Bringing Pat Buchanan on Meet the Press this morning to complain about how hurt the core Republican base was over the Bush nomination seemed like an attempt at guest-booking humor by Tim Russert, though we did get to enjoy Pat claiming an unidentified aide to John Sununu led him astray 15 years ago on the David Souter nomination.

So she is both filling the new "Evangelical seat" and suffering a backlash from Christian conservatives? Some days you just can't win.

I'm hoping for all the splits on the Right that I can get. But Miers is going to overturn Roe.

Orrin's right. She'll sail through to confirmation and then complete the 5-4 anti-Roe majority by charming ol' man Kennedy into going along. That's why the neocons are bummed, and that's why I'm bummed.

That's why I'm elated.

1) The plan should be not to overturn Roe immediately, but to overturn Doe and Casey. Don't let them talk about rape, incest, life and physical health and such phoney pro-death arguments. Rather make sure the other side is set up to defend abortion on demand, for social, cosmetic and economic reasons, at all stages of pregnancy. Why do we care that the states should not be allowed to ban abortion for compelling reasons? We know that almost none of them would do so in any event. The long- or at least medium-term plan should be to allow the states to do what they would do in any event, which is to cut back on elective procedures for trivial reason, by throwing in parental notification, counselling, and anything else to make abortion safe, legal and rare.

By taking this line, we let those people be the ones looking like unbalanced extremists. We have the initiative; we should be the ones framing the issues.

2) I continue to be unconvinced that many conservatives actually oppose this nomination, for all that the talking heads are beating this drum as I write. It appears that some conservatives are afraid that a new Court will actually overturn Roe v. Wade, and turn the middle against them.

As I have written, there is no need to overturn Roe; moreover, it is difficult to see how the opportunity to do so might arise. This is a Judicial Procedure 101 question. A challenge to the bedrock principles of Roe can't come to the Court until the abortion-on-demand progeny of Roe have been chipped away.

As more conservatives understand this, their opposition to Miers ought to tone down.

I agree that Roe won't be overturned immediately. It'll be chipped away as the 5-4 majority (with Kennedy) approves late-term abortion bans, snitch laws, etc.

Eventually the precedent will be whittled down to first-trimester legalization. Then they'll just get rid of it altogether.

Bummer. And I can see why the neocons are upset. They're mostly pro-choice, and they can't quite believe that Roe is gonna go.

I am in touch on a regular basis with red state evangelicals as part of what I do for a living. There are few opponents, a few more uncertain, most in favor, and almost as many very upset by the neocon attack on a woman who is seen as a sister in Christ. I expect this group to grow as time goes on.

I say overturn it immediately. All it takes is for the court to say, in any challenge to any restriction on abortion, that the restriction is constitutional because there is no right to abortion. There will be general uproar for a year, and then things will settle down. Massachusetts will find a state constitutional right to abortion on demand and one or two states will impose a complete ban. Most states will sort themselves out around the remarkably stable national consenus: more or less unregulated in the first trimester, banned in the third trimester except when the life of the mother is threatened, no partial birth abortion under any circumstances and parental notification for minors.

David's right. There's no coherent constitutional argument for revoking Doe and Casey and retaining Roe. All they have to say is that the Constitution is silent on the question of whether there's a right to abortion, or an enforceable obligation of mothers to care for their children; therefore states can legislate on the topic, as can Congress insofar as interstate commerce is involved, and such legislation will control.

Kennedy will resist outright reversal for a while. The Gang of Four will coax him into going along with nibbles at the precedent instead of a complete overturn.

Eventually not much will be left of the precedent and Kennedy will be persuaded to just get rid of it once and for all.

And then the right will enjoy the curse of getting what you want. The GOP's fanatic pro-lifers will start a jihad against every abortion everywhere. The policitical consequences will not be sweet for the right.