I have to give Dana Milbank credit for making a very good defense of Dick Lugar and a very good critique of the campaign Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock has waged against him. I know there will be a lot of unseemly pearl-clutching in the Beltway when Lugar loses his primary on Tuesday. And a lot of it will be the same stupid crap we always hear about how awesome it is to have bipartisanship.. But Milbank focuses on the correct themes. Dick Lugar isn’t some mushy Republican who is constantly crossing the aisle to support Democratic priorities. His record of bipartisanship really has been about two things. First, he has been a leader on securing the nuclear stockpiles of the former Soviet Union and protecting all of us from the threat of nuclear weapons. Second, he has voted to confirm well-qualified judges appointed by Democratic presidents.
I think it’s fair to say that Dick Lugar is 80 years-old, he’s been in the Senate forever, he hasn’t lived in Indiana in decades, and it’s time for some new blood. Those are fair criticisms. But to run ads that blast him for being too friendly with the president and the Democrats when all he’s done is help usher in a new nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia and vote to confirm Obama’s two Supreme Court justices is really hitting below the belt.
It’s sad how politicized our judicial appointments have become. But you can’t ask a senator to filibuster or vote against every single Supreme Court justice that is nominated. Members of the opposition party need to work with the sitting administration prior to the nomination of new justices to assure that no one is put forth that they will find totally unacceptable. That’s how you make sure the other side doesn’t appoint people far outside of the mainstream. But you can’t just adopt a strategy of opposing every single judge that comes down the pike. If the two parties adopt that strategy, we’ll wind up with permanent vacancies on the Supreme Court, and our appeals courts will continue to be understaffed.
The Senate is a stupid, undemocratic elective body, but it does need to function for our government to work. Dick Lugar was bipartisan in that sense. The good sense. At least, he was on national defense and the courts. On everything else, he’s been supporting Mitch McConnell’s procedural war to the death.
