The conservatives who are complaining about today's rejection of Judge Charles Pickering on purely ideological grounds by certain Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee actually have it all bass ackwards. This kind of partisan decision-making isn't the problem, it's the solution. The only way we'll ever put an end to the character assassination that has attended judicial nominations for the last fifteen years is for one party or the other to stand up and tell a president that he has to have real coattails if he intends to appoint doctrinaire judges (i.e., he has to win firm control of the Senate). This position is intellectually honest, and it gives voters a clear choice in the next election.
--------