Two comments from National Review's Corner:

RALLYING THE BASE [Mark R. Levin]
It's time for our liberals friends to worry. If the president picks a solid nominee, the base -- meaning Republican Party loyalists and conservative activists -- will be united, reinvigorated, and ready for battle. At least that's the indication from my radio audience. And frankly, as an aside, there's another event that is uniting them, and that's their growing resentment toward Patrick Fitzgerald. Positive press profiles aside, they increasingly view him as a threat to the presidency, and are not much impressed with all the talk in the media about possible indictments for perjury or false statements over emails or memory lapses....

THE DEMOCRATIC BLUNDER [John J. Miller]
Democrats may crow today about whatever they think they've gained from the Miers pullout--maybe a very short-term sense of triumph, but I'm not sure what else. Do they really hope they're going to see another nominee from this president who is more amenable to their views? Or less able to participate in conservative jurisprudence at the very highest level? Granted, it would have been difficult for them to embrace Miers. But it's conservatives who belong in the winners circle here, not Democrats.

Obviously, that second one is off base -- the Democrats didn't make the Miers withdrawal happen.

But ignore that. Miers was splitting the Republicans just when they needed to pull it together to react to whatever Fitzgerald's about to do. I really thought Bush might dig in his heels and let the hearings take place; it would have been a rough November for Republicans if they were still fighting over Miers just after a Fitzgerald indictment or two. Now I'm afraid they'll rally around whatever Federal Society member Bush nominates, and they might be able to stir up anger in the general public (or at least among the base) in response to Fitzgerald -- whom they'll describe the way we described Ken Starr.

Don't count these SOBs out.

At the very least, though, I hope the Democrats dig in their heels and resist the new nominee, and respond to any criticism of their resistance by saying, "What -- it's OK for Republicans to bork Harriet Miers but it's not OK for us to bork Edith Jones/Priscilla Owen/Michael Luttig/whoever?"