US: George Bush said one of the reasons he picked Harriet Miers for the US Supreme Court was that he knew her so well. It says a lot about the president's current standing that the endorsement not only failed to save her: it may have helped sink her.
The withdrawal of a nominee before formal confirmation hearings have even begun is embarrassing enough. Dropping her after repeated personal endorsements, in the face of rancorous opposition from the president's own party, is an unprecedented humiliation.
"It's an extraordinarily unusual situation and it speaks to the fact that Bush is now a wounded president," said David O'Brien, a University of Virginia politics professor and author of a book on the supreme court.
The nomination was clearly a strategic error by an increasingly accident-prone White House. Mr Bush's choice of a loyal acolyte and his former personal lawyer with no track record as a judge, reflected an assumption that conservative activists would fall into line behind his leadership.
However, in the absence of clear evidence that Ms Miers had done battle against abortion, or fought on other moral battlefields, the right mutinied. The appearance of cronyism (particularly after the publication of fawning letters to Mr Bush from the nominee) only served to inflame passions. Conservatives sent an unmistakable message that they would no longer be taken for granted.
Faced with multiple scandals tainting senior Republicans, and the serious prospect of indictments against at least one top aide today, the president realised he had to consolidate his base to avoid being reduced to a lame duck three years before he is due to leave office.
The formal letters exchanged yesterday between the president and Ms Miers depicted the Senate's demands for confidential documents from her work as White House counsel as the principal motive for her withdrawal.
However, senators from both parties insisted they had not asked for privileged documents, and the White House attempt to explain the withdrawal in terms of a constitutional clash was widely derided as a face-saving exit strategy.
"It's nonsense. Clearly she turned out to be an embarrassment," said Stephen Hess, a former Republican speechwriter.