[borkrules]

Its the complete victory of the politicization of the judiciary that Bork warned us about way back in 1988 or so in his book, The Tempting of America.

Now, even conservatives are playing the game. Basically acknowledging that the Supreme Court can and even should act as some sort of "super legislature" and that the only thing that counts to them is that any nominee is pledged to vote "their way" on the "issues". Any bozo can do that, don't you see?

Thus, they place a premium on stealth and other political considerations to the utter and complete detriment, as we see with Miers, to considerations of merit and scholarship. Political considerations have their place in terms of getting nominees through the Senate, but this is ridiculous.

Conservatives once understood that the courts had to be restored to their proper place in the constitutional order and that once that was accomplished, the policy and political issues would sort themselves out in a way that would please us far more than what we've seen with liberal activist courts. Some among us want to steal intellectual bases and put the cart before the horse. "Just give us the vote on Roe, dammit!" they're screaming. But she'll be there long after that happens.

That is why this demoralizes me. It's the apparent victory of this truly pernicious theory of the role of the Supreme Court. Even on the right.

Ugh.

[bourbon]

You are exactly right. The overarching conservative criticism of the Supreme Court's role in American life in the latter half of the 20th Century is that the court became unmoored from its limited role as envisioned by the Founders and has, in turn, become politicized.

Bush is attempting to make a political appointment to the highest judicial body in the land, and conservatives have every right to second-guess his strategy b/c (1) it is at odds with the proper (and limited) role of the judiciary and (2) it seems to be born of liberal presuppositions about the judiciary (namely, that judging is necessarily political).