Let me be clear I advocated (and still believe) that the Democrats would have benefitted greatly from voting as a block against President George W. Bush’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts. I believed it reasonable for Roberts’ more recent papers and work to undergo scrutiny because, as the soon-to-be Chief Justice himself argued, you cannot really judge a person based on what they wrote decades ago. Nor can you base it on a very short judicial record - which was all the Senate Judicial Committee had to go on for recent work. It is a nice argument for someone who won’t show the bulk of his more recent work to then argue that the older work available isn’t a reasonable basis to make an opinion. It was a winning argument because the Democrats were unwilling as a block to call him on it.
That brings me to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin. As a matter of principle he should have voted against Roberts in committee - and he surprised a number of people with his vote. As a matter of practical politics, however, Feingold likely did the right thing. The Democrats, even voting as a block, couldn’t block Roberts short of a filibuster - and maybe not even then, since as Feingold observed Democrats had already given up the ghost on filibusters. Given a party unwilling to vote as an opposition party in a block - voting strategically for yourself, however regrettable, is justifiable. Russ is tacking right on this one so that he can prove (he hopes) enough ‘political moderation’ to have a viable presidential campaign in 2008.
Voting against principle for a greater practical good is a very tricky business. You better understand why you voted that way - and what it means to your adherence to principles in the future. It is easy, too easy, to become unprincipled with even the best of intentions. I hope that Russ Feingold knows what he’s doing. He’s among the few Democrats in the national picture that might. With his John Roberts vote Russ Feingold signals we may get a chance to find out.
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