Bush, At Best, Bunts

Ever since now Chief Justice Roberts announced that he saw a judge’s role, his role, as an umpire, sports analogies have abounded. They continue. Thus, this morning Prof. John Yoo of the Boalt Hall (Berkeley) law school:

President Bush stepped to the plate yesterday to nominate a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. He leads a party with 55 votes in the Senate and has just appointed to the Supreme Court a conservative chief justice widely hailed as one of the most qualified nominees in recent memory.

The president swung and missed.

There are, of course, other views. At the moment I lean to the view that, relatively deep in enemy territory, he punted on third down. At best, in what may the most important game of his world series, with a bench deep with proven and popular long-ball hitters eager to get into the game to help him out, he called upon an unknown (to anyone but himself, the team owner) second (third?) stringer to try to scratch out a bunt.

The real damage here is not the possibility that Miers-the-bunter won’t make it on base, or that she will not be available to score a run if someone else gets a good hit. It’s that, given all we now know, she won’t be hitting any long balls herself.

To abandon these metaphors before they (and I) sink, Bush’s reputation is the real victim here, and of a self-inflicted wound. As Yoo and Todd Zywicki and Randy Barnett and others have said much better than I, Bush squandered the opportunity to add weight and substance to the movement for conservative legal reform.

Too bad, because he coulda been a contender….

Say What?