From the moment she was nominated, the Bush Adminstration planned the Meirs withdrawl to coincide with the CIA leak indictments.
The President hopes to suck the oxygen out of the air and divert and blunt the MSM drumbeat over the pending CIA indictments and the attempts to tarnish the Bush White House. The new nomination process now takes the lead headline for the next number of news cycles. Bush again is one step ahead of the leftwing gang in DC. Watch him control the news flow with the new nomination process.
Leaf, I don't think so.. I don't have enough tinfoil to make that theory work.