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December 17, 2002, 9:45 a.m. Lott and the Courts A nomination’s death warrant is issued. By Timothy P. Carney

t's almost ironic that Sen. Strom Thurmond's (R, S.C.) final "fight" in the Senate was to ensure the judicial confirmation of a former aide who was unfairly attacked as a bigot.

Sen. Trent Lott (R, Miss.) and other Republican senators went to the mat for Thurmond in his final weeks as a senator and shepherded through Dennis Shedd's confirmation over persistent Democratic insinuations of racism two weeks after Election Day. But now, Lott's uncareful praise of his centenarian colleague has precipitated an ugly short-term legacy, whose first tangible effect is the end of Charles Pickering's hopes to become an appellate judge.

Pickering's chief advocate in the Senate was Lott. Usually, having the party leader go to bat for you is worth some points. For Pickering, it has become his nomination's death warrant.

Sources close to the nomination and confirmation process say that the White House has made the decision and dropped the plans it had as recently as last week to renominate Pickering in the 108th Congress. Because the Left smeared Pickering as a racist ("racially insensitive" is word they use) Lott's misstep and the current attacks on him will unavoidably be distracting and damning.

As a strictly judicial matter, this is not too great of a loss. Pickering, while a stellar judge, is not very young, and his service on the appeals court would be brief. Renominating Pickering, though, would have had two political virtues.

First, it would please conservatives who were beside themselves with rage at the sight of Sen. Joe Biden (D, Del.) and Ted Kennedy (D, Chappaquiddick) attacking Pickering's integrity.

Second, without Lott's gaffe, Pickering would have taken a lot of the fire from Democrats, but still probably pass, making it easier for later nominees such as Priscilla Owen and Miguel Estrada after the Democratic attack dogs had shot their wad.

Now, without Pickering as a viable point man, someone else will need to take the early beating by the left's attack machine fueled by People For the American Way, the National Organization of Women, and their ilk. This could mean either serious expenditure of political capital by Republicans, or a successful filibuster of Owen or Estrada.

But the effect of the Lott firestorm on nominees runs even deeper. If Lott stays on as Majority Leader, every absurd charge of racism against a GOP nominee carries more weight with the credulous media and some middle-of-the-road voters. Ultimately, the media would win over Democrats otherwise hesitant to oppose Bush and could even persuade some spineless Republicans.

In a cruel twist, however, Lott will make it even harder for Republican nominees if he steps down as Leader. Edwards, Schumer, PFAW, Kennedy, Paul Krugman, and the New York Times editorial page are aptly called "the attack dogs of personal destruction." If they win on the Lott fight — if they taste blood — it only makes them hungrier.

It may take them some time to regroup, to digest their prey, as it did after the first Pickering trial, but the next time they will be even bolder. The Lott turmoil was entirely manufactured by Democratic operatives — namely by unrepentant Clintonite James Carville, who first made an issue of the remarks the same night on Crossfire — and then pushed the story behind the scenes wherever they could, explaining to pundits and politicians how this could be used to sock it to the GOP.

If Carville wins — if the bar for branding someone a racist is lowered to a single careless comment, an unreflective childhood in the south, and a belief in states' rights — that puts every Republican politician or nominee in a little more danger. It expands the media's definition of "extremism." Anyone whose voting record or ideology resembles that of "disgraced former Majority Leader Trent Lott" will be suspect — and vulnerable.

This means any judge who ever used the concept of federalism in his decisions will be attacked for "using the racist codeword of 'states rights'."

It's a lose-lose situation — and a checkmate for the attack dogs of personal destruction.

— Timothy P. Carney is a reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report.