Not the teacher's pet

I think my half of yesterday's Lance and Nance post at The American Street proves that I don't know nuthin about nuthin when it comes to Supreme Court Justices.  So I wouldn't listen to me about this if I were you.  But:  If I were in George Bush's position right now I would not be planning to appoint Alberto Gonzales to the Supreme Court.

This isn't a good time to have Gonzales on national television answering questions about torture again.

It's also not a good time for Bush to have to nominate another Attorney General who, in addition to having to answer questions about torture, would have to answer them about Karl Rove and Valerie Plame and the Downing Street Memos and whether or not the President broke the law in lying the country into a war.

Trickier and perhaps more dangerous for Republicans, if not for Bush himself, Gonzales would also have to answer questions about abortion.  The word is that his honest answers on the subject would not endear him to the Right Wing Christians who expect to have vetting power over all Bush's important judicial nominees.

Gonzales could try to lie his way through.  Clarence Thomas managed it.  During his nomination hearings Thomas claimed to have no opinion on Roe v. Wade and to have never even discussed it with anyone, not even when he was back in law school when the original decision was handed down.

Fortunately for Thomas he was facing a Senate controlled by Democrats who were desperate not to have to vote against a black man.

Gonzales would not just face Pro-choice Democrats who might be willing to let him fudge his postion.  He'd face some Right Wing Republicans who would be out to try to make him promise that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.  They wouldn't let him fudge.  It's all or nothing with them.

As of yesterday, though, I was half-hoping Bush would go with him.  Gonzales is likely the best we can hope for from Bush.  My impression of him had been that he was not so much a Right Wing idealogogue as he was a teacher's pet.  There are different kinds of A students.  One type is the kid who figures out that the best way to do well is to always give his teachers exactly what they want.  There is something about Gonzales that made me think he is one of that kind of A student who never grew up.  His whole career, in Texas and in Washington, has been spent as George W. Bush's brightest student and most devoted apple-polisher.

If that's the case, then it would be possible that his appointment to the Supreme Court would affect him as a kind of graduation.  He would finally move up from Bush's class and be an adult, free to think and make decisions for himself without having to worry about how they would hurt or help his grade or whether or not they would please or displease teacher.

In which case the Republicans would have been in for an unpleasant surprise like the kind they got from David Souter, another teacher's pet who grew up as soon as he was sworn in.

Over at AMERICAblog, Joe in DC reports that the Right Wing Christianish types share my old suspicions about Gonzales.  Which is why I suddenly don't have those suspicions anymore.

This is not reflexive contrarianism on my part.  "If James Dobson thinks it, it can't be so."

The Right Wing Christianish types will be suspicious of any nominees who haven't publicly and repeatedly announced their determination to overturn Roe v. Wade and rule that abortion is murder and a fetus is a human being from the moment a husband and wife discuss having a child.

Nope, it's seeing the story in print that makes me suspicious.  Members of the Washington Press Corps may be showing signs of developing consciences and backbones but they are still in the tadpole stage and for the moment the National Media is still a tool.  The question is, who's using the tool here?

Who's pushing the story?

I don't believe it's the Religious Right.

The Senate "Moderates," those Democrats and Republicans who wish more than anything never ever to have to make the choice between doing the right thing and offending the President will be looking for any and every excuse they can to weasel out of a fight.

The Republican "Moderates" don't want to be forced into the position of reneging on their own compromise or, even more horrifying to them, having to enforce it.  The Democrats don't want to have to watch Bill Frist go nuclear.  If Alberto Gonzales is a closet "moderate" or at least offensive to the most radical members of the Radical Right then his nomination isn't an extraordinary circumstance warranting a fillibuster.

And I'm sure there are more than a few "Liberal" Democrats who would be grateful for any excuse not to have to vote against an Hispanic nomineee.

If the word is that Gonzales is a David Souter in Bush's clothing, or at least a Sandra Day O'Connor in drag, a lot of Democrats will breathe easier.

So the story feels like a Rovian plant to me.  Disinformation.  So as of today I suspect that Gonzales' secret progressive leanings are so much Nigerian yellow cake.

But like I said.  What do I know?

I think PZ Myers would argue that the Bush Leaguers don't need to bother.  He believes the Democrats won't put up a fight no matter what sort of Right Wing kook Bush nominates.

I have this looming fear that the inconceivable is going to happen, and that Bush is going to select some far-right wing religious extremist to pander to his base, and he's going to gleefully rip this country apart.

Or rather, it would rip the country apart if the Democratic party had any principled liberals who would be willing to stand up and fight.  I have another fear, that they're all going to just make excuses and roll over, and we'll take another step towards that third-world status to which the Republican party has been aspiring.

(Cross-posted at The American Street.)

Comments

[PZ Myers]

I am such a pessimist...but it looks more and more like it is justified pessimism.

[David Glynn]

People can't conceive of any relation between them and the court, the congress, or the president. Any fight about the court will be seen as a remote thing, carried on by people who have interests, not us.

And thus is a tragedy born....

[gmanedit]

Lance, Gonzales justifies torture and the imperial presidency. I wouldn't count on his growing out of it.