Supreme Court Confirmations Are as Messy as They Should Be

In the wake of Harriet E. Miers's withdrawal of her nomination to the Supreme Court, and with a looming battle over the confirmation of her successor, Samuel A. Alito Jr., there is a chorus of laments, in books and in the news media, that the process is broken.

There is nothing unusual about this hand-wringing. It occurs every time a controversial nominee inspires significant political opposition. The conventional wisdom is set out in books like Richard Davis's Electing Justice: Fixing

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