AVOIDING AWKWARD FACTS:

Focus for Supreme Court Pick Is Said to Be on Diversity (ELISABETH BUMILLER, 9/22/05, NY Times)

Miguel A. Estrada, a partner at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Washington who has also been mentioned by Republicans as a potential nominee, was said by the strategists not to be interested in the position. Mr. Estrada, an assistant solicitor general in the administration of the first President Bush and the beginning of the Clinton administration, was nominated by the current President Bush to the United States

What a quaint way of describing these events:

Estrada withdrew his name twenty-eight months after being nominated. During the confirmation struggle, Estrada’s wife miscarried; in November, 2004, she died, of an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills. The death was ruled accidental by the medical examiner. Rove said that Mrs. Estrada had been traumatized by the nastiness of the process.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 22, 2005 10:49 AM