This is significant:

"Ed Whelan, a former Scalia law clerk and the head of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argues that Harriet Miers should withdraw. Until now, Ed has been giving the White House "the benefit of the doubt" on this nomination. However, a 1993 speech by Miers, reported on in today's Washington Post, moved Ed into the "withdraw" column.

I'd be happy to see Miers withdraw. However, the speech is 12 years old, and Miers should be given the opportunity, if she wants it, to say whether or to what extent she agrees with the views she expressed in 1993. If her views have changed, she should describe her current position and explain what caused the conversion.

UPDATE: Here is the speech. Whelan's analysis of the speech for NRO is here.

FURTHER UPDATE: I've found the time to read Miers' speech carefully. This is not the speech of a centrist (the worst case plausible scenario, I thought); it's the speech of a liberal. The behavior of liberal Senate Democrats over recent years relieves conservative Republican Senators of any obligation to vote for the confirmation of nominees who take positions like the ones Miers sets forth in this speech (e.g., "abortion clinic protesters have become synonymous with terrorists" or, in the context of the abortion debate, "where science cannot determine the facts and decisions vary based upon religious belief, then government should not act").

Miers should withdraw. If she doesn't then, absent convincing evidence that her positions today are completely different from the liberal ones contained in the 1993 speech, the Senate should not confirm her."

Captain Ed has also moved "off the fence:

"I'm off the fence for good now. I oppose the Miers nomination. I have no objection to allowing Miers her day in front of the Judiciary Committee; if the Bush adminstration wants to subject itself to that kind of political damage, let it. The quality of her prepared speech strongly suggests that the White House will deeply regret that decision, but quite frankly, that will be their problem. The Judiciary Committee should reject her, as should the Senate, once her nomination hits the floor."

Mr. President, how long are you going to let her twist in the wind? How long are you going to continue this charade? Mr. President, have you taken a liking to bleeding your political clout? It would not be unreasonable to assume so. Mr. President, what were you thinking when you nominated her?

Withdraw her, please. If you fail to do so then the Senate should defeat her nomination.

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The Baseball Crank poses 22 questions to Hugh Hewitt and other Miers defenders. (Via Patterico)

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The Investor's Business Daily:

Mum's the word on Harriet Miers among Beltway Republicans who know what's good for them. But privately, they're betting two to one that Miers will bow out to spare herself — and President Bush — further embarrassment.
Those are the odds in at least one betting pool of lawyers, lobbyists, and "Hill rats."

"I expect she's going to be gone next week this time, certainly not later than Friday next week," said a GOP consultant who asked not to be named.

Senate Republicans have dismissed such talk as "absurd." But the signs aren't looking any better for Miers the closer she gets to her Nov. 7 hearings.

Rod Dreher:

"Conservatives, consciously or not, looked the other way for far too long, mostly because we felt it important to back the president in wartime and because nothing was more important to the various tribes of Red State Nation than recapturing the Supreme Court. For the first time in a generation, a conservative Republican president and a Republican majority in the Senate made that dream a real possibility. Whatever else Mr. Bush might fumble, we trusted him to get that right.

Instead, he gave us a crony pick of no extraordinary constitutional expertise or discernible vision, except for love of Our Lord and George W. Bush, and support for racial preferences. This is what we drank the Rovian Kool-Aid for? The Miers selection was no isolated incident, but the tipping point in a series of betrayals."

Withdraw her, Mr. President. Give us a reason to fight with and for you again.