Hugh Hewitt dissents

Hugh Hewitt, for whom I have tremendous respect, disagrees with the strategy of challenging Arlen Specter's ascension to the Senate Judiciary Committee chairmanship. He makes many interesting and fairly debatable points in his argument, but loses me in his defense of Specter when he makes the following call:

"The decision in the last couple of years --led by Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy-- to radicalize judicial nominations even beyond the terrible precedents of the Bork and Thomas nomination battles was one of the most irresponsible ever taken, and now the prospect of filibusters and smear campaigns seems inevitable. The only chance of repairing this process is for a united and determined GOP caucus to demand a return to past, pre-Bork practices, and failing to obtain that demand, to launch and win a great debate leading to new rules on judicial nominations."

I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. It is time to return to the days where judicial nominations were not treated as political footballs. That is unlikely to happen for two reasons. First, the judiciary has grown too powerful because the other branches of government have ceded responsibility to it to avoid making politically sensitive decisions that might result in the loss of a few votes here or there. Second -- and more immediate to the argument at hand -- Hugh Hewitt is arguing on behalf of the very individual for chairman who injected politics into the nominations process.

In 1987, Specter was a member of the Senate minority. Democrats controlled the chamber, and had a numerical advantage on the Judiciary Committee. Judge Bork was nominated by President Reagan to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court. The nomination sparked debate and controversy, to be sure, but it was Specter's opposition that gave the Democratic majority the cover it needed to deny the president his choice for Supreme Court justice. Instead of Bork, we were treated to Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has voted to re-affirm the central holding in Roe, to prevent student-initiated, student-led prayers from being said at high school football games, and, of course, made his "memorable" references to spatial and transcendent aspects to liberty in the sweeping ruling in Lawrence v. Texas.

Specter, remarking on the Bork hearings, claimed that the hearings had "'established the important precedent of the Senate's right to reject' a nominee solely on the basis of his judicial philosophy." (link via The Corner) Given Specter's history, and his obvious pride in his role in the Bork hearings (which he recalled fondly in a speech on the Senate floor just last year), can there really be a return to the "past, pre-Bork practices"? Highly unlikely.