[Mb-civic] President Pushover - David S. Broder - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

President Pushover

By David S. Broder
Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Page A21

Under other circumstances, President Bush's choice of Judge Samuel Alito 
for the Supreme Court would have been seen as a bold move by a strong 
president with a clear policy objective. By choosing a man of superior 
intellectual heft and an indelible record of conservative views on major 
social issues, Bush would have been challenging his critics on the 
Democratic side to test their arguments in an arena where everything 
favored him: a Republican Senate.

But after the fiasco of the Harriet Miers nomination and the other 
reversals of recent days and weeks, the Alito nomination inevitably 
looks like a defensive move, a lunge for the lifeboat by an embattled 
president to secure what is left of his political base. Instead of a 
consistent and principled approach to major decision making, Bush's 
efforts look like off-balance grabs for whatever policy rationales he 
can find. The president's opponents are emboldened by this performance, 
and his fellow partisans must increasingly wonder if they can afford to 
march to his command.

None of this is to suggest that Judge Alito will be -- or should be -- 
blocked from elevation to the seat of Sandra Day O'Connor. His record 
entitles him to the serious consideration and questioning he will 
undoubtedly receive from the Judiciary Committee. But after Bush 
acquiesced in the conservative movement's uproar denying Miers her 
chance for an up-or-down Senate vote, or even a hearing in that 
committee, there is no plausible way the White House can insist that 
every major judicial nominee deserves such a vote.

That was the rationale behind the threatened "nuclear option" in the 
Senate, the mid-session rule change that would have banned judicial 
filibusters. If the mass of Democrats and a few Republicans who may be 
dismayed by Alito's stands on abortion and other issues can muster the 
41 votes needed to sustain a filibuster under current rules, they now 
have precedent for using their power.

The conservative screamers who shot down Miers can argue that they were 
fighting only for a "qualified" nominee, though it is plain that many of 
them wanted more -- a guarantee that Miers would do their bidding and 
overrule Roe v. Wade . But whatever the rationale, the fact is that they 
short-circuited the confirmation process by raising hell with Bush. 
Certainly there can be no greater sin in a sizable bloc of sitting 
senators using long-standing Senate rules to stymie a nomination than a 
cabal of outsiders -- a lynching squad of right-wing journalists, 
self-sanctified religious and moral organizations, and other frustrated 
power-brokers -- rolling over the president they all ostensibly support.

But the message that has been sent is that this president is 
surprisingly easy to roll. He came out of his election victory 
proclaiming that Social Security reform was his No. 1 priority. For six 
months he stumped the country trying to sell his ideas -- and failed. In 
retrospect, even Republicans said he misjudged the temper of the public 
by emphasizing privatization over solvency as the chief goal. He tried 
to isolate senior citizens from the battle, only to see them in the 
front lines. And he managed to unite the Democrats in opposition -- 
something their own leaders rarely can manage.

Next came Hurricane Katrina, which showed the whole country a case study 
in mismanagement by a White House supposedly under Harvard Business 
School-level discipline. Bush's first decision post-Katrina was to 
suspend the law guaranteeing prevailing wages for reconstruction work. 
But that decision too was quickly reversed, in the face of pressure from 
Democrats, moderate Republicans and even the supposedly enfeebled labor 
movement.

And then came the Miers fiasco, with the dagger held by the president's 
staunchest allies. It made a shambles of any consistent claim that Bush 
employs serious principles in picking judges. A system that veers from 
an accomplished and studiously nonideological John Roberts to a 
marginally credentialed and often confused-sounding Harriet Miers to an 
intellectual and experienced Samuel Alito with pronounced ideological 
views is no system at all.

Politically, the president probably had no choice but to reach back for 
his conservative base in making the Alito nomination. At his current 
levels of support, he has no place else to go. But the latest Washington 
Post-ABC News poll contains a clear warning. Self-described 
conservatives made up only 31 percent of the electorate. Moderates 
numbered 44 percent. And the moderates were nearly exact opposites of 
the conservatives in their views toward Bush, disapproving of his job 
performance by a 38 to 61 percent margin, while conservatives approved 
61 to 39.

The risks of a Supreme Court showdown fight are at least as great for 
Bush as for the Democrats.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101256.html
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