Should we save us from ourselves?

Today a post-vacation Hugh Hewitt posted a long, and characteristically thoughtful, rumination on the current status of the Miers nomination, and what might happen if it is ultimately defeated.

Though I view Hugh's position on the Miers nomination from across a great divide, I do admire his civility. Others in the anti-anti-Miers camp aren't as merciful. One example is the Hedgehog Blog, authored by Lowell Brown. I like this blog, for it, too, is a place where you can find clear thought. However, Mr. Brown has recently used phrases like these to describe those who do not support the Miers nomination: "merciless ferocity", "blindly vicious", "caterwauling", "intellectually thuggish tendencies".

Of George Will's recent much-discussed column, he said this:

What I found was a suprisingly intemperate screed against Ms. Miers and anyone who dares support her. It is so emotional, so full of sneers and condescension and internal inconsistency that I did not know where to begin in responding.

With Mr. Hewitt, I know I can disagree with him without having spinning scythes flying back at my throat.

In his long post, Hugh says this:

I fully understand the risks of a new SCOTUS justice who reaches the wrong decisions, or even the right decisions by the wrong path expressed in opinions that live on to influence and/or bind future judges...So it is obvious why so many have reacted so strongly. The stakes are only higher on issues of national security.

Yes, it is precisely because the stakes are high that many in the conservative camp are risking a potentially damaging confrontation with their President. It is so vital we not make another mistake on the Supreme Court, a mistake for which there is virtually no remedy. But, if you think Hugh is about to say just that, here's what comes next:

Given these stakes, though, I was surprised, and remained surprised, at how quickly the assault on the nominee began, and how it escalated in intensity and rhetorical excess as the weeks have passed.

I am a little puzzled why Hugh is surprised, when he just voiced the very reason for the intensity. He's tripped over the answer.

Hugh then asks a valid question:

Does anyone among the conservatives really not believe that President Bush has a different concern?

Again, it is not a matter of believing President Bush is really cackling with glee in his private closets, thinking he is putting another Souter on the Court. Rather, what this pick said to conservatives was that President Bush wasn't willing to fight for someone who clearly would nudge the Court back to its Constitutional roots. This pick said President Bush was willing to take a chance on this nomination, as I said, given the stakes, we skeptics are not willing to take that same chance.

One reason Hugh is so insistent about supporting President Bush on this is that he believes we skeptics are going to damage the President and the party.

In fact, it is nothing short of astonishing, that Robert Bork would lead a campaign to Bork a different GOP nominee, or that George Will would denounce anti-anti-Miers people as degraded partisans incapable of understanding conservatism. This would be funny if it were not political tragedy, and not for the president, Miers, and her defenders, but for the vast and lasting damage being done to Will, Bork, and the GOP's new majorities and its new media in the process.

In fact, Hugh envisions a scenario where the GOP loses its majorities.

But the results of their success will not be limited to the damage done to Bush. They have to consider the damage done to the GWOT by the loss of GOP majorities in either house of Congress, or of the presidency in 2008. It is simply not credible to reject as unlikely the reality of the consequences of weakening Bush at this moment. There is this pie-in-the-sky idea that, Miers defeated or withdrawn, the prident will nominate a Luttig or a McConnell, and a great battle will be waged and successfully so, and the GOP will go from victory to victory. Perhaps. I mean, it is possible. Really.

But it is much, much more likely that a defeat of the president, combined with the defeat on social security and the DeLay woes and the MSM's incessant anti-Bush campaign will in fact birth a 2006 like 1986. It wasn't pretty then. It isn't inevitable now.

To this I have two replies. First, if we work to build up these GOP majorities, and we don't use it to put someone like Luttig or McConnell on the Court, then what is the point of having these majorities? The Bush Administration has been profligate, and its come-on-in-igration policy would have uniformed hostesses waiting at the borders asking illegals "How may we help you?" If the promise of a solid originalist jurist is just a chimera the GOP keeps unveiling in hopes of getting my vote, they will soon discover skeptics like me might just wash our hands of the GOP.

Second, let the Democrats make the argument to the voters that they would be a better party than a damaged GOP. Let them explain why the country would be more secure in their hands, in a time of war. If the electorate thinks the GOP is damaged and wants new management, let them live with the consequences.

I am not as willing as Mr. Hewitt to try and save the electorate from themselves. With the privilege of free elections come responsibility. Let the voters learn the lesson, yet again, what it means to put scoundrels in the seats of power when enemies are prowling at the door, if they so choose.

Did the Clinton Administration not teach us anything? Did we not learn what damage is done to our national security when we elect a President who is more interested in diddling interns in the Oval Office than responding to acts of war committed against us, such as the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers, the USS Cole?

To return to Lowell Brown's bete noire, George Will once said of Clinton, "Some people want public office in order to do something; others in order to be something. Clinton was the latter sort."

If something like a strenuous argument over our most closely held principles is enough to cause damage in the eyes of an immature electorate, then let the voters live with any decision they make.

Again, to Hugh I say, those who think skeptics like me are damaging the GOP need to convince me why these majorities are worth keeping.