The Senescent Man

Matt Drudge is reporting on an intercepted cell phone conversation between Senator Charles Schumer and an unidentified individual, in which Schumer discusses the upcoming Supreme Court nomination. Drudge quotes Schumer as saying:

It's not about an individual judge… It's about how it affects the overall makeup of the court. We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this. Even William Rehnquist is more moderate than they expected. The only ones that resulted how they predicted were [Antonin] Scalia and [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg. So most of the time they've gotten their picks wrong, and that's what we want to do to them again.

That makes sense, from the Democrats' standpoint. They know that President Bush won't nominate a liberal, so their best hope is that he backs away from nominating a strong, principled conservative, and instead chooses a "moderate," that is to say, someone with no clear-cut judicial philosophy at all, who could end up like a Souter or O'Connor. That's the real purpose of the Democrats' attacks. Drudge continues:

Schumer later went on to mock the “Gang of 14” judicial filibuster deal and said it wasn’t relevant in the Supreme Court debate.

“A Priscilla Owen or Janice Rogers Brown style appointment may not have been extraordinary to the appellate court but may be extraordinary to the Supreme Court.”

I'll say it again: President Bush is a man of principle who understands the stakes involved in this nomination. He has long said that the Justices he admires most are Scalia and Thomas. I don't believe the Democrats can scare him away from nominating a conservative, either a conventional choice like Luttig, McConnell or Roberts, or a wild card like Janice Rogers Brown.

// posted by The Senescent Man @ 7:50 PM