The Washington Post Plays the Blame Game

In an editorial on the judicial nomination mess, the Washington Post continues playing the blame game.

The WP’s general advice — “seek an accord that would reestablish some comity in the process” rather than “forc[ing] through his own nominees” — is unexceptionable, and even its recommendation not to resubmit recently rejected nominees is worth considering. The WP’s preference for “nominees everyone could regard as above political dispute” may even have some merit, although it would seem to insure an unwelcome amount of blandness. In any event, it is a bit difficult to imagine President Bush refraining from nominating someone he admires because some Democrats will raise a “political dispute.”

My problem with the edit is not so much its recommendations as the selective nature of its blame-game history. In the WP’s view, the current impasse began with the “way President Clinton’s judicial nominees had been treated,” which gave rise to “legitimate Democratic anger.” Presumably this anger was so legitimate that it excused, or even justified, the treatment Chairman Leahy meted out to Bush nominees, since that treatment was never mentioned in the edit. Instead, the next chapter of the problem occurred when Bush, insensitive to the legitimate Democratic anger, “tried to proceed with judicial nominations as though the mistreatment of the Clinton nominees had never happened.”

Leave aside the historical question of whether the mistreatment of Clinton’s nominees might itself have been the at least understandable, if not legitimate (apparently, only Democrats can have legitimate anger), response of Republicans still angry over the mistreatment of Robert Bork. The WP is asking Bush to ignore whatever anger he and Republicans may have about the mistreatment of their nominees out of deference and sensitivity to the “legitimate” anger the Democrats felt over the mistreatment of Clinton’s choices.

The advice itself is not bad. The Senate is already far enough along in the nursing of grievances that are approaching Balkan in depth, and it would be good to break the cycle. But I suspect the advice would be more welcome if it weren’t built on such a selective rendering of the history that has kept the cauldron of partisanship boiling.