Ramesh, there seems to be a supposition here that the president is obliged to fulfill conservative wishes in his appointments to the Court. He isn’t, though he should. I refuse to believe that if the president nominated Al Gonzales, he couldn’t get him through. Every Republican in the Senate (well, one was absent that day) voted for Gonzales for Attorney General. Would anybody argue that a man fit for that office is unfit for the court? I mean, somebody like Brownback could try, I suppose, but it’s not a very good argument. And would Republicans in the Senate actually destroy the Bush presidency by collaborating in a Democratic takedown of his Supreme Court nominee? I don’t think so.

I don’t believe Gonzales will be one of the picks, by the way. But even so, there seems to be a lot of angry talk on the Right that hints at blocking a choice with which some on the Right will be unhappy. That is political and ideological suicide. It will finish off this presidency and splinter the GOP before 2006 (and more importantly, 2008).