Game Theory was a favorite part of my MA studies in political science, but I went back to computer programming to make a living.
At one point, a few years before Axelrod’s Tournament, I almost wrote a paper working out the same problem of strategy-against-strategy, but left the university before completing it, thereby losing my claim to fame.

I disagree with you 100%.

A. No. Since 1900, there have been a half-dozen Democratic nominations to the Supreme Court who encountered more than token resistance:

1. Louis Brandeis
2. Hugo Black
3. Sherman Minton
4. Abe Fortas / Homer Thornberry
5. Sonia Sotomayor
6. Elena Kagan

Of whom only the 4th was rejected. And it’s not surprising there was resistance.

1. Brandies had no history on the bench and had been for years a prominent advocate in those social controversies which had landed in Court. It would be roughly analogous to a Republican president nominating John Whitehead in our own time.

2. Hugo Black had no experience on the bench bar a brief period as a small town JP. He was a member of Congress and a partisan of New Deal agencies at a time when the constitutionality of such agencies was an issue. Nominating him was brazen. He still received the votes of a majority of the Republican caucus.

3. Sherman Minton was a pal of Pres. Truman’s and his nomination was subject to much clucking in newspaper editorials. He’d been a member of Congress awarded by FDR a seat on the federal circuit court of appeals after he’d been voted out of office, rather like the character Lucky Lucky Louis Sears in The Ugly American. Again, he still received the votes of a majority of the Republican caucus.

4. The nomination of Fortas to the position of Chief Justice (and Thornberry to replace him as Associate Justice) was the consequence of a scheme of dubious legality hatched by Earl Warren. Warren forwarded to Lyndon Johnson a contingent letter of resignation: I leave once a successor is confirmed. The idea was a hedge: If Johnson’s nominee was approved, Warren could retire. If the Senate blocked Johnson’s choice, Warren’s 77 year old tuchus would still be in place if the Republicans took the presidency in November. Fortas had originally been approved with scant opposition, but the antics of the Warren Court had been such that the thought of Lyndon Johnson’s henchman running the place provoked revulsion among Republicans and Dixiecrats in the Senate. Johnson was compelled to withdraw the nomination for a deficit of support, and Thornberry was collateral damage. The next year, knowledge of skeevy dealings on the part of Fortas and his wife (who was also an attorney) came to public attention and he elected to resign from the Court rather than face impeachment proceedings. At that point, Earl Warren gave up and retired.

5. Sotomayor was known to have engaged in procedural scamming around with civil rights cases which came before her. Also the context: of the seven most recent Republican nominees, three had faced campaigns of defamation by Democratic members of Congress and associated pressure groups and one other had withdrawn over public knowledge of minor drug use.

6. Kagan had zero history on the bench (and, again, the context).

I certainly agree French is clearly above the Boots and Rubins of the world. But I would differ with you in that he should be held to a higher standard because of it. If Boot or Rubin changed their tune about Trump tomorrow, nobody would care. The political establishment would roll on without pause.

However, if David French were to loudly and forcefully advocate for Donald Trump when Trump does the same things French would cheer any other Republican President for doing, even while still fiercely denouncing Trump for French’s perceived character flaws, people would care. They’d care either that French was saying those things or they’d care when he got shut out of the public discourse for saying those things.

The problem with David French is not that he condemns or fails to praise Trump or that he doesn’t appreciate the nature of today’s political conflict. The problem is that David French obstinately refuses to even consider WHY Donald Trump ended up President. As I referenced, he and those like him seem to regard it as this cosmic fluke with no rhyme or reason. It’s just something that happened and if we can make it “unhappen,” then all will be right again with the world.

The truth is that for all the battles won by men like David French and George Will, there were other battles they were refusing to fight and they were losing the overall war. THAT’S why we got Trump and that’s a painful truth for someone like David French to acknowledge. His reluctance to do so doesn’t anger me. But Trump is going to be gone either by 2020 or 2024. If men like French still haven’t learned their lesson, the next person to ride up on that White Horse could make Donald Trump look like a member of the League of Women Voters.

So either they learn or they have to be replaced as political/cultural leaders. There’s no alternative.

Mike

No, there haven’t been.

Two questions come to mind in response:

Q1: Have there been any recent (read: since Robert Bork) right-of-center Supreme Court nominations that weren’t subject to hysterical accusations and innuendo by the left? (And by “the left” I mean: Actual elected officials and well-known, large-audience spokespersons for the left, not random low-audience wingnuts.)

Gorsuch’s grilling was less-bad than others because he was replacing one of the most conservative jurists and, consequently, was viewed as either status quo or possible improvement. Even so, he got filibustered.

Q2: Have there been any recent (read: since Robert Bork) left-of-center Supreme Court nominations that were subject to comparably hysterical accusations and innuendo by the right? (And by “the right” I mean: Actual elected officials and well-known, large-audience spokespersons for the right, not random low-audience wingnuts.)

I raise these questions because, while you didn’t state it explicitly, it seems that your question could imply an equivalence between the left and the right regarding the norms of SCOTUS nominations. And that, to my mind, would be an untenable view.

Yes, I am certain about this. It remains true even if they admit a dozen people consequent to some sort of corrupt practice. They admit 1,000 others consequent to grades and test scores. They’ll relax admissions standards for minorities, but in that case, they get people better suited to the academic pacing at a state research university, not dolts.

And Kirsten Gillibrand was admitted to Dartmouth 35 years ago, so I’m not seeing how recent scandals are relevant to her case.

My point is that you are giving these particular Senators way too much credit. T

And my point is that you’re talking rot and misidentifying the problem with them.