If what Robert Novak is reporting today is true, then it really does seem that Bush was trying to make a nomination that would pass through the Senate and to avoid any fight. Novak is reporting that

President Bush had advised senators that his probable choice for the Supreme Court was federal Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan of California. Bush touted Callahan's diversity as a Hispanic woman, but she is liberal enough to be recommended for the high court by Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer.

I wonder if the Gang of 14 had not stopped the nuclear option from being exercised earlier this year, if Bush would have been looking at a very different slate of candidates. Read Mark Levin's comments on what John McCain has wrought. If he was indeed looking at Callahan and she is truly liberal, perhaps Miers is the better choice, assuming that Bush has indeed looked into her soul and found her conservative.

Shrinkwrapped has some other thoughts on the nomination.

There were two important points to take from the Roberts hearings. First was the fact that the opposition would stop at nothing to smear and discredit a conservative nominated to the high court. Second was the fact that despite there being no grounds for opposing Roberts based on anything resembling a trenchant fact, 22 Democrats still refused to vote to confirm him.

This left President Bush in a difficult spot when a second spot opened up upon Rehnquist's death. While it is true that there are many noted conservatives who have written brilliantly and spoken eloquently about the virtues of closer adherence to the text of the Constitution, it is equally true that that very fact rendered them more difficult, perhaps impossible, to confirm.

I find it hard to believe that a conservative judge who is not really on the record on abortion would have been impossible to get through. After all, Roberts got through. It seems that abortion is the real kicker that would set up a Democratic and RINO backlash. That is probably why someone like Edith Jones was out of the running. But there were others out there and I'm not totally convinced that a hypothetical confirmation of those people would have had a result much different from that of John Roberts.