Trying to Find Weakness in Strength

David Broder, reliable lefty that he is, has to really twist and turn the logic in his column today on the nomination of Sam Alito:

Under other circumstances, President Bush's choice of Judge Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court would have been seen as a bold move by a strong president with a clear policy objective. By choosing a man of superior intellectual heft and an indelible record of conservative views on major social issues, Bush would have been challenging his critics on the Democratic side to test their arguments in an arena where everything favored him: a Republican Senate.

But after the fiasco of the Harriet Miers nomination and the other reversals of recent days and weeks, the Alito nomination inevitably looks like a defensive move, a lunge for the lifeboat by an embattled president to secure what is left of his political base. Instead of a consistent and principled approach to major decision making, Bush's efforts look like off-balance grabs for whatever policy rationales he can find. The president's opponents are emboldened by this performance, and his fellow partisans must increasingly wonder if they can afford to march to his command.

In other words, if you nominate the right guy the first time, you're bold and strong, but if you nominate the right guy after a failed nominee, you're weak and inconsistent and your "fellow partisans" shouldn't follow you. What?

Broder is typical of the lefty pundit class which just can't believe that Bush responded to his upset conservative base and nominated a someone his supporters could support, instead of "reaching out" to the left to nominate a mushy moderate. What he looks at as weakness, the conservatives look at as good sense. A wishy-washy moderate nominee would have been doomed from the start and wouldn't have gotten needed support from conservatives. It's okay to have the Dems upset - they're the minority and can't do much more than spit and fume. But if the GOP conservatives are upset, the nomination isn't going through...period.

Broder closes his piece with this silly sentence:

The risks of a Supreme Court showdown fight are at least as great for Bush as for the Democrats.

Frankly, I don't believe there is any risk for the president in this fight. His supporters aren't going to run if the Dems make it difficult, and even if they somehow were able to stop Alito, all it would do is fire up the base like nothing they've ever seen. They won't be able to elect a Dem as dogcatcher in '06 if that happens.

The risks of the Alito nomination are totally and completely on the Dem side. Their opposition to an obviously qualified candidate will serve no purpose other than further charge up their far left supporters, while driving the middle and conservatives away.

UPDATE: Peggy Noonan comments on the Broder piece:

Nothing like the calming tones of The Dean to bring context and a needed sense of perspective to the proceedings. In his comments on Sunday's "Meet the Press" and in his post-Miers Meaning of It All column yesterday, Mr. Broder was like someone who sat down at a table hungry, got served only Democratic talking points, swallowed them whole and quick, and is now burping them out in all directions.

As always, well said.


Samuel Alito; Alito; SCOTUS; Supreme Court