Rupert Cornwell: Bush has dug himself into a hole, and he just can't leave that shovel alone

His Supreme Court nomination has alienated the right, just as he needs some friends

Until this month she was toiling in near-obscurity as the President's White House counsel. But then Mr Bush named her to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the high court. In a country where Supreme Court nominations command the column inches devoted in England to the search for manager of the national football team, the decision was a sensation that stunned everyone - above all the conservatives who have been this President's closest allies.

Now Ms Miers is doubtless a fine and competent woman, but Republican true believers were clamouring for more. They yearned for a heavyweight who would move the nine-member high court firmly to the right, not a centrist like O'Connor, but someone who would vote to roll back such abominations as abortion and gay rights, and to curb the power of central government. And what have they got? The short answer is, nobody knows - and conservatives are in uproar.

This Bush, we were told, was the first president with an MBA, and his White House would hum with the efficiency of Jack Welch's General Electric. Did you hate that ditherer Bill Clinton, for whom every question had three sides? Well, the Bush promoters assured, you'll love straight-shooting George W. And so it used to be. You might not have liked the decisions - invade Iraq, pull out of Kyoto and so on - but boy, they got made.

Well, they still are being made. But now it feels as if the early Clinton era has returned, when hardly a day went by without a "White House in Disarray" headline on the front of The Washington Post. The magic Bush touch of the first term has gone. Instead there is only trouble: Iraq, Katrina, and assorted scandals, including the indictment of his top enforcer on Capitol Hill, and the possible indictment of his most influential White House aide. And now Harriet.

What is going on? Mr Bush has been hauled over the coals for cronyism, embodied by the hapless Michael Brown ("Brownie" to the President) at the helm of the Fema disaster agency when Katrina struck. But when a long-anticipated vacancy on the court opens up, he names not the fire-breathing conservative he promised, but a loyal retainer from his Texas days, with no track record as a jurist.

And that is only the start of it. This Bush has advertised his opposition to quotas and affirmative action - yet he seeks to fill the O'Connor slot with another woman. A White House Counsel with similarly scant credentials whose name was Harry Miers wouldn't have been considered.

When you're in a hole, stop digging, is the first rule of politics. But last week the President wielded the shovel again, saying that his nominee's born-again Christian faith was an important factor in his choice - as if that was a proper criterion. Mr Bush's political instincts have abandoned him.

Some argue that master strategist Karl Rove has been distracted by possible indictment over the leaking of a CIA agent's name, and took his eye off the Supreme Court ball. A fully functioning Rove, it is said, would have nipped the nomination in the bud - just as, had he not been on holiday, he would have told his boss to scrap his junkets in California when Katrina struck, and get to Louisiana right away. More likely, however, Mr Bush has met the fate of every politician, sooner or later. His luck has run out.

But do not expect the Miers nomination to be withdrawn. That would be the public admission of a mistake, something to which this President is congenitally averse. Nor, given his intense loyalty to those loyal to him, is it likely that he will he lean on her to withdraw. Almost certainly, we're headed for a confirmation battle that could get very nasty indeed.

Back in 1991, being black did not spare Clarence Thomas from peculiarly sordid Supreme Court hearings, featuring allegations of sexual harrassment - prompting the future Justice to describe proceedings on the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee as the "high tech lynching of an uppity black man." Who knows, a comparable ordeal may await Harriet Miers. None the less, my guess is that she'll be confirmed. Republicans now run Capitol Hill, and for all their misgivings they will surely stop short of humiliating Bush. But it will be a Pyrrhic victory at best. In the case of Justice Miers, Bush may one day find himself echoing Eisenhower's words - in private, at least.

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