Brendan Miniter: What the Miers fight means for future nominees, and for politics in Washington
[Mr. Miniter is assistant editor of OpinionJournal.com.]
In contrast to John Roberts, who sailed through Senate confirmation, Harriet Miers is taking no shortage of criticism from Republicans, many of whom admit they know little if anything about her.
Sen. Arlen Specter says she needs a "crash course" in constitutional law, while admitting he didn't ask her any constitutional law questions when he met with her "because I don't think she's ready to face it at the moment." "Look," he told a reporter last week, "the lady was White House counsel dealing with totally other subjects until Sunday night when the president offered her the job. And Monday she's sitting with me. I'm not going to ask her questions which she hasn't had a chance to study or reflect on."
That's a bit condescending, even unfair. But the criticism cannot come as a surprise to anyone who has followed judicial politics since Robert Bork went down to defeat in 1987. Republican presidents since then have largely avoided open battles over judicial philosophy and have enjoyed the tacit approval of their party in doing so. The underlying belief has been that political realities require tiptoeing conservatives past a liberal Senate. Even many conservatives accepted for a time that the best they could hope for was a "stealth nominee": one who had an internal conservative compass that wouldn't be spotted by liberal senators.
Those days are now over. The shortcoming of stealth candidates has long been apparent. Anthony Kennedy, whom President Reagan nominated after Judge Bork's defeat, hasn't moved the court to the right. David Souter--the quintessential "stealth candidate"--was put on the court by the first President Bush in 1990 and has become a symbol to the right of why unknown candidates must be resisted....
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In contrast to John Roberts, who sailed through Senate confirmation, Harriet Miers is taking no shortage of criticism from Republicans, many of whom admit they know little if anything about her.
Sen. Arlen Specter says she needs a "crash course" in constitutional law, while admitting he didn't ask her any constitutional law questions when he met with her "because I don't think she's ready to face it at the moment." "Look," he told a reporter last week, "the lady was White House counsel dealing with totally other subjects until Sunday night when the president offered her the job. And Monday she's sitting with me. I'm not going to ask her questions which she hasn't had a chance to study or reflect on."
That's a bit condescending, even unfair. But the criticism cannot come as a surprise to anyone who has followed judicial politics since Robert Bork went down to defeat in 1987. Republican presidents since then have largely avoided open battles over judicial philosophy and have enjoyed the tacit approval of their party in doing so. The underlying belief has been that political realities require tiptoeing conservatives past a liberal Senate. Even many conservatives accepted for a time that the best they could hope for was a "stealth nominee": one who had an internal conservative compass that wouldn't be spotted by liberal senators.
Those days are now over. The shortcoming of stealth candidates has long been apparent. Anthony Kennedy, whom President Reagan nominated after Judge Bork's defeat, hasn't moved the court to the right. David Souter--the quintessential "stealth candidate"--was put on the court by the first President Bush in 1990 and has become a symbol to the right of why unknown candidates must be resisted....