A Bid for Confirmation, Rather Than Convictions
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 4, 2005; Page A11
If President Bush's goal is to shift the Supreme Court in a more conservative direction, his nomination of White House counsel Harriet Miers yesterday signaled a desire to do so as quietly as possible. The nomination appeared designed primarily to avoid a major fight in the Senate and, said skeptics on the left and right, was made out of a position of political weakness, not strength.
Bush's decision confounded both right and left, as perhaps the president's advisers had hoped. In nominating someone who caused dismay among conservative activists but who provoked little strong opposition among Democrats -- and words of praise from Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) -- the White House may have calculated that Bush can more easily afford some early heat from the right than a titanic struggle with Democrats that could tie up the Senate and leave him in an even weaker position three months from now.
"In some ways, it's the highest form of political camouflage," said Ross K. Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University. "It seems to maximize the likelihood of confirmation and minimize the likelihood of a colossal ideological struggle that results in a filibuster. He seems to have a practical objective of getting the nominee confirmed."
Bush campaigned for reelection by telling conservatives he wanted to reshape the federal judiciary, but in selecting a successor to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the pivotal swing vote on many of the most important decisions by the court in recent years, he has in essence asked his conservative base to trust him -- rather than select any of a string of possible nominees with extensive judicial experience and clear ideological leanings....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/03/AR2005100301467.html
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