The Melody Townsel Gambit and the SCOTUS Nominee
hughhewitt.com, July 2, 2005
Remember Melody Townsel? She made a charge against John Bolton which was disseminated via Kos to the blogs of the left and then into MSM. Townsel was discredited, but she bled Bolton a bit.
As I discussed in the post below, the left will use the "return of Lochner" rhetoric as a smokescreen for its real strategy for defeating a nominee, which is the Townsel Gambit times a hundred. The nominee can expect the left, harnassing the energy and fanaticism of MoveOn.org etc and using the technology of the web, to identify, canvass and interview every member of the nominee's high school, college and law school classes, plus associates at law firms and past clients as well as lawyers who have appeared before the nominee's court. The close family and extended family of the nominee and spouse will get the same going-over. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear from "friends" of the nominee's younger sibling, or a first year associate or summer clerk in the nominee's former law firm the year the nominee left for the bench. Of course every former government associate will also be a potential mark. And every conference the nominee attended will be analyzed for potential witnesses who will place the nominee in a bar with a stranger.
In short, this is going to be very ugly because the left will commit itself to winning at any cost, and if it takes a dozen Melody Townsels peddling two dozen slanders each, then that is what they will try.
Expect as well the demand for documents that cannot be produced or will not be produced under long standing precedents. That will not succeed in and of itself, but again delay will be the objective until the willing witnesses are found and coached. Like Bush's DUI in the 2000 campaign, the biggest charge of all will drop just as the hearings come to a close, with the left hoping to force another round of hearings as happened with Justice Thomas.
The best defense here starts with the combination of a thoroughly scrubbed nominee and vigilance of new media on the center right and perhaps even skepticism of legacy media of sensational charges (unlikely). The key, though, will be speed. Senators Frist and Specter need to establish a schedule, stick to it, and alert the public from day one that a filibuster will be met with the constitutional option after 100 hours of debate following the conclusion of the hearings. The longer the process drags on, the greater the chance to invent and deploy Townsels. The more specific the schedule and the notice on the constitutional option, the greater the attention of the public and the scrutiny of would-be Anita Hills.
It would also be useful to start reminding people that there have been more than 300 recess appointments of judges in the country's history, beginning with George Washington, and including appointments to the Supreme Court. Eisenhower used recess appointments to put Chief Justice Warren, and Justices Brennan and Stewart on the bench. If the Senate gets roiled by procedural obstructionism, President Bush should be prepared to place his nominee on the court and allow the process to catch up with the new Justice sometime before the end of 2006. |
