Make it worth fighting for

Todd Zywicki has an interesting thoughts about the upcoming confirmation battle(s) posted at The Volokh Conspiracy:

So, the same nasty fight is going to occur regardless of who is nominated, and be just as nasty and expensive, regardless of who is nominated and the particular perception of whether he or she is moderate or conservative. So, it seems to me, the Bush Administration would be smart to simply nominate the best person that they want, and not be tricked into thinking that they can somehow avoid a nasty confirmation battle by nominating someone with a more 'moderate' perception. So if there is going to be a fight (which there undoubtedly will be), they may as well at least make it someone worth fighting for.

The is a certain amount of truth to this. It seems to me Democrats embraces a winner take all, no holds barred strategy for previous appointments (with reletively little success in the end.) This of course discourages the appoinment of a moderate candidate as an olive branch. Ironically, the full throated opposition to some of Bush's previous appointments may end up with Democrats getting a Supreme Court that they dislike more than what they would have gotten otherwise.