Two Excellent Suggestions

Nobody likes to admit when they're wrong. Still less do we want to make such an admission in a maximally public setting where the whole world is watching. But this, too, is a part of the character of leadership, and something that I want to still believe George W. Bush has within him.

Harriet Miers is his friend. They've known each other for over a decade. He thinks the world of her. Well, I feel the same way about my wife, but if I were president I wouldn't put her on the Supreme Court even if she was a "trailblazing" lawyer, nor would I urge same if I was in a position to lobby for it.

As I clarified a few days ago, I hold no personal animus against Harriet Miers. I'm sure she's everything that the President says she is - except that none of it qualifies her to sit on the SCOTUS.

But there is an available compromise, if Dubya can bring himself to accept it:

The best way to do the modified Quayle comes from Mickey Kaus: "How about appointing Miers to a federal appeals court? She's qualified. Bush could say that while he knows Miers he understands others' doubts - and he knows she will prove over a couple of years what a first-rate judge she is. Then he hopes to be able to promote her. Semi-humilating, but less humiliating than the alternatives. And not a bad job to get. . . . Miers could puncture the tension with one smiling crack about being sent to the minors. The collective sigh of national relief would drown out the rest of her comments." That's thinking.

If Ms. Miers did what Mr. Quayle didn't do [turn down a job for which she isn't yet ready] - heck, she could wind up on the Supreme Court.

I'd have no objection to that. Bush would still get to elevate his friend to a federal judgeship, Miers would get the chance to establish a track record corroborating the President's claims, the rift between the White House and the GOP base could begin to close and heal, and - if GDub is the big man we've always thought he was, or at least big enough to avoid descending into pettiness and spite - he "would get to announce a better nominee (one of the outstanding jurists thoughtful conservatives have long touted: Edith Jones, Edith Clement, Janice Rogers Brown....), and much of the conservative establishment would feel constrained to go along."

And that leads to the second excellent suggestion, which, because the White House has foolishly excluded four-fifths of its potential candidates by buying into the fiction that Justice O'Connor's has to be a "woman seat," will never happen (age would probably also be a delimiting factor), but would be the quickest and surest way to regain Bush the slavish, worshipful devotion of the conservative movement - renominate Robert Bork:

[B]y far the best reason to renominate Judge Bork is also beautiful in its simplicity: He is probably the only candidate who cannot, for lack of a better term, be “borked.” For those of you who don’t watch VH-1’s I Love The Eighties, to be “borked” means “to get on Ted Kennedy’s bad side when he’s really hung over.” Because, as the evidence will show, the Senate’s 1987 rejection of Robert Bork was the result of an unprecedented media smear campaign based almost entirely on sheer fabrications....

As a practical matter, Bork’s failed 1987 confirmation attempt would serve to immunize him from the bulk of the scurrilous accusations that would undoubtedly be dredged up again. Like many a candidate before him Bork could brush aside some of the more specious allegations with a simple, “I’ve already responded to that charge; next question.” And to help him with the more persistent charges Bork would find himself with an ally which didn’t exist in 1987: the New Media. Pajama-clad bloggers would make short work of the more preposterous charges, e.g., that Bork wanted to bring back segregated lunch counters. Before long the really egregious whoppers about his judicial philosophy or record wouldn’t be worth the forged memos they were printed on. In 1987 the Washington Post printed four negative articles about Bork for every positive one — which was relatively restrained compared to the six
negative pieces on Bork that network TV ran for every positive one. The bad-to-good ratio of Bork pieces run by CBS News during that era, meanwhile, was more like eight to one — and this when CBS News was still considered a legitimate news organization. Imagine how much those good-to-bad ratios would be altered today now that the Internet, talk radio and FOX News are in the picture.

More to the point: As so many others have already observed, let’s name someone to the Supreme Court whose nomination is guaranteed to trigger a national conversation on the proper role of the judiciary — it can only help the conservative cause. Let’s demand that Judge Bork be allowed to take his case against judicial activism directly to the American people....With the right kind of exposure this is exactly the sort of donnybrook that could bring the Sean Penns, the Michael Moores, and the other MoveOn.Org types out of the woodwork — that is, at least we hope it would. Let’s see if that crowd is as effective against Judge Bork as they were against President Bush in the last election. In one bewildering coup de grace knew it we’d have an awesome new justice on the Supreme Court and President Bush’s approval numbers would start to creep up again. Short of having Karl Rove capture Osama bin Laden after saving Nick and Jessica’s marriage, I think putting Judge Bork on the Supreme Court is the president’s best image-rebuilding option at this point.

Now, as you all know, I am (or try to be) a realist. Much as I would love to see Mr. Rice's scenario actually happen, I know it's a pipedream - so much so that you could almost wonder if the author isn't a staff writer for a late, late night talk show.

But hey, I'm more than willing to settle - for Edith Jones, Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown.

Heck, send Michael Luttig to the Hill in drag if necessary.

Just spare us any more helpings of mystery meat.