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Wednesday, October 12, 2005

"We almost pulled it off"

"There is no need now to elaborate on Bush's error. He has put up an unknown and undistinguished figure for an opening that conservatives worked for a generation to see filled with a jurist of high distinction." - William Kristol
Has it been hard to detect that I take a perverse pleasure in the Miers nomination? I think it's because I so love reading statements from a "conservative movement" that is in the midst of being reminded, for the first time in a long while, that it remains at the fringe of political life. These post-9/11 years have been heady ones for movement conservatives. Many of them obviously felt they had emerged from the wilderness at last. I expect the Miers nomination--and subsequent confirmation--will begin a period of disenchantment for them, and it's high time for that.

Perhaps the writing should have been legible on the wall with the tepid popular reaction to proposed changes in Social Security. In any case, I expect there will be unmistakable reminders over the next few years that the outcomes of two very close presidential elections reflect no great change in popular views on the conservative movement's hot button issues. Overturning Roe v. Wade, for example, has got to remain a huge loser of an issue even if many movement conservatives have convinced themselves otherwise. If that's in question, let the Republicans nominate someone like Rick Santorum or Sam Brownback and see how well that turns out.

I think conservative true believers like Kristol understand on some level that their ascendancy has been unreal. An unwinding cognitive dissonance drives their anger over Miers. There is a "we almost pulled it off" quality to some of their commentary about the "missed opportunity." The real subtext of Kristol's comment is that conservatives worked for a generation to create the conditions in which some seriously non-mainstream jurists could be installed on a Court that--as they see it--would have been solidly conservative during that same generation had earlier Republican presidents done their jobs better.

A generation of work upset because no documented true believers from the fringe will make the Court this time around. How sad. Other disappointments may be in store.


posted at 1:05 AM

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