Krauthammer Has The Answer
First, kudos to Sir Charles for not going off the deep end:
It’s no secret that I think the Harriet Miers nomination was a mistake. Nonetheless, when asked how she will do in her confirmation hearings, my answer is, I hope she does well. I have no desire to see her humiliated. Nor would I take any joy in seeing her rejected, though I continue to believe it would be best for the country that she not be confirmed to the Supreme Court.
And while I remain as exercised as anyone by the lack of wisdom of this choice, I part company with those who see the Miers nomination as a betrayal of conservative principles. The idea that Bush is looking to appoint some kind of closet liberal David Souter or even some rudderless Sandra Day O’Connor clone is wildly off the mark. The president’s mistake was thinking he could sneak a reliable conservative past the liberal litmus tests (on abortion, above all) by nominating a candidate at once exceptionally obscure and exceptionally well known to him.
So, what’s to be done?
Sen. Lindsey Graham has been a staunch and public supporter of this nominee. Yet on Wednesday he joined Brownback in demanding privileged documents from Miers’s White House tenure.
Finally, a way out: irreconcilable differences over documents.
For a nominee who, unlike John Roberts, has practically no record on constitutional issues, such documentation is essential for the Senate to judge her thinking and legal acumen. But there is no way that any president would release this kind of information — “policy documents” and “legal analysis” — from such a close confidante. It would forever undermine the ability of any president to get unguarded advice.
That creates a classic conflict, not of personality, not of competence, not of ideology, but of simple constitutional prerogatives: The Senate cannot confirm her unless it has this information. And the White House cannot allow release of this information lest it jeopardize executive privilege.
Hence the perfectly honorable way to solve the conundrum: Miers withdraws out of respect for both the Senate and the executive’s prerogatives, the Senate expresses appreciation for this gracious acknowledgment of its needs and responsibilities, and the White House accepts her decision with the deepest regret and with gratitude for Miers’s putting preservation of executive prerogative above personal ambition.
Faces saved. And we start again.
I suppose this scenario is plausible, but it would, in the end, be a manufactured controversy. Sorry, Charles, I must disagree – if this nomination is to be defeated, better that everyone put their cards on the table and vote their conscience – wait a second, who am I kidding? I must have wandered onto the set of Mr. Smith Goes To Washington…
UPDATE 10:11 a.m.: For another view, I refer you to the Commissar and Captain Ed, who agree that a message is being sent by Graham and Brownback that Miers is in trouble and this is the best way to get out of the mess…
Ed’s analysis is right on. Everyone (or at least every Republican) has made such a sticking point of executive privilege, that they must be sending a message by raising it. Like a two cardinals sending the pope a letter, “On this infallibility thing, we think the whole doctrine should be re-examined.”
Let’s not forget that this is a political issue/problem which, necessarily, requires a political solution, regardless of how much we might prefer something more direct and less obtuse and nuanced (your word is manufactured).
I’ve got no problem with the Krauthammer argument except for one thing; how exactly does anyone “save face” when the real story for why she would be dumped is laid out in his column for all to see?
Yet that very well might be what happens. The Kabuki theater of Washington rolls merrily along…
Don’t plunge the knife in her throat, plunge it in her back? WSe’re playing the Democrats’ game here, and they play it better.
[...] The Bush Administration would do well to heed any advice coming from Charles Krauthammer on the ports deal; after all, he famously anticipated the clean exit from the Harriet Miers mess. Before he dispenses with his prescription, though, he has a bit of a tongue-lashing to deliver: Congress is up in arms. The Democrats, in particular, are in full cry, gleeful to at last get to the right of George Bush on an issue of national security. [...]