Red and Blue Litmus

For years the Democrats insisted that any so-called "litmus test" for Supreme Court nominees was unfair and inappropriate. That was then, this is now:

Democrats called for a deliberate review of any nominee and pledged to press the eventual candidate on issues including abortion and same-sex marriage, while Republicans declared that such specific inquiries were out of line. "All questions are legitimate," Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, said in an interview. "What is your view on Roe v. Wade? What is your view on gay marriage? They are going to try to get away with the idea that we're not going to know their views. But that's not going to work this time."

Senator Ted Kennedy threatened that if the President abuses his power and nominates someone out of the mainstream of American opinion he will oppose the nominee. Sen. Kennedy is not known for his sagacity or clarity of thought, but this is remarkable even for him.

How is it an abuse of power for the President to exercise his constitutional prerogative to nominate anyone he wishes to the Supreme Court? If the candidate is unqualified the Senate can refuse to confirm him or her, but it's just goofy to call a nomination an "abuse" of power. And what constitutes being "out of the mainstream," anyway? Is anyone to Mr. Kennedy's right out of the mainstream? Would Justices Thomas, Scalia, or Rehnquist be out of the American mainstream? Why would a conservative of their stripe be regarded as extreme but former ACLU attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg be acceptable?

But then such questions are idle. Senators Kennedy and Schumer are not interested in rational discussion nor argument. They are interested in imposing their ideological will on the nation through the decisions of the Supreme Court. So, we hope, is Bush. The difference is that Bush has the constitutional right to do it, and the Senators have no right to stop him unless they can muster a majority who feel as they do. All their talk of abuses and mainstreams is so much smoke designed to obscure the fact that their opposition to the president's choices is not at all about qualifications, it's about ideology.