aamusedinatx | Calls for Meirs to withdraw get louder

Washington -- Calls by conservatives for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers to withdraw her nomination intensified Thursday as White House efforts to reassure critics continued to backfire.

"The calls to withdraw are serious, and they're going to increase," said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, a conservative alliance of groups interested in judicial nominations. "The more that we heard from the nomination's defenders, the more people became convinced that there was no substance in the nomination and that her friends were her worst enemies."

In the less than two weeks since President Bush announced he had chosen his White House counsel and former personal lawyer to fill the pivotal seat of retiring centrist Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, conservative charges of cronyism and questions about Miers' qualifications have escalated daily, threatening the nomination.

Miranda, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., predicted that a critical point will arrive next week when the Senate returns to Washington from a recess.

By then, Republicans "will have gauged the feeling out in their constituencies, and at that point they will be able to determine whether the White House is delusional or not."

I'm trying to decide if this is a good thing...or not.