Bush Might Want to Cross the Aisle

Ronald Brownstein editorialized in LA Times n today's polarized political environment, it may seem inconceivable. But presidents in the past occasionally have found it in their interest to fill Supreme Court vacancies with nominees from the opposition party.

Even George W Bush might have been stupid enough to do that if the opening had taken place in 2000, since he was used to reaching out to, and working with, Democrats in Texas. But he has had five years of experience working with the rabid Democrats, and if he was foolish enough to appoint a liberal, they would just view that as a sign of weakness, and they would push him even harder.

These presidents weren't naive or altruistic. They recognized such a strategy carried ideological and political costs. But in balancing their interests, they concluded that the benefits of reaching across party lines justified those costs.

Captain Ed: blogged Brownstein either is kidding us or himself. In the first place, Bush has no more elections to win. Even if he did, he wouldn't win even a single state by appointing Democrats after such a long struggle to gain control of the Senate and the White House simutaneously by the GOP. Thanks to the ill-advised selections of justices such as William Brennan by Dwight Eisenhower -- one of Brownstein's examples of how past presidents made themselves more popular -- the Supreme Court has transformed itself into a superlegislature that further leftward expansion will only exacerbate.