Whose to say what would happen. Bush might have nominated Brown or Owens, the Dems might have stopped the nomination, and they also might have turned an entire generation into Republicans by being so pathetically partisan. If that DID happen, the NEXT nominee breezes in, and the Dems lose whatever political capital they have left for years to come.
Well I agree with you, but let's not run too far down the shoulda woulda coulda path.
Avoiding confrontation on a SC nominee is more important than how many of the following? Never touching the veto pen, allowing government spending to skyrocket, campaign finance reform, Rx, Raich, Kelso, CAFTA, IRAQ, etc etc.
We sit here wondering where Bush has shown any amount of leadership for the general populace, outside of adding as many citizens as possible to the public dole. Now we have to ask ourselves where the one bedrock principle used to bludgeon ALL criticism against Bush on these issues where "compromise" held back all acceptable dissent, where this bludgeon has taken us, now that this bedrock principle has been violated.