Conservatives are cranky people by nature. Having walked in the
liberal shadow for forty years as the opposition party, finding
themselves in control of the government has, at times, been an even
less sunny experience. For too long, they fought only liberals and
their freedom-killing “progressive” ideas. Now that they are truly
a major political force, they additionally must battle the
mainstream media and, it seems, each other.
They too, by nature, have brains they like to use, also
sometimes against each other. So we see that in the Harriet Miers
dustup, some wise words have been expended on both side of the
argument. Unlike their liberal counterparts, conservatives are a
diverse group who seldom march in lockstep and there’s no fight as
fierce as a family fight; but until now, it’s been mostly
civil.
It is easy to understand the near hysteria from some on the
right. The courts have been the Holy Land that conservative
crusaders have been trying to reclaim for decades. They are the
reason some have looked the other way at what they regard as
President Bush’s major transgressions; profligate spending and his
reluctance to deal with the illegal immigration mess.
Their former disagreements have been mostly in-house. Apart from
think-tanks and conferences, conservatives who support the GOP have
generally followed Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment: “Thou
shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.” Who then could have
conceived of the following from National Review’s Rich
Lowry?
The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court is
foundering, but President Bush is confident that she will be
confirmed. Bush thus displays a touching faith in the power of
hypocrisy, double standards, and contradictions to see his nominee
through. The case for Miers is an unholy mess, an opportunistic
collection of whatever rhetorical flotsam happens to be at
hand.
Or this biting snippet from the Wall Street Journal’s James
Taranto:
Mediocre people are, of course, entitled to
representation. That’s what Congress is for. But the federal courts
are not a representative institution, and the charge of elitism is
a strange one in this context. After all, it’s called the Supreme
Court, not the Court of Common Place.
But it is exactly this kind of rhetoric that disturbs
rank-and-file conservatives, exceptional as well as mediocre. It is
buying into liberal elitism to think the SCOTUS should be anything
more than the third — and by design least powerful — branch of
government or that its justices should be more than mere
mortals.
It is disheartening that some conservative pundits attach an
almost mystical aura to the simple words of the U.S. Constitution
and believe one must possess mythical powers to discern their
mysteries. It is this sort of thinking that led to liberal visions
of penumbras and other fanciful illuminations that so frustrate
those on the right who, mediocre though they may be, are able to
read and understand the forthright law of the land.
Still, there is cause for concern regarding the Miers
nomination. Because she was on nobody’s short list — or medium or
long — she is a judicial cipher, or as some say, a stealth
nominee. Much energy has been spent asking questions. The
anti-Miers choir sings the same songs: Who is she? What are her
qualifications? How can we know her judicial philosophy with no
case history to read?
Pertinent questions all, though they will probably go unanswered
until she is on the bench. But ultimately one must also ask: Why
would President Bush nominate a stealthy Souter-type? What in his
judicial nomination history suggests that he would? What would his
purpose be? Could his vanity lead him to abandon his vow to remake
the judiciary?
We are left to ponder the questions on all sides of this curious
case as well as the liberal media’s inference that the Miers
nomination will lead to the demise of conservative power. They
somehow believe that disaffected right-wingers will sit out the
2006 elections in protest of Bush’s “betrayal,” and allow the
balance of power in Congress to be decided by their liberal
brethren.
Certain members of the conservative punditry may be sounding
some discordant notes, but the media is, as usual, tone-deaf.
Lisa Fabrizio is a columnist who hails from
Connecticut. You may write her here.
