Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court can do far more than replace Sandra Day O’Connor amidst a short-term political battle. Done right, the Democrats’ response can set the political stage for the next three years. For the loyal opposition versus right-wing power, it’s eyeball to eyeball, now or never, showdown time at the OK corral, and every other apt cliché in the book.
This, from the NYT, framed the opening salvo of the needed Armageddon: “Over the weekend, Senator Harry Reid … warned President Bush not to pick Judge Alito, 55…. And on Sunday, he did not rule out the possibility that Democrats would try to block a nominee by a filibuster…. But Senator Lindsey Graham [said] if the Democrats staged a filibuster against Judge Alito … because of [his] conservatism, ‘the filibuster will not stand.’”
Good. Wonderful. Let us pray that Graham – that theatrical, awe-shucks charlatan of the formerly compromising Gang of 14 – means what he says. Senate conservatives have been terribly frustrated since experiencing nuclear interruptus last spring, have been itching for a shot at deploying the option, and it’s time to let them let it rip. The fallout will dust no one but themselves.
Few dispute that presidents have every constitutional right to nominate any candidate of their choice. That’s not the issue, although in the coming weeks we’ll hear that old dog of distraction barking regularly from the right as it unleashes its parliamentary mushroom cloud. And few dispute that presidential nominees are deserving of an up-or-down Senate vote, although it was the right that denied Harriet Miers that opportunity. Even fewer dispute that it’s rather nice to have a qualified job applicant, such as Alito, nominated to the highest court, although, once again, it was the right that initially defended as qualified the utterly unqualified Miers.
Conservatives will further protest that partisan politics shouldn’t drive the Alito-confirmation process. That also will be typically disingenuous – though it backfired, White House politics played a huge, if not singular, role in the Miers nomination – but let conservatives sing their familiar song. We’re all used to hearing it.
Nevertheless on this occasion it should come down to politics for Senate Democrats. George W. Bush has spent his entire presidency transmogrifying principled governance into sordid partisanship. Now Bush is playing the hardest of hardball by nominating not a mainstream conservative in ideological tune with the nation’s middle, but a hardcore conservative, simply to recapture a disaffected base. Since Alito’s nomination was based solely on narrow politics, the opposition is justified in responding in kind.
The core object of reciprocal game playing, however, should have less to do with Alito’s ultraconservatism (prominently displayed in his somewhat odd interpretation of the commerce clause – machine guns are your friend – and dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey) than with finishing off what’s left of Bush’s extremist agenda. That is to say, in response to Republicans launching the nuclear option to overcome a filibuster and confirm Alito, Democrats can entangle the Senate’s business in Byzantine procedural complications for the next three years – such as yesterday’s enormously satisfying, closed-session maneuver. They can bring legislative business to a crawl and gridlock what remains of the right’s schemes. What’s more, Democrats will have perfect cover: If Republicans had only held to revered Senate tradition….
Alito will be confirmed, no matter what. Any voice of Democratic reason will be rolled by the right in the process. Since reason is out, Democrats might as well force the nuclear option and thereby get something major in return – a politically justified logjam.
It’s a pity that high-minded debate grounded in constitutional philosophy can’t be atop everyone’s priorities when it comes to a Supreme Court nomination. Frankly, I feel a bit sleazy opining that Alito’s nomination should be knifed – though the victim will surely survive – purely on political grounds. But since Bush has thoroughly politicized governance, has repeatedly disregarded his pledge to work both sides of the partisan aisle and, above all, has taken this nation on an unadvertised radical ride, the nomination process has become an unavoidable battleground of raw politics. In brief, Bush and his congressional allies asked for it. So stick it to ‘em.
