ConfirmThem

By Irishlaw Posted in SCOTUS — Comments () / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Slate's John Dickerson frames the current split among Republicans as "the churchgoing masses" against the "whiny Beltway intellectuals." This is so much nonsense, but the media seems to be warming to the theme -- and the administration is happy to provide the narrative:

"This is classic elitism," says a senior administration official of the GOP opposition to the Miers nomination. "We often blame the left for it, but we have it in our own ranks. Just because she wasn't on a shortlist of conservatives who prepared their whole life for this moment doesn't make her any less conservative … and just because she hasn't penned op-eds for the Wall Street Journal doesn't mean she hasn't formed a judicial philosophy."

Wow. Is this really the line the administration wants to be pushing -- an expedient populism in the face of legitimate concerns about a nominee to the Supreme Court? It appears so, and what's worse, many people (here and around the blogosphere) have already accepted it completely. The only problem is, it's not true. Many of those expressing concerns about Harriet Miers's lack of writing (or even any public, or private, speaking) on constitutional issues aren't anywhere near the Beltway -- e.g., Professor Bainbridge is in L.A., Feddie's in Macon, Ga. Many are religious themselves and either have no problem with, or are themselves, evangelicals -- e.g., Bainbridge, Feddie, Frum, Ponnuru. As John at Powerline points out (again, since it's been done in many places over the last few days, including here), any one of these people would have been happy to support an evangelical for the Court, if he or she displayed the intellectual heft that the Supreme Court undeniably demands. It's possible that Harriet Miers might display such talent at her hearings, of course (in which case, great), but the larger point is that we don't know that yet. And we should.

It's hard to take the attempts at forcing a divide seriously -- who would have thought that people like Ponnuru would be accused of being insufficiently socially conservative? For myself, I've been reading "Focus on the Family" for a decade; I've worked at the Family Research Council on pro-life matters; until six weeks ago I lived in Ohio (happy to belong to the small Republican club and Christian Legal Society at my law school) -- I'm just about as socially conservative as they come. Since when did I, or people like me, fit under the "whiny Beltway elite" heading? This is not a smart tack for the administration to be taking, or for conservatives who care about the Supreme Court to be embracing.