Dems will smear O'Connor's replacement nominee

The retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has turned what was sure to be a slow news summer into what looks to be quite a sideshow. Since she voted with the right on come issues and with the left on others (especially abortion), her replacement will be of paramount importance to both the left and the right.

Well, Dennis Prager knows that unless the replacement nominee is a liberal (fat chance), look for liberal slimeballs to trash the nominee with the Bowel-Movement-dot-org...er, Move On dot org...crowd front and center. He notes:

It will not matter how personally honorable, how intellectually honest, how legally profound this nominee is. Indeed, the greater the individual, the greater the personal attacks will be.

Why?

There are three reasons.

First, Democrats believe that conservatives by definition are bad people. As Howard Dean, the head of the Democratic National Committee recently said, "in contradistinction" to Republicans, Democrats care if children go to bed hungry at night. In most Democrats' minds, conservatives/Republicans do not care if children go to bed hungry, and they are racist, intolerant, regard women as inferior, are stingy and mean spirited, and prefer war to peace.

The reason they see conservatives this way is that most people on the Left are certain that they mean well; therefore their opponents do not mean well. Moreover, liberals tend to assess policy positions on that basis -- are the motives good? -- rather than on the basis of what actually does good.

Judge me by my intentions, not my results. Hey...let me try that with my boss at work! "Sir, I missed the deadline, but I really wanted to make it!" According to liberal logic, this will earn me a raise. Continuing:

A second reason Democrats and others on the Left use smear as a political weapon is to avoid challenging ideas and intellectual argument. Liberals have been able to do so in all the areas they dominate -- academia, news media and unions. Instead, they have learned to rely on personal attacks, such as routinely labeling opponents "racist," "sexist," "homophobic" and "intolerant."

Third, having been unable to persuade the American public to adopt most of its policies, the Left has increasingly relied on the courts to do what the political process will not do. As Democrat William A. Galston, former aide to President Bill Clinton, admitted this past weekend, "Beginning in the 1950s, the Democratic Party convinced itself that, especially on social issues, the principal vehicle of advance would be the court."

Therefore, nearly all the Left's eggs are in the judicial basket. It knows: no liberal courts, no liberal agenda. When combined with moral contempt for conservatives and an inability to persuade the public, the Left must retain the Supreme Court at any price. And that price is the good name of good people. As you will see.

I've said since this blog was started that liberals fail to convince the elctorate of their ideas and policies, so their sole hope lies with the judiciary. Clinton's aide Galston admits as much. If the judiciary is removed from their policy-making radar screen, they're screwed. Liberals know that, so they will fight mightily to keep it from happening.