My POV is that the President's job under the circumstances is to get us a better Senate.
My opinion about the best way to do that is to send nominee after excellent nominee to be rejected by these out of touch, far left of the mainstream Senators, and run like hell on it in 2006.
I think the Supreme Court is our best and strongest, not only our most important, issue.
Rejection of Brown, Luttig, McConnell, etc would cost the opposition big time, IMO.
"My POV is that the President's job under the circumstances is to get us a better Senate."
The President has done everything he can to get a better Senate. Look at all the campaign appearances and fund raising events he's done. And look at the Senate gains in 2002 and 2004. But he can't do it single-handedly. Strong Republican candidates have to be willing to run and the conservative grass roots has to be willing to go all out for them. And Republican incumbents need to avoid making stupid and inflammitory statements (Rick Santorum, for example) that give their opponents ammunition.
indeed, the better strategy would have been to nominate a "2nd tier" conservative - Edith Jones, Batchelder - not one of the "controversial" picks like Owens, Luttig, Brown, etc. Let the RINO gang vote one of them down. Use the forum to expose the RINOs, let's see McCain vote an otherwise qualified person down strictly over abortion and then come back in 2008 and tell people he is pro-life.
Bush could then have come back with Miers after the first choice was rejected. at least, had he done this, we could have exposed these people and gotten them on the record.
And I still want to know why, if Specter is supposedly adamant about not voting for someone who will toss Roe - why is he supporting Miers? what does Spector know about Miers on this issue that allows him to vote for her?