READER RESPONSE ON JUDICIAL NOMINATIONS

In response to my post criticizing Anderson's WSJ op-ed on judicial nominations, reader Brett Bellmore makes a good point:

[T]here is in fact a pretty good explanation as to why. . . Democrats would have been willing to allow most of [Bush's] nominees to be confirmed.

Most of the nominations were for lower courts, highly constrained by precedent, and subject to being over-ruled by realist judges at higher levels. In such positions, even if you don't like formalist judges, they don't present much of a threat to the Democratic agenda. It would appear to me that, even if Democrats are aware that formalist judges are a threat to their plans. . .they're only going to resort to extreme measures against them for the appeals court, or higher. Several of the filibustered nominees have been mentioned as potential future candidates for the Supreme court, and therefore would be subject to a higher level of ideological scrutiny on that basis.

Sounds good to me. Implicit in Bellmore's claim is the assumption that political capital is limited and that strategy is necessary here. I agree with that.