It's been several days since the President nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court and many Conservatives are still fuming. George Will's op-ed yesterday, while well argued, was a shot across the White House's bow that may have made the situation worse by handing Democrats plenty of non-ideological arguments that they can use during her confirmation hearings.

The emotion being felt on the Right is understandable, but as we move forward I think we need to step back a bit and do some serious reflection over this matter. There are a lot of things about Miers that we do not know, true. But there are many things about this whole process that we also do not know. Ann Coulter echoed the frustration of many pundits on Sean Hannity's show earlier this week when she said that one of the reasons she was so angry at Bush's decision was that "we had the votes" for a more controversial nominee. Really, Ann? Are you 100% sure about that? Weren't you also convinced back in May that we "had the votes" to change the Senate rules on filibusters, to bring Bush's Appellate nominations to the Senate floor? I sure as hell was.

I'll bet the White House was too. But guess what happened? Seven GOP Senators joined with seven Democrats - acting independently of their parties - to throw a wrench into that works. Now you can argue that ultimately the Republicans got the better end of the deal that the "Gang of 14" hammered out. But try explaining that to Miguel Estrada.

Here's my point. Conservatives, I believe, got overconfident in this process. They saw how smoothly the Roberts confirmation went and wanted to up the ante. Have we forgotten how less than confident we were when Roberts' name was first put into nomination? The Democrats completely failed to define Roberts as "extreme". They had nothing to go on. And even then, there ended up being 22 "Nay" votes. That vote should have been along the lines of 96-4 or 92-8 - something similar to the vote count for Ginsburg and Breyer. But we live in a much different political climate than we did back then.

Democrats will go balls to the wall on this next nomination. They don't care if it destroys them, because at this point they have nothing left to lose. Some have raised the question as to whether Bush chose Miers because of his sagging poll numbers. Here's the problem with that argument: Bush doesn't govern by poll numbers - never has. But every single member of the Senate does.

With a nominee who has ruled on, written on and spoken out about a number of issues, it would be much easier to characterize them as "extreme" - and the media would eagerly assist. All it would take is a series of polls that identify 50% or more of the respondents as thinking the nominee was "somewhat extreme" and "very extreme". Believe it or not the term "right-wing extremist" scares the hell out of most Americans a lot more that "left-wing extremist". It shouldn't, but it does nonetheless.

How reliable would the votes of Lincoln Chaffee or Olympia Snowe be then? Or Graham or McCain or Warner or Collins or DeWine? And I haven't even gotten to Specter, who seems "stuck on stupid" over the sacrosanct status of Roe v. Wade. There are others who could also find their fortitude being chipped away as well.

I'm sure the White House has run this scenario through the works: They nominate a Janice Rogers Brown, a Michael Luttig, a Priscilla Owens, an Edith Jones or a Samuel Alito (just put in whatever name is your dream justice). At first things look good, then the Leftist groups begin their hatchet jobs. A quote is found or an opinion is highlighted. The media seizes on it and despite the best efforts of the alternative media and the blogosphere it spirals out of control until the damage becomes irreversible. Now the above mentioned Republicans get all squishy. Encouraged, Democrat Senators unite in opposition. The vote comes and its 48-52 against.

Can you appreciate the impact of that result? Democrats would milk that one for years and it would taint the next nomination. Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic here, but doesn't this kind of scenario sound all too familiar. Conservatives bristle at the White House's plea to "trust us". Why would Conservatives not trust Bush? It takes a much greater leap of faith to confidently say that "we have the votes".

We need to remember that the only Republicans that have ever screwed over the base on judicial nominations are in the Senate, not the White House.

Posted by: Gary at 08:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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