How Harriet Unleashed a Storm on the Right

Unfortunately, the Loyalists get outnumbered pretty quickly by:

The Rebel Alliance. The bloggers who join rightist icons such as Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol in opposing Miers's nomination refuse to trust Bush. Many already felt betrayed by this president on a number of issues, including his lack of initiative in securing the Southern border against illegal immigration and his signing of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill even after he noted its lack of constitutional merit. These rebels don't have a plan for taking over the galaxy, but they would like to stop what they see as another Bush foul-up before it winds up like the last few "trust me" Republican Supreme Court nominees, a string starting with John Paul Stevens and ending with Souter.

While the Loyalist Army comes under the command of mostly one man, the Rebel Alliance has several nexuses in the blogosphere. Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin, The Corner at National Review Online, RedState.org and UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge all want to see Harriet Miers either withdrawn or defeated. Malkin has provided lots of rhetorical flourish; addressing the notion that Miers should be confirmed because of the doors she opened for women in the legal world, Malkin remarked that conservatives want established scholars on the bench, not "bellhops."

Even with its superior numbers, the Rebel Alliance has its work cut out for it. Anyone expecting George Bush to back away from a fight or to fail to come to the defense of his friends has not paid much attention over the past five years. When moderates wanted Dick Cheney dropped from the 2004 ticket, Bush openly scoffed at the suggestion. Why would he act differently now?

Most of the rebels understand that the Democrats will likely give Miers a pass, especially since Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid suggested her to Bush. No one really expects a GOP Senate caucus that essentially ran from a fight with Democrats over the abuse of the filibuster to rebel against the president on a judicial nominee who will get broad bipartisan support. Even though syndicated columnist George Will and others lobbed highly accurate and extremely damaging bombshells at Bush's position last week, the morale boost the rebels received will be short-lived.

Will the Rebel Alliance abandon Bush if they can't derail Miers's nomination? Some are arguing to do just that, saying it's necessary to purge the GOP of its moderates to ensure ideological purity. But that still appears to be a fringe position. The rebels are so far being careful to limit the fight to Miers and to avoid the longer-range targets they'll have to face if they fail here.

But some critics of the Miers nomination have thought that far ahead and want to pull conservatives back from the edge of a disastrous schism. Which brings us to the third, centrist group:

The Trench-Dwelling Dogfaces. Those of us who find ourselves torn between the unconvincing, unrelenting positivism of the Loyalists and the potentially destructive Rebel Alliance occupy a no-man's land of political tiptoeing. We spend our blogging time raising our heads out of the foxholes to note the inbound missiles coming from both sides, and wishing the war would stop -- really soon.

Despite our normal support for the president, we Dogfaces fail to recognize George Bush's supposed brilliance in naming his personal lawyer to the bench, whatever Hugh Hewitt says. Even if Miers obviously has earned Bush's trust, she just as obviously has done nothing remarkable to earn the trust of conservatives; being a mover and shaker in the American Bar Association doesn't lend her much credibility among those who have watched that group get more and more politically activist in what we view as the wrong direction. Most of us have tired of the "trust me" approach. In short, we find ourselves with some sympathy for the Rebel Alliance.

However, we also see the realistic outcome of the bloody civil war that threatens to split the GOP over what clearly is a White House blunder -- one compounded by White House adviser Ed Gillespie's charging the Rebel Alliance with "sexism" at last week's meeting. With important mid-term elections next year and at least one more Supreme Court opening likely during Bush's term, we want to avoid a party schism that could make him a prematurely lame duck and hand the Democrats an opportunity to seize control of one or both houses of Congress.

So who will prevail? All I can predict is that if Miers is confirmed, the debate will continue into the next election cycle. And with this much rage building, the mid-terms look more exciting every day.

Author's e-mail:

captain@captainsquartersblog.com

Ed Morrissey writes freelance commentary for the Web log Captain's Quarters, is a regular contributor to the online Daily Standard and co-hosts a weekly Twin Cities talk-radio show.