It’s Not About Trust. It’s About Making Noise
By Andrew Roman
Posted On October 06, 2005

Don’t throw the word “trust” at me now.

This was the time for a cookie-cutter, straight-from-the-circuit-court, not-to-be-mistaken-for-anything-but-a-staunch originalist nominee. This was supposed be the time when a candidate for the Supreme Court needed to be brought before the nation that was certain to cause the collective blood vessels of the American left to explode. This was to be the long-awaited assault on those who would treat the Constitution as Play-Doh and the culmination of forty years of hard work coming to a triumphant and long-overdue fruition. And for those of us who canvassed the streets, handed out pamphlets, painted signs and devoted endless hours to this President’s re-election bid last fall, this nomination was to be the sweetest plum of all. This was to be a cookie cut from the Thomas/Scalia mold, or something close to it.

Could have, would have, should have.

Four days after the announcement of Harriet Miers, with the Republican/conservative contingent still fracturing, many of us are still wrinkling are our eyebrows and scratching our heads. This just wasn’t about finding a well-qualified candidate to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. It was about making an audacious, unambiguous statement about the direction of our country.

Failure on both counts.

This was about weighing principal against party, choosing the former and solidifying the latter in the process. It was about preserving the Constitution while the withering Democratic minority looked on, unable to do a damn thing about it. It was a golden opportunity to afford the whiny, name-calling, finger pointing, void-of-substance left to flaunt their stuff in the public arena, further exposing them as empty-headed visionless squawkers. This was about sending a message that legislation must be left to the elected. If John Roberts was the sweet appetizer of a Bush Supreme Court Banquet, then this latest nomination needed to be a five-course meal with all the fixings.

Does anyone believe that if someone like Michael Luttig or Emilio Garza had been selected, that any of this would be a concern now?

The issue here is not trust. Disagreements do not necessarily mean that any trust has been breeched. If that were true, no one would ever stay married and only CEOs would ever have the combination to the company safe. Disappointment in the President’s choice, rather, lies in the fact that a wealth of well-qualified, clear-cut conservatives with palpable judicial philosophies was overlooked in favor of a sure-to-be-confirmed question mark. For a White House struggling with slipping poll numbers, eroding support for the War in Iraq, and mess swirling around Tom Delay and Bill Frist, the question is clear: Why choose a battle that would leave the Republican side let down, confused and divided? It’s simply hard to believe that Ms. Miers, for all of her Lottery-Commission running, Texas-Bar-Association-presiding prowess, was the best-qualified individual for the vacancy on the high court, given the pool of exceptional talent waiting in the green room.

This nominee needed to be a larger-than-life and it wasn’t. This person needed to be one with a clearly defined, easily researchable track record – the kind that sends the likes of Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi in cold nocturnal sweats, but she wasn’t. And while Ms. Miers may, in time, prove to be exactly the kind of Associate Justice conservatives can count on to interpret the Constitution stringently, this particular appointment was more than an affirmation of judicial philosophy. Assuming that the choice of a conservative was already a given, the second criterion should have been to nominate someone who was sure to leave the cumulative undergarments of the American Left in a nasty twist while simultaneously energizing the right – someone like, say, Janice Rogers Brown. President Bush needed to make this power play a direct sell to his ever-growing uneasy base, the conservative talk-radio community and right leaning pundits across the map. In short, it not only had to be a make-nice, let’s-go-kick-some-butt gesticulation to the core of his party and supporters, but a tossing of the gauntlet down to those who wish to see him weakened further.

None of it quite happened that way.

Baffling is how control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives has managed to summon the trepidation of the Republican Party. Nothing seems to be enough to wage necessary and winnable fights. I might suggest that this close to the 2006 elections it would be wise for someone up there to realize that it really does matter what the people who pull the levers and write the checks think about these things. As one who has willingly opened his own checkbook to support the Republican Party and this President in the past, I respectfully submit that the powers-that-be start paying attention before I decide to put it away for awhile.

Trust me on that.

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