The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Card Playing

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White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card is disputing our report from last Monday that he essentially railroaded his pick to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, through the selection process, and shouted down opposition to her from conservatives in staff meetings.

That's fine. Throughout this process our sources, as well as those of RedState, Bench Memos, and others, have proven consistently reliable in providing color and context to the innerworkings of the SCOTUS process. We'll trust our sources over those who are pushing the Miers nomination so hard any day.

In just the past 24 hours, more doubts have been raised about Miers, in part due to interviews Vice President Dick Cheney made on Fox News and Karl Rove made with Hugh Hewitt. Cheney declined to detail his insights into Miers' intellect, which he touted on Rush Limbaugh two weeks ago. Meanwhile Rove's assertion that Miers was deeply involved in the vetting and selection process of federal judges has now been thrown in to doubt by a White House insider -- unnamed -- who tells Ethics and Public Policy Center President Edward Whelan that Miers never sat in on judicial selection committee meetings while the source was present.

Word out of the White House last night and this morning is that communciations strategy is now shifting away from swaying public opinion, to a focus on the Senate. "For the next two weeks it's all about her qualifications, nothing more," says a White House source. "The Senate is where this is going to happen, and that's where the fight is."