Harriet goes down.

Today, Harriet Miers withdrew from consideration for the Supreme Court. Miers, you will recall, was nominated on a Solar Eclipse with the asteroid Harriet (1744) only two degrees from the Solar Eclipse point. She issued her withdrawal with asteroid Harriet at 22.26 Libra - 2 degrees from the Oct. 17 Lunar Eclipse point.

Of course all of this unpleasantness could have been avoided if Sandra Day O'Connor hadn't had a hissy fit about getting passed over for Chief Justice. (Edited to add: Well, perhaps that was a bit mean-spirited. I mean, that was the gossip, but the ostensible reason was to care for her sick husband, so I shouldn't be such a shit about it, I guess.) Interestingly, asteroid Sandra (1760) is currently at 20.52 Virgo, headed for a conjunction with the U.S. Neptune (Sibley chart). Pretty fitting, given her resignation from the court has placed the country on a path to a full scale ideological showdown.

Time for Bush to appoint a no-holds-barred, base-chumming ideologue to try to bolster support before the indictments come down? Yeah, probably. He'll need to act fast: Asteroid Fitzgerald (3665) is currently at 23.07 Libra, opposed asteroid George (3854) at 20.36 Aries - conjunct the U.S. Chiron.