Misunderstimation and the bigger picture

Skymusings had a fantastic post urging the conservatives who are steadfastly against the nomination of Harriet Miers to step back and take a look at the bigger picture: The nomination of Harriet Miers has conservatives split and arguing amongst themselves. Beyond being silly, pointless, and counterproductive, I find it all very puzzling.

Like everyone else, I scratched my head and said "Who?" upon hearing of the nomination. And like everyone else, I wondered why the President would choose someone so far outside the Conventional Wisdom as to be patently invisible and unknown.

My belief is that we should be looking past Ms. Miers herself to learn why the President has nominated as he has. Going back to the John Roberts nomination and confirmation, a few things present themselves:

1. Roberts was not shown to be a firebreathing conservative; rather, he appears to be solidly conservative while still being acceptable to all but the most fevered moonbats.
2. Senator Leahy broke with the Dems and publicly came out for Justice Roberts well in advance of the vote, leading to a split in the Dem coalition and a solid if not overwhelming confirmation, avoiding the party-line vote. This 78-22 vote indicates bipartisan support and lends validity to Justice Roberts.
3. The President knows that of his majority numbers in the Senate, he has no more than 44 or 45 that he can reliably count on when a fight is in the air, especially on social conservative issues.

   That is absolutely correct. In additon to focusing on Red State Dems in 2006, we need to consider replacing RINOs with someone more dependable.

   The odds of getting Olympia Snowe, Lincoln Chafee, et al on board for a hardcore like Luttig are effectively nil. There is little point in starting a war that you know your soldiers will not fight.

....The President knows fully that had he nominated Luttig or one of the other Scalia types that we have hungered for, it would have triggered war with the Dems (not necessarily bad in and of itself). The problem is that this war would likely be lost due to the defection of his own RINOs, and the guarantee of Dem solidarity. Why fight the war you can't win? It makes infinitely more sense in these circumstances to slip in a Stealth nominee that will fool the Dems into thinking she's another O'Connor. If the President is convinced she will in fact be a solid conservative originalist, then he will have achieved true diplomacy in that he made the Dems think they won while he got exactly what he wanted. From his gubernatorial contests on down through his presidential contests he has consistently been the Dummy That Outsmarted The Smarties. He is a risk-taker, and he knows his opponents better than they know themselves.....

That is absolutely true.

Remember, this buys time for the 2006 elections. Two solid conservatives (assuming the President is correct on Miers) will have already started the process of reworking the Court. Hopefully we will gain more seats in 2006, which could allow President Bush to think about a Luttig when Stephens retires. There is a time for boldness, and a time for quiet, and this is the time for quiet victory. When we have 51 solid conservatives, then we can ram candidates down the Dems' throats. Until then, we still have to convince them either that we are right or trick them into giving us what we want. The former hasn't happened; I believe the latter will.

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Hat Tip Sister Toldjah