I can’t understand why liberals are acting like they will be able to block President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee. No matter who Bush picks, he or she is likely to be confirmed. As James Taranto pointed out, “[n]ot since 1968 has the Senate blocked confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee while the president’s party held a majority — and that was a lame-duck president
and a very different Senate.” Matthew Yglesias recently made a similar point, noting that “[t]his is basically a battle the Democrats lost last November — you can’t block bad stuff if you don’t have the votes, and Democrats don’t have the votes.” It’s the same pattern we’ve seen over and over again since 2001 — the combination of Republican votes and vulnerable red state Democrats is virtually unstoppable.

The problem is that we tend to forget the underlying factors that drive most political outcomes. We tend to attribute the defeat of judicial nominees to various scandals or ideological positions rather than the configuration of the Senate relative to the presidency. But many of those nominees would have been confirmed under different circumstances. “Scandals” are largely the creation of institutions. Congressional committees and the media investigate nominees, creating the raw material for scandal, and political parties provide a mechanism for coordinating opposition to a nominee around a set of talking points. If enough people don’t agree that a scandal exists, then it doesn’t exist. Conversely, as we’ve seen many times, “scandals” can be manufactured out of virtually nothing.

The same reasoning applies for presidents. Consider the difference between 1995-2000, when Bill Clinton faced a hostile Congress that investigated him mercilessly, and 2001-2004, where the Democrats have been powerless to use committee resources to investigate the Bush administration except for a brief period when they controlled the Senate. “Scandal” production was much higher from 1995-2000 for reasons that seem unrelated to the relative conduct of the two administrations.

What’s ironic is that Republicans surely realize they are likely to win, but they have no incentive to say so, because it only raises expectations of victory. Portraying the fight as difficult makes it possible to declare a great victory when President Bush triumphs in the end — a boost they need given how badly he has been pounded over the last few months.