For a good substantive comment on the background to the Estrada filibuster, go to the post by the mysterious "Phillipe de Croy" at The Volokh Conspiracy.

De Croy is good at describing the meaning of the 2000 election and Bush v. Gore for the current controversies: Democrats see the election controversy as putting in doubt Bush's mandate to appoint conservative judges to the federal judiciary. Plus, according to de Croy's readings of the Demcratic view here, the Supreme Court brought this controversy on itself by getting involved in the election dispute to begin with. Republicans, on the other hand, have largely forgotten about the election controversy.

Put this partisan difference together with Jack Balkin's recent reading of Bush's hard-nosed approach to political strategy, and you have a good account of the kind of fight we're going to get over judicial nominations.

I think I disagree with de Croy on two points, however. First, I think that the nomination battles run deeper than he/she/it seems to believe; given the current positions of the political parties with respect to highly charged issues such as race, abortion, and so on, these nominations would be politicized under any circumstances. The 2000 election exacerbated already existing tensions. Perhaps de Croy wouldn't disagree here, of course; perhaps the focus of his/her/its post is on the specific impact of BvG.

De Croy also counsels readers to discount the immediate reasons that Democrats have given for opposing the nomination: Estrada's refusal to produce memos from his days at the Solicitor General's office. De Croy might be right to say that Democrats never expected to get the memos, but Senators are within their rights and responsibilities when they ask for evidence on matters of legal interpretation from a nominee. It seems to me that Democratic fears of a Republican "stealth" candidate are not unfounded. It also should be noted that Estrada's relative lack of an immediately accessible paper trail no doubt increased his standing in administration working groups on judicial nominations.