of senators’ demands to see internal docuents related to her role as counsel to the president. But politics played a larger role: Bush’s conservative backers had doubts about her ideological purity, and Democrats had little incentive to help the nominee or the embattled GOP presimdent.

I’m sure that pressure from the right had a major impact, but it’s my opinion that Miers probably did have a major role in removing herself from the nomination. It got to be tough to see that basically no one on either side of the aisle thinks you’re fit for a position to which you’ve been nominated. And the fact that Bush “reluctently” withdrew the nomination makes sense. He knows her political views exactly and realizes that she would probably just make judicial decisions based on her beliefs and not any sort of constitutional philosophy. Unfortunately, that’s not how the Court is supposed to work and I think a lot of people (excluding the conservative right) have recognized that.

Update: ABC News has the letter that Miers sent to President Bush, withdrawing as a nominee