Answered Prayers - How Bush lost the Miers fight. By John Dickerson

Answered Prayers - How Bush lost the Miers fight. By John Dickerson

According to administration officials, Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kans., and Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., were adamant that they would need documents—something, anything—to make up for her thin record and middling performance since her nomination. Miers' questionnaire had been paltry. Her visits with senators had not gone well. At his Cabinet meeting Monday, Bush told his staff the documents represented a "red line" that he would not cross, setting the stage for the showdown.

Of course the White House should have known this fight was coming. This president was never going to let anyone peek into his private conversations with Miers. But Bush and his advisers never thought they'd have to. They assumed that Bush's backing Miers' résumé (including her religious credentials) and her gender would allow the president to push her though.
In the end, the documents issue provided the face-saving cover that columnist Charles Krauthammer suggested they would. Each side played to type: Sen. Brownback took to the cameras to lament the impasse over the documents. The White House framed Miers' withdrawal as a principled stand to protect a prerogative of the office. After a long intraparty fight, everyone embraced the illusion as the first act of reconciliation.

This morning, officials described Bush as angry and disappointed. He's had to watch his friend get chewed up by the system and has been given another illustration of his diminished power. He no longer has the political capital of which he has so often boasted.