Interestingly, I'm told the White House is more and more leaning toward a sacrifical lamb to call that bluff. They'll put up a good conservative, have the Dems vote against the nominee, and then put up someone else with similar views daring the Dems to block the second nominee too.
I just hope that if Bush is going to try this that he first puts up Brown. I would hope that she would get through, but if not, at least it would be interesting and help the second nominee get through.
4 comments:
Republican identity politics are not cynical? Wow, that's incredibly naive. The Republican Party has been obsessed with building their share of the Hispanic vote (and the black vote to an extent) for the past 7-10 years. The more I hear Bush, the more I understand that he is a pawn of the Republican machine. Just listen to Lyndon Baines Bush's speech in NO again.
Charles,
When a supposed "conservative" jumps on the diversity buzz-word bandwagon (witness Bush's latest comments on the SCOTUS vacancy), I find it difficult to believe that it comes from a moral basis.
No one is able to explain why diversity is a good thing per se, why it's an end we should be striving to achieve, certainly not Dubya. He's simply nodding along with the elite, who, sometime in the 90s, discovered the magical blessings of diversity (which they assiduously avoid when choosing where to live or send their children to school). In short, Bush doesn't even know what he's saying.
Paleocon,
First. Diversity (active recruitment across ethnic, sex and class lines, in order to achieve balance, without compromise on qualifications; distinguish from affirmative action) is certainly a Bush policy. It would seem that it is a Bush preference. Perhaps you are right and it is a just cynical gesture for political advantage.
Second. I personally believe that diversity is a principled and wise policy. People in all groups benefit from this conscious choosing. Given our history of legal and social discrimination and, I believe, given the natural tendency of humans to place themselves in these categories, the appointer is well advised to consider the signal that the team sends out. Even wrongly, people draw conclusions about exclusivity. Often, sadly, these sort of conclusions are not false...
We are imperfect and this prudent, harmless policy sensibly forestalls needless conflict.
Charles
Charles,
You don't seem to be arguing why "diversity is a strength of our country," as Bush recently stated, but rather how the existence of diversity must be accommodated. It's a subtle, but, I think, important distinction.
Bush would annoy me far less if he simply stated a belief that all institutions of government should roughly represent different racial groups in the country. (Bear in mind, however, this would be a tacit admission that a "color-blind" society is impossible.)
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