David Frum On Miers

Never mind Pat Buchanan, this is the tretise on the Harriet Miers nomination that says all that needs to be said - repeatedly and at rafter-rattling volume:

Bush defenders...need to consider this: A Miers win would also deal serious blows - to the Republican party, to the conservative movement, and, yes, to the Bush presidency.

Consider these hard political facts:

1) [Hugh] Hewitt foresees all kinds of Republican political opportunities in 2006. He's deluding himself. 2006 will be a high-intensity, high-turnout year for Democrats, as was 2004. The only way Republicans avoid disaster is by doing an even better job with turnout and intensity. And how intense are you feeling right now? The right nomination could have helped save Rick Santorum and Mike DeWine. This nomination could well demoralize the Republican voting base enough - in conjunction with immigration, over-spending, and the mishandling of Katrina, plus continuing trouble in Iraq - to cost at least two Senate seats.

2) The damage dealt to the conservative movement will be huge and lasting. As the conservative movement has grown and matured, it has necessarily compromised some of its early fierceness and idealism. Broad coalitions have to be built, elections have to be won, leaders have to be supported despite their inevitable personal imperfections. Through the Bush years, conservatives have shown tremendous discipline. They have accepted minor disappointments for the sake of higher priorities: the war, the courts. But if they accept this, they will be jettisoning every principle in favor of just this one: the leader is always right. That's not just unconservative. It's un-American.

3) At his press conference Tuesday, the president said he has "plenty" of political capital. He's wrong about that. If political capital means the ability to get your supporters to persuade people to do things they would not otherwise want to do - well then the president has just spent it all. It's too late for him to reach out across the aisle; he must depend on his core political supporters - and the harder he pushes this nomination, the more he will alienate them. His only hope to recoup is to reconnect with conservatives - and abandoning this nomination is essential.

Here is the fundamental reason why this is true:

George Bush has again and again called on conservatives to sacrifice for the success of his presidency. Whether it was McCain-Feingold or racial quotas or immigration or "Islam is peace," conservatives were urged not to let petty personal considerations distract them from the big picture.

But when it was the president's turn to make the biggest domestic-policy decision of his presidency, to fill the swing seat on the US Supreme Court, did he sacrifice? Did he point the general good ahead of his own petty personal considerations? He did not. He abandoned his principles, his party, his loyal followers all to indulge his personal favoritism.

He has done himself terrible damage, and he cannot fix it until and unless he breaks free - or is helped to break free - from this bad decision. [emphases added]

I think this nomination is in trouble, both on its rickety merits and up on the Hill. I'll get to that later today or tomorrow as time permits.