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Conservatives have never won by compromising principle. Whenever conservatives have consistently articulated their message to the American people, they have prevailed. IF this President has nominated a principled jurist with a clear originalist philosophy, you would have seen an enormous coalescing around the POTUS. We would have had an opportunity to articulate our view of the judiciary. We would have won that debate.

Now, there is little enthusiasm about this nominee. She generates no passion or excitement. The conservative legal movement that has been built up over forty years has been given the shaft and told to shut up and marginalized. The GOP will not be able to rouse its base up in the future with the promise of future picks because they were given the opportunity here and ducked.

Meanwhile, the Administration has punted away the prospect of tax reform, immigration reform, etc. for fear of being rejected by a coterie of RINOS and red-state dems.

As a result of this aversion to conflict on any matter of substance, the libs and the RINOs have learned not to fear us. They know that on most matters we can be rolled, that we will cave and compromise.

What good is a political party if, when it wins elections, fails to fight for the things that it supposedly believes in?

The conservative legal movement that has been built up over forty years has been given the shaft and told to shut up and marginalized.

Lindsey's voice echoing in my mind.

What good is a political party if, when it wins elections, fails to fight for the things that it supposedly believes in?

None.

Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. You always lose when you wave the white flag first. Hell, if I listened to the same voices of moderation on this board now G.W.B. wouldn't have been re-elected President. Now I'm supposed to fall for the line we couldn't get the best qualified known quantity on the Court because of RINO's?

I suppose people have forgotton we have some red state Dems terrified of being daschle'd. Well, not anymore, they aren't sweating this nomination at all. They can vote no and their voters won't hold it against them. I suppose I'm supposed to ignore Chaffee is in danger of losing his seat and desperately reliant on this President to raise money for his election. I'm supposed to forget how Specter covets his Chairmanship and can have it pulled out from under him. Maybe if the administration spent more time strongarming these red state Dems, Specter and Chafee instead of Borwnback, Allen and Coburn there would be no filibuster. Perhaps if they threw their support, or threatened to, behind Lindsey's oppoent in SC making noises of challenging him in the primary Lindsey would fall in line. Ditto DeWine. front a challenger.

The administration has chosen to do the opposite.

IF this President has nominated a principled jurist with a clear originalist philosophy

The president believes he has nominated a principled person who will be a principled jurist. He believes she has a clear originalist philosophy, and will be an excellent supreme court justice in the mold of a Scalia or Thomas.

Now, I suppose if you think he is deliberately lying, then yes he has violated conservative principles. But if he is telling the truth, or at least the truth as he believes it, then this particular fight isn't about principle, it is about trust and faith.

I don't blame people for not having trust and faith. I don't believe that a lack of trust, or a lack of faith, is sufficient reason to call an intelligent, highly successful person an idiot, incompetent, a closet liberal, or a syncophant kiss-up. All of which are adjectives used to describe this nominee.

I happen to believe that a prime conservative principle is to not make baseless personal attacks in order to advance a cause, no matter how just.

I do understand that some believe Bush violated a principle here, and I think that is why the arguments are so heated -- it is not clear that he has violated a principle, you have to assume motives for his act, or assume outcomes not known.

Those who simply believe that only a judge with a long record could be acceptable now have a consistant position. She isn't the first nominee not to meet that qualification, but these people believe that with the stakes so high, we should only appoint people with a judicial paper trail long enough to be certain.

My only argument with them is that appelate court justices still are bound by supreme court precedent (in fact, some of our high-quality candidates have made rulings which we would disagree with precisely because they are following supreme court precedent that we assume they would overturn if promoted).

There is no way to know how they will react when they don't have to abide by precedent. No matter how good their appelate record is, we can't be absolutely sure. We don't see the cards ahead of time.

Miers is certainly much more of a gamble for us than any of our superstar picks. But they aren't sure things.