Charles Krauthammer wishes that Bush would withdraw this nomination of Harriet Miers and expresses what a lot of conservatives are thinking about having wanted to have a confrontation over constitutional interpretation and judicial ideology.

By choosing a nominee suggested by Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and well known only to himself, the president has ducked a fight on the most important domestic question dividing liberals from conservatives: the principles by which one should read and interpret the Constitution. For a presidency marked by a courageous willingness to think and do big things, this nomination is a sorry retreat into smallness.

I must admit that was anticipating such a confrontation myself and thought that the hearings of a Supreme Court nominee would have been a good education for the public on the differences between conservatives and liberals on judicial thought. I think that that is a contest that the conservatives can win if they can get their message out, but that is unlikely to happen except in the spotlight of a Supreme Court nomination.

Mickey Kaus has another recommendation. Instead of pursuing a stealth confirmation strategy, he advises that Harriet Miers should seek out such a confrontation.

Conservatives, a D.C. Republican friend tells me, wanted a fight over the O'Connor seat for its own sake--and not just for tacky fundraising and self-promotional reasons. They think they represent the majority position on judging; they needed a confrontation to draw the line and prove it. Plus a confirmation battle would be "consciousness-raising," as we used to say on the left, serving (in theory) to actually increase their ranks.

One reason the Miers nomination is in trouble on the right, then, is that it denies conservatives this instructive battle. It follows that a perverse-yet-promising strategy for Bush might be to give the 'wingers what they want. Have Miers make some unnecessarily provocative right-wing noises during her testimony that gratuitously outrage liberals. A noisy confrontation would ensue. Then the liberals would be happy (they'd have something to say) and conservatives would be happy (they'd achieve their educational purposes).

Arguably Miers gets more votes this way than by pursuing a "stealth" course. Certainly she gets more enthusiastic support from Republicans, and Bush may get more political benefit. ... Plus the ideological donnybrook would overshadow the cronyism issue, where Miers is most vulnerable.

Such a debate in the context of the hearings is what hurt Robert Bork, but Miers isn't as vulnerable as Bork was and the GOP does have a majority in the Senate. I can't see her taking such a risk, but it certainly would enliven political discussion. However, I don't expect the Bush team to take this advice any more than they took conservative writers' and bloggers' advice before he chose Miers. Too bad.