So now Democrats are gleefully praising Harriet Miers. They’re enjoying the spectacle of conservatives attacking Bush etc. This could be the beginning of a very successful strategy on their part. Here’s how it will work: Democrats will welcome Miers with open arms in their preliminary meetings with them. They will be all lovey-dovey, and there will be public talk of how nice and good and kind and decent she is. The liberal interest groups will not go haywire. Then the hearings will begin — and at that time and only at that time, the liberal attack-dogs will pounce. They will throw out Con Law questions of wildly obscure origin. Schumer will ask her this, and Kennedy will ask her that, and if Biden can shut up long enough to actually ask a question, he will ask a third thing.

Now mark this well. Harriet Miers has never been through a confirmation hearing. They are very unpleasant experiences, and these judicial hearings are especially rough. She may get the sense from the pre-hearing chatter that she’s going to have an easy time of it — until a boom is lowered on her head. One false move, one bad answer, one serious slip of the tongue, and then the head-hunting will commence. Shock will be expressed at her incapacity to answer Question A, or her inarticulate handling of Question B.

The media will do the work of the Democrats and raise all sorts of alarm bells. And suddenly the nicey-nicey stuff will turn not nicey-nicey at all. At this point the leftie groups will start to go berserk, and Dem Senators will turn on her.

It’s a scenario, a guess, and chances are it won’t be like this, because scenarios like this usually don’t come to pass. And it especially won’t if Miers is everything Bush says she is. If she is as fantastic as she claims, then she will be easily confirmed. But if she isn’t brilliant during the hearings, she is in for rough sailing and her confirmation will be far, far, far from assured.