[Supreme Court]

Miers Withdrawal: Reading the Tea Leaves

Let us recap: a GOP president nominates a GOP nominee to the Supreme Court who is ... opposed by the GOP. Delightfully fascinating stuff. Listening to the cast of characters discuss the withdrawal on the radio this morning, I started to see clear motivations and strategies emerge from the thicket of spin and misdirection.

What it means for Bush
Weirdly enough, there is good and bad here for the President. The downside is that Bush has lost all his political capital, and we now see the predictable swing of power from the executive branch to the legislative as congressmen jockey for position in front of the next two elections. But that was already a downside. Had the Miers fiasco continued, it would only have damaged Bush more and further riven his disintigrating support. The good news is that he can now come back with a nominee that will take the attention off himself. Whether he goes for an idealogue or a Roberts type, he sets himself up as the winner of this battle with at least one constituency. With Miers he was losing with everyone.

Denouement as setup
This morning, the Republicans were busy describing this as a healing moment and a triumph of sensibility. They are trying to position themselves to a) push Bush toward a wingnut like Priscilla Owens, and b) describe this as a triumph of reasonableness and a blow against judicial activism. Still, despite the pleasant talk of reuniting the party, they can't help but acknowledge what a catastrophe Miers was, and how this edition of the GOP is anything but coordinated and in agreement.

The Democrats, meanwhile, were obviously prepared for this. Every one, to a person, was on message (I'll use Harry Reid's sound bite): "The radical right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination." That's the storyline and that's what they're planning to hammer every day until Bush makes a new nomination. The motivation is obvious: to try to make it politically untenable for Bush to nominate a radical.

Call it advantage Dems. No Republican senator had come out against Miers, and the activist base led the charge against her. So Dems can very plausibly argue that Bush was hijacked by the radical fringe. That GOP senators couldn't come out against the nomination and had to let the base kill it is revealing, however, and should be worrying for Dems in the event that Bush nominates a radical. The power in the party is in the unelected base, and Dems probably won't be able to count on the spines of moderates in a battle against a radical.

Truth and Spin
Dems and Dem activists were wise to keep their powder dry. Although Miers would have been a disastrous choice, Dems had no real way to oppose her early on. Bush out-clevered himself by selecting a candidate with no record, so Dems could point to that and take a wait-and-see. The truth is that they would have hated to have to vote on her. When they say now, in rueful, wistful tones, that she might have been a decent choice if only they had gotten to hear her in the confirmation hearings, they're actually just trying to gather public support in the lead-up to Bush's new nominee. (Though I'm sure they are rueful about not being able to grill Miers mercilessly in the hearings.)

The Republicans had to play the qualifications card. No way they could tell the truth, which was that Miers didn't pass initial ideological purity tests, and skittish Republicans weren't going to risk the slot on a woman with no record. I listened as conservatives tried to maneuver themselves into victim status--Sam Brownback whined that it should be all right for a self-professed conservative to be voted on, because after all, didn't that radical leftist Ruth Bader Ginsberg sail right through? (Psst, Sam, GOP presidents have placed 7 of 9 justices, including Scalia and Thomas.) Of course, Ginsberg was selected by Orrin Hatch and isn't particularly liberal, but hey...

What's Next
So the next phase will be defined by a race to reasonableness, with both parties calling the other radical and in the service of activist bases, all the while presenting themselves as the rational alternative. Bush didn't do the GOP any favors by nominating Miers, but he, and they, still hold all the cards. Score a victory in the political battle for the Dems. The larger war, though, still remains the GOP's to lose.