IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING:

Bush Keeps Role in Senate Fray Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind (Edwin Chen and Warren Vieth, May 22, 2005, LA Times)

As a White House meeting was breaking up recently, a chipper President Bush sidled up to Vice President Dick Cheney and Vermont Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, who had just discovered a mutual interest in .50 caliber handguns.

"Guess what we have in common," Leahy said to Bush.

"What — you're both bald?" Bush quipped.

Leahy, a liberal Democrat, saw that Bush was in good humor, and he sensed an opening. He pleaded with Bush to help resolve the bitterly partisan Senate impasse over his judicial nominations.

"We can settle this in an hour," Leahy said, citing three other leading senators he thought could work together on an agreement. But Bush wouldn't hear of it, the lawmaker said.

"Well, I hope you keep working on it, but I told [Reid] I was going to stay out of it," the president said, referring to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

As his rebuff suggested, Bush has assumed a public posture of bystander as the Senate barrels toward a showdown that is likely to have repercussions far beyond the issue of whether every presidential appointment to the federal bench deserves an up-or-down vote. [...]

As much as the president wants to see his nominees confirmed, the White House must guard against heavy-handed tactics that could offend senatorial sensitivities. "They are wisely leaving the Senate to debate its own rules," said Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.). "To lobby us would be counterproductive."

For instance, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), an independent-minded moderate who often is the target of heavy lobbying from the White House, has not heard from White House aides on the filibuster issue. "Rightly or not, senators are jealous of their prerogatives," she said.

Paul M. Weyrich, a conservative activist with ties to the White House, said: "Basically what the president is saying is, 'I really need these judges confirmed. How you work that out is up to you.'

The President has nothing to lose in this fight--just consider the potential outcomes:

(1) The moderates cut a deal that gives him the high profile nominees who matter to his base but leave him the obstructionist issue for the '06 midterm.

(2) The filibuster gets taken away for judicial nominees; he gets everybody; and the Democratic base is demoralized.

(3) The filibuster stays and he gets a fired up base and the issue for '06--after which election he stands to have 60 republican Senators anyway.

(4) Democrats just fold because they recognize the issue is deadly for them; he gets his nominees; and their base is distraught.

No wonder he's in such good humor.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 22, 2005 12:02 AM