When given a chance to do so, he ducked. He picked a fourth tier nominee. In the meantime he is ticking off people like me with charges of elitism, sexism, cynicism. A signifiant portion of the GOP is disaffected. His lockstep supporters take up the charges and suggest that folks like me have never supported him.
If the President and his lockstep supporters want to, they can ram this nomination through. It will be costly and painful to do so. It will only alienate supporters like me even further.
Is Harriet worth it? Is winning on this one really worth what is happening on FR every day?
Even in the best marriages there can be conflict. One spouse can be right and have ample justification for a choice that the other spouse hates. If the spouse truly loves the spouse that despises his choice, that spouse will listen and probably accomodate their spouse for the good of the marriage.
For the good of the GOP and the conservative movement in the US, W needs to let go on this nominee. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe he feels that he needs to stick to it. I would suggest otherwise. He will, through this, go a long way to mending a widening rift.
And what if she turns out to be to the right of Scalia? She hasn't even been given a chance to speak. The thing I object to is everyone going into emotional hysterics when they know absolutely nothing. How about waiting a week for the hearings to start. You are asking this good man to destroy a person just because you have a "feeling".
I don't disagree with anything you are saying. But why do I keep thinking that much of this has to do with Bush feeling that McLean and company would have undermined any other nominee, and he and the democrats would have put the Bush Administration on hold for the next 8 months, like they did with the Clarence Thomas nomination.