The Political Aftermath

This note was posted on The Corner:

From a blogger at The American Prospect:
Suddenly it occurs to me that the Republican fight against the courts on Terri Schiavo has been, among many other things, a perfect set-up for the Republicans' next major congressional initiative: packing the courts with President Bush's conservative judicial nominees. Just take a look at how George Bush reacted this afternoon, after a federal appeals court refused to re-insert Schiavo's feeding tube:
"I believe that in a case such as this, the legislative branch, the executive branch, ought to err on the side of life, which we have," the president said. "Now we'll watch the courts make their decisions."

Combine that with the fact that Mark Levin's Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is destroying America is right now on the best-seller lists, and you have a recipe for a mobilizing a hurt and highly motivated constituency in defense of the president's coming effort to transform the courts so that they more closely hew to the perspective in the White House and Congress.

The Schiavo case is winding down and the aftermath will not be pretty for anyone. There will be major political fallout as the realization sinks in that the courts just ordered an American citizen starved to death.

This tragedy happens at almost the same moment that battles over judicial nominations are about to hit a high note in the Senate. If Terri does not survive this court fight, there will be immense pressure on the Senate Dems to stop their filibusters and allow President Bush to have his judicial nominees. Although polls seem to suggest that the American people did not like the intervention in this case by the Congress and the President (and I wasn't wild about it either), they will also not like the idea that a judge can ignore Congress and the President and order the deaths of disabled citizens.

There will be a backlash, and it will come against those who did not rise in Terri's defense. The GOP will have a perfect platform on which to run the Senate campaigns in 2006 - elect Republicans and take back control of the judiciary branch. Any, and I repeat any, stalling of nominees by the Dems will be used as a brickbat by the GOP against their party and their Senate candidates, and they will deserve whatever punishment the American people mete out.

We are supposed to be a nation of laws, not a nation of lawyers, and maybe for all the bad things that have occurred in this case, something good for the country will come out of it.