Some initial jottings on "what next?"

I join Pat's last two posts in full, as I do Peter Kirsanow's post here, Scott Johnson's post here, Yuval Levin's posts here and here, and Jim Geraghty's posts here and here. I should also note Chris Beam's post here,and reitereate what we said after the last election (a memo I mentioned here): everyone in the House Republican leadership must go at the end of this Congress. A line must be drawn under the Bush-DeLay-Frist era; the voters are going to keep on punishing us until we do.

Dan McLaughlin has this at RedState, which I join with a minor qualification as to his point six, viz. to play for 2010 not 2012. Prior to the election, I made it very clear that my view was that if Obama wins, our strategy must take into account the permanent damage that the next administration can (and has, to a great extent, announced its intention to) do, and to that end, we should avoid thinking in purely partisan terms: it's not about when can the GOP next win, it's about patriotism, about damage control. To that end, a strategy should be formulated - consistent with McLaughlin's point seven - to use the tools that are available, such as Senate procedural tools, the administrative comment process, litigation challenging the administration on both constitution and applicable statutory grounds (paradigmatically the APA), and so forth to delay and derail the worst of the administration's agenda. It should go without saying, however, is that we can't just invent and pursue the sort of frivolous legal theories that the left used over the last eight years to attempt policymaking through litigation in cases such as FAIR v. Rumsfeld and Massachusets v. EPA.

Lastly, while I agree with much therein, I can't agree with A.J. Strata's post here to the extent that it relies on a flawed diagnosis of the Harriet Miers nomination. Strata cites a 2005 post where s/he complained that Miers' critics were sending the message that "impure conservatives cannot be allowed to participate in any meaningful or leading roles ... Only purebloods can be offered for positions of responsibility. If you are not a pureblood, then there is no depth the purebloods will go to knock you down as a mudblood." Well, I'm a mudblood too, and I didn't and don't see see it that way. While I agree with Strata that "[a]lliances are built on common ground, not demanding everyone toe the line," Miers had nothing to do with some kind of conservative loyalty test. The problem was that she was spectacularly unqualified for the position to which she'd been nominated; it was no more necessary to hold fire on her until the hearings than it would have been if Bush had nominated his CPA to succeed Alan Greenspan at the Fed. The Supreme Court is different. It isn't a patronage appointment; it was and remains vital that we send smart, capable judges with essentially settled - perhaps "matured" is a better word - judicial philosophies to the court. It was obvious to me and many others at the time that Miers had zero record demonstrating any of the relevant qualifications; the increasingly desperate defenses offered on her behalf if anything made her look even more abject; and the sight of some Republicans defending the indefensible was mortifying. What is more, we now know what the hearings would have been like: Jan Crawford Greenburg's inside account, Supreme Conflict, makes absolutely clear that the hearings would have been a hugely damaging fiasco. Whatever merits Strata's 2005 post may have had at the time, clinging to it now that its core assumptions have been falsified is untenable.