Over the Edge

"They've pushed us over the edge"

So says a distraught Democratic loyalist about Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation, in this priceless piece -- "Call Up the Troops, Then Clean the Grill" -- by Hanna Rosin of the Washington Post.

But O'Connor's thoughtlessly provocative act has an up-side -- parties. That's because Moveon.org isn't waiting until President Bush nominates someone to replace O'Connor who might actually push the lefties over the edge (here's hoping). Instead it has told its troops to renew the "meet-ups." Rosin reports on two of them. At one,
Guests get to say why they came. One talks about the nature of liberalism, another about being comfortable with yourself. They are drifting. "Folks, we really want to focus on the Supreme Court," [the host] reminds them for the second time.
But it's hard to focus on the Court, since Bush has yet to nominate anyone. Without a name, the house parties must seem a bit like Hamlet without the Prince. Where does one focus the outrage? On a sentence the nominee wrote in a 1998 opinion about abortion; on an excerpt from a 1995 law review article about the meaning of the Establishment Clause; on the way the nominee looked at her law clerk in 1993? With this much uncertainly, there's little to do other than to call President Bush a fascist, and then move on to the important business of meeting people and talking the real Prince -- oneself.
Rosin gets to the heart of the matter here:
In an election, the broad outlines of the strategy are clear: Knock on doors, make phone calls, getting as many people to vote for your guy as possible. But the judicial nomination process does not welcome the activist style of democracy. Only 100 people get to vote. And President Bush gets to decide whom to nominate, period.

But no matter. For these folks, the "activist style" is an end in itself.