Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group

Nat Turner’s Execution

By Erik S. Root

Today, November 11th, is the 178th anniversary of the execution of Nat Turner. This event is significant in the history of Virginia, but also for the entire Union. The events that Turner set in motion likely caused the solidification of slavery in the South, which was not ended until the conclusion of the Civil War.

On an August night in 1831, Turner and a band of approximately 60 men went on a murderous rampage in Southampton County killing 65-70 white men, women, and children. The band of slaves and some free blacks slit the throats of men, women, and children. Some were decapitated. Others were thrown into bon fires. When people arrived on the scene, some were being eaten by wolves.

The event caused much anxiety in the state. Several militias were sent from Richmond, and even North Carolina, to the county seat at Jerusalem in order to quell the rebellion. By the time they arrived, however, Turner’s band was dispersed and the threat was gone.

Most of Turner’s men were quickly captured and put on trial. However, “General Nat” would remain at large for over a month. He literally hid in a hole in the ground near one of the sites where he and his men committed their violence, before he was accidentally discovered by a farmer.

What prompted Turner to become a leader of a slave rebellion comes to us through the pen of others. Turner himself left no surviving manuscript to justify what he did. What we know from such books as the Confessions of Nat Turner, is that his inspiration to violence stemmed from his religious conviction that God wanted him to free the slaves. He believed a February 1831 solar eclipse gave evidence to this divine command.

The violence alarmed none other than Thomas Jefferson Randolph, and his wife, Jane, who believed that the sin of slavery was somehow responsible for the acts committed in Southampton. Not to justify the acts of Turner, the Randolphs believed that slavery was an evil that should cease to exist.

The Turner insurrection was thus responsible for the most remarkable debate over slavery in the antebellum period. Led by Thomas Jefferson’s grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, the anti-slave forces came to the state legislative session prepared to lay the ground for gradual emancipation.

Unfortunately, Randolph, and the anti-slave forces, failed to secure a gradual emancipation plan for Virginia. No other state had such an open debate on slavery and the principles of the United States; no other southern state would consider the emancipation of the slaves in such fashion.

Turner’s resurrection did not secure the end of slavery, but in the end, served to further entrench the institution. His irrational act served as a convenient excuse to reject the rational presupposition “all men are created equal.”

Erik S. Root is chair of economic philosophy at West Liberty University. He is also the author of All Honor to Jefferson? and Sons of the Fathers: The Virginia Slavery Debates of 1831–1832

The Dress Code: The Personal Style of Public Women

By Nichola D. Gutgold

In October former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright unveiled her collection of fashion pins in the Tiffany and Company Gallery of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City. The pins, she said, helped her to communicate messages to those whom she met as secretary of state. Perhaps most famously, when meeting with then president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Secretary Albright wore a snake pin to subtly counter an Iraqi poem that described her as a serpent. She has continued to wear the pins—mostly costume pieces—and notes that they are a fun way to signal a mood for an event. Since what a public woman looks like—most often her hairdos and hemlines—is written about, unfortunately to the negligence of other more important information about her, it seems particularly wise and strategic that if you can’t beat the media you should join them by embedding a message in your style. Hearing about the display of Madeleine Albright’s pins, and her forthcoming book, Read My Pins, I started to think about other public women who have communicated—perhaps quite intentionally—important messages with their style.

The late Margaret Chase Smith, Republican senator from Maine always wore a fresh rose. When I visited The Margaret Chase Smith Library and Museum in Skowhegan, Maine, a worthwhile trip for anyone interested in women’s history, I saw the specially designed miniscule water holder that was rigged up to keep the flower fresh. A timelessly tailored, usually dark colored business suit or dress allowed her to blend into the male bastion of politics, but her touch of the trademark fresh rose, Senator Smith said “allowed me to remain ladylike” noted Angie Stockwell, Senator Smith’s longtime personal secretary and now the collection specialist. At the well appointed museum and extensive library, Ms. Stockwell also serves as a library tour guide, staff photographer, newsletter coordinator, and librarian.

As a senator, presidential candidate and now as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton consistently wears pantsuits. She wore skirted suits as a first lady, but perhaps as a sign of her relatively new found freedom to speak on her own behalf, not her husband’s administration, she now wears pantsuits. The emergence of the pantsuit into mainstream fashion for women in the 1970s coincided with the upswing of the women’s liberation movement. Is Hillary Clinton telling us that she has finally been liberated? Hillary Clinton even speaks about her pantsuits. After she won a New York senate seat, she recounted, in her victory speech, “Sixty-two counties, sixteen months, three debates, two opponents and six black pantsuits later, because of you, we are here!” And again in her Democratic National Convention speech in 2008, resplendent in a bright orange pantsuit she assuaged the raw nerves of her fervent supporters who were none too happy to see her lose the nomination to Barack Obama. She urged them to "unite as a single party with a single purpose." She appealed to the "sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits" –a nod to the young adult book series, and movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants to embrace Barack Obama as their candidate.

First Lady Michelle Obama, unapologetically continues to bare her impressively toned arms, most recently on the cover of October’s Prevention magazine, perhaps in an effort to remind women to be strong, to take care of themselves and to also signal that she isn’t likely to cover up just because some opinion columnists and pundits say she should. In Prevention magazine, Mrs. Obama describes her exercise and fitness routine and encourages women to continue to take care of themselves as they age. Also a style signal from our first lady, this one reminiscent of then vice presidential candidate Richard’s Nixon’s description of his wife, Pat Nixon’s “respectable Republican cloth coat” first Lady Obama frequently dresses in affordable J. Crew clothing, communicating, perhaps that in lean economic times, we all need to find places to save money. Like many first ladies before her, the fashion preferences of Mrs. Obama are being closely watched. CNN reports that there is a blog that tracks the first lady’s daily fashion choices.

The personal style of our public women has always been a fascination to the press and the public and some astute public women seem to be putting their messages where they’ll get the most attention. They are wearing them.

Nichola D. Gutgold is is Asssociate Professor Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University, Lehigh Valley Campus and author of the following books: Paving the Way for Madam President, Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News, and Almost Madam President: Why Hillary Clinton ‘Won’ in 2008.

What Went Wrong in Afghanistan?

By Elan Journo

Two hundred twenty-two Americans died in Afghanistan in the first nine months of this year--more than in all of last year, the bloodiest year of the war, up till now. After eight years of U.S. military intervention, the fighters of the Islamist movement are not only unbowed, but on the march. The Islamists (often misidentified by one of their favored tactics: terrorism) seek to impose the totalitarian rule of Allah's law worldwide--an ideal that entails smiting down infidels and subjugating others under sharia. And they're making headway. The borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan are the global nerve-center of jihadist operations, where mass-casualty attacks on Western targets are hatched.

From both liberals and conservatives we hear calls for an immediate withdrawal. President Obama, for his part, has dispelled hopes of achieving victory. A common view now holds that we must resign ourselves to a world in which the Islamist menace remains a fixture of our lives--a threat we might mitigate, but never eliminate. Some now tell us we should negotiate a settlement with the Taliban, bribing them to put down their arms, at least for as long as we keep doling out cash. Witness the emerging consensus that there's no military solution--not in Afghanistan, not in the wider conflict with Islamists.

How did America, the world's most powerful nation, find itself in this morass? A shortage of troops and resources? Reliance on a corrupt Afghan regime (a fact highlighted by the charges of massive election fraud, to name a comparatively tame example)? Some combination of these themes? No, the problem goes far deeper. Our post-9/11 policy--in Afghanistan and across the board--was subverted by a factor that few have thought to examine: the basic moral ideas that animate our foreign policy.

My colleagues and I reached this conclusion by looking at how Washington has directed the military and diplomatic response. The evidence (set out in our book) shows that our culture's mainstream ideas about right and wrong are what shaped our leaders' response to 9/11--from their failure properly to identify the enemy and its chief state-sponsors, to their goals for the Iraq and Afghan wars, and on down to the rules of engagement on the battlefield. These ideas have warped the prevailing conception of the "military option." In essence, the kind of war that our leaders believed was morally proper to wage entailed placing "compassion" ahead of the proper task of self-defense.

Take one example. To avoid affronting or injuring Afghans, Washington drew up lengthy "no-strike" lists including cultural sites, electrical plants--a host of legitimate strategic targets ruled untouchable. This handed the enemy a clear advantage--all the more so as the "no-strike" lists have grown longer. The Islamists exploit this policy (e.g., hiding in mosques and situating themselves in known no-strike zones). In response, Washington has misdiagnosed the problem (its own self-effacing rules of engagement) and further hamstrung our soldiers with ever more absurd restrictions. General McChrystal, who oversees Afghanistan operations, recently lambasted U.S. policy for being "preoccupied with protection of our own forces." (!) Instead he urges that they must minimize their time in armored vehicles and walled bases and "share risk, at least equally, with the people."

That's just a sketch of a tragic larger pattern underlying not just the efforts in Afghanistan, but our broader response to 9/11. A point we make in Winning the Unwinnable War is that the way out of the Afghanistan morass requires Americans to recognize how certain (allegedly) moral ideas have informed, and crippled, our policy--and to challenge those ideas.

Elan Journo is a fellow with the Ayn Rand Institute focusing on foreign policy. He is the editor of and chief contributor to Winning the Unwinnable War: America's Self-Crippled Response to Islamic Totalitarianism.

Obama as Hitler: The Perils of Historical Analogies in American Politics

By David B. MacDonald

Sad but true: comparing US leaders to Adolph Hitler hardly started with Barack Obama, and will no doubt continue well after he completes his two terms in office. In Wired magazine, Mike Godwin introduced his famous “Law of Nazi Analogies.” “As a Usenet discussion grows longer,” he argued, “the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.” Those using Nazism to analogize everything from abortion to the war in Iraq automatically lost the argument. This shopworn trump card signaled that one side had lost its imagination – its ability to come up with a convincing argument, or even a convincing accusation.

Such musings can be found well before Rush Limbaugh and company. One conservative commentator, when faced with the specter of a Clinton or Obama presidency last year, used fascism’s moral brush to taint the entire Democratic Party. Jonah Goldberg, in Liberal Fascism, published by Doubleday, claimed that fascism was always “a phenomenon of the left.” Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were fundamentally inspired by it when promoting New Deal and other public policies. Kennedy’s contribution to fascist aesthetics was to represent “a national yearning for ‘renewal’ and ‘rebirth,’ appealing to American idealism and calling for common sacrifice.” Hilary Clinton, the “first lady of liberal fascism,” drew “her vision from the same eternal instinct to impose order on society, to create an all-encompassing community.” Bill epitomized the “fascistic” forging of a “paternal bond with his ‘children’” in the same way Hitler created a bond with the German Volk. Obama is just the latest victim of this type of thinking, but it could just have easily have been Hilary. In fact Hilary might have been an easier target.

However, we must also be clear that Bush and Cheney were also routinely compared to Hitler – hence Godwin’s Law. A thread runs through this type of discourse: fear of too much government power where it doesn’t seem to belong. We can divide those who make such comparisons into two broad groups – a group who uses the comparisons for shock value, and those who actually believe them. Right now it’s difficult to separate which is which. However, it’s clear that there has always been an undercurrent of conspiracy theorizing in American politics which lends itself to fantastical accusations. Sociologist Peter Knight has traced this to America’s strong myths of individualism. In a country where a big state is seen to deprive people of their autonomy, the modern military industrial state provokes “a kind of low-level everyday paranoia that sees a hidden hand and a hidden agenda everywhere” he writes in his 2002 book Conspiracy Nation. Timothy Melley’s earlier book Empire of Conspiracy details a widespread problem of “agency panic”, where people are afraid of losing their sense of self in the face of modernization, technology, and a changing economic and social environment. Certainly America is seeing some big changes right now which lends itself to the sort of panic and mad accusations that Knight and Melley examine. If we adopt political commentator Andrew Sullivan’s suggestion, we might issue an annual award for “dumb Nazi analogies”. Comparing Obama to Hitler would no doubt clinch the prize for Limbaugh and his followers. However, there will be many more prize winners to come before this style of discourse runs out of steam.

David B. MacDonald is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Guelph and is the author of Thinking History, Fighting Evil: Neoconservatives and the Perils of Analogy in American Politics.

“Cash for Clunkers” Reinforces Congress has Learned Little from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

By David R. Breuhan

Unenlightened benevolence is the best definition that describes decade’s long involvement in government’s approach to solving social and economic problems.

A current program that meets this definition is “cash for clunkers.” After taking a majority stake in two of the three major automobile companies in the United States, the government is now paying individuals to buy cars from these companies. The Soviets tried this type of centralized planning for seventy years and failed.

This action ignores the basic function of markets in allocating limited resources to their most highly valued use. It also distorts economic incentives and makes it more difficult for auto manufactures to plan for future production based on a one time infusion of capital into the economy. Further, this action tempts consumers to purchase an automobile that they may not be able to truly afford or would wait to purchase based on their normal rate of savings. Apparently members of Congress ignored the lessons of “everyone should own a home.”

Government and Federal Reserve actions throughout this decade resulted in low interest rates, poor oversight and an environment of near hysteria as consumers with poor credit and no assets bought homes far beyond their means. The same institutions that displayed a dereliction of duty now press for additional authority to regulate the economic activity of citizens. If government could not handle the responsibility it already had, it cannot be trusted with additional duties. In short, the government is doing too much and too little at the same time.

Although the nation recently experienced a major shift in political power, social policies may have changed in Washington, but economic policies remain the same. Bound by depression era theories that savings is bad, government spending is good and imports must equal exports, policymakers press for a centralized interventionist approach to solve economic problems.

The average American, who is far above average, understands that the nation cannot continue on its present course and avoid financial ruin. As the national debt threatens to reach the gross domestic product in only a few years, distant thunder can be heard in the currency markets as major powers make contingency plans to diversify away from the once mighty U.S. dollar. Most citizens know that the nation is still on the wrong path and few politicians possess the wisdom to offer intelligent solutions.

David R. Breuhan is a Vice President and Portfolio Manager with Gregory J. Schwartz & Co., Inc. in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He is the author the forthcoming book Spread the Wealth: More Haves Fewer Have-Nots available in November 2009 from Hamilton Books.

Hillary Clinton is Exercising a Full Range of Rhetorical Roles

By Nichola D. Gutgold

That Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to the Congo is the big media story of her visit, but the negative press over her response to a student got more attention. As Secretary of State her rhetorical agility is noteworthy.

“Hill-ar-ree, Hill-ar-ree!” sang the South African men and women as they met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit aimed at restoring relations with South Africa. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has displayed many of the rhetorical skills evident during her first lady tenure, campaigns for senate and notable presidential bid. Only now, these skills are seen as universally positive attributes as she travels the globe in her effort to improve global relations. Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times writes: “Mrs. Clinton, who seems uncannily resistant to jet lag, visited two community housing projects and danced with children, lugged some rocks into a wheelbarrow, planted flowers, planted a tree…” Indeed, her stamina is now being appreciated.

As Americans seek, either by choice or necessity to work well into their seventies and eighties, preserving and promoting stamina are key goals that will promote success. Women in particular have had to maintain stamina as they are often unable to pursue or realize a full range of success until past child-bearing years. The following skills are useful to women as they attempt to build careers in male-dominated fields. They are three of the elements of Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric I identified in my study of her and they include:

Rhetorical Elasticity

As first lady of Arkansas she used her rhetorical skills to lead a task force to reform the Arkansas education system. As America’s first lady she stretched the rhetorical constraints of the role, becoming as important an actor in her husband’s administration as the president. She went on to run and win elective office as senator from the state of New York, and she became the first front-runner woman candidate for the presidency of the United States. All the while she had to stretch not only her own skills, but those viewing her were forced to stretch their perceptions of what a first lady could do. For women attempting to move out of the realm of traditional roles into new roles, they must have rhetorical elasticity to, for example, both dance with school children and argue international relations. Getting out of your comfort zone is a rhetorical imperative.

Media Savvy

Anyone running a political campaign must have a way with the press, or they are dead in the water. While we may not be waging a national campaign, we must be comfortable in the 24/7 world of news, ubiquitous nature of Facebook and Twitter and be willing to work in the world of media to create an image that is in keeping with modern media times. Hillary Clinton both used and was used by the media. We could all take a lesson from that. Being willing to put ourselves out there means that we may not always like what the media say about us. But knowing that we can’t beat them (media) so we might as well join them is a good credo.

Stamina

I believe that stamina rises from a sense of mission. Hillary Clinton was ridiculed, embarrassed, called to drop out of the presidential race, but she kept going. Her stamina must rise from a sense of importance of mission that goes beyond immediate discomfort. To be successful and to maintain stamina, we must find what it is that gives us a sense of mission and pursue it. Leaders lead. What inspires you to lead?

Hillary Clinton’s rhetorical journey and the lessons we may derive from it, are still unfolding. These are three lessons that anyone who wants to move in a direction yet unexplored should heed.

Nichola D. Gutgold is is Asssociate Professor Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University, Lehigh Valley Campus and author of the following books: Paving the Way for Madam President (2006), Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (2008), and Almost Madam President: Why Hillary Clinton ‘Won’ in 2008 (July 2009).

Beyond a Government of Strangers: How Bureaucrats Can Manage Presidential Transitions

By Robert Maranto

Ever so slowly, the new administration is forming. According to the Washington Post's Head Count, after six months 45% of President Obama’s Senate confirmed political appointees are finally serving, or at least on their way.

An "obstacle course" appointment process of endless financial reports, FBI checks, internal vetting to avoid political scandals and congressional scrutiny delays selection and confirmation of nominees, and discourages some of the best and brightest. Reformers want fewer political appointees, but that will not happen any time soon, and I'm not sure that it should. Appointees bring fresh perspectives to the bureaucracy, and run interference with Washington’s ever growing political industrial complex. After all, while the number of political appointees more than doubled from the 1960s to the 1990s, congressional staffs nearly quintupled; Reporters and lobbyists grew still more. Washington politics is a growth industry, and presidential appointments have lagged behind the rest of the sector.

Even so, the current system has its problems, with too many political appointees coming on board too late, and leaving before they have learned their jobs. So what can career executives do to ease the transition?

First, careerists must remember that that contrary to stereotypes, most political appointees are qualified. As one Clinton appointee put it, “every appointee has something you don’t,” most typically experience in business or at other levels of government. Second, career officials should put new appointees in touch with their predecessors of either party. Third, try to say yes, but if necessary, know how to say no. Most appointees really want to improve government. At the same time, not all their ideas will be feasible, or even legal. When you disagree with an appointee, explain why in terms of the law or external political forces, some of which might be changeable over the long term. Generally, treat appointees as humanely as possible, from the first orientation to the last farewell party. Put yourself in their shoes. Remember that someday, in the not too distant future, that GS-12 Schedule C may return as undersecretary. In Washington, just like the real world, it’s nice to be smart, but it’s also smart to be nice.

The normal political and managerial tussles between career and political officials are all too human, but need not be inhumane.

Robert Maranto is the 21st Century Chair in Leadership in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. He has authored authored numerous works, including Beyond a Government of Strangers: How Career Executives and Political Appointees Can Turn Conflict to Cooperation (Lexington Books, 2005). He served at the U.S. Federal Executive Institute in the Clinton years.

The Jakarta Bombings of July 17th

By Jeff Lewis and Belinda Lewis

The July 17th bombing attacks on the Marriot and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta revive the horrors of earlier assaults in Jakarta and Bali. It appears that the attacks of July 17 were perpetrated by pedestrian suicide bombers probably associated with one of the multiplying Islamist militant organizations that have appeared since the splintering of Jemaah Islamiyah since 2005. Suspicion has fallen most strongly on Noordin Top, who was one of the masterminds of the 2005 attacks in Bali. Thus, while JI's effectiveness has been severely compromised by funding problems, internal dispute and the arrest of senior members, the emergence of new militant groups continues to pose a significant threat for Indonesian security.

Moreover, the social, political and economic conditions that have contributed to the emergence of radical militancy in Indonesia have changed very little over the past decade. On July 8, 2009 Indonesia conducted its third parliamentary and presidential election since the fall of Suharto. While the election was relatively free and fair, governments remain constrained by the effects of corruption, inept civil institutions and a very uneven social infrastructure. As the ongoing legacy of the Suharto dictatorship, these institutional fallibilities also contribute to Indonesia's extreme poverty and broader problems with organized crime and extremist politics.

In the minds of many Islamist extremists, these conditions are directly linked to Indonesian secularism, and Indonesia's integration with the global economy and the impurity of western cultural values. The hotels that were attacked, as with previous targets, represent the apex of western incursions into a holy Muslim land.

Beyond this thinking, however, the July 17 bombings are clearly associated with Indonesia's complex economic, civil and cultural struggle—they are also associated with the responsibility of advanced western nations to help the Indonesian government and people to overcome these problems. It is not enough for developed world governments to rail against the perpetrators or simply deploy forensic experts to the crime scene. And it is not enough for Americans, Australians or Britons to contribute to the Indonesian tourism economy by visiting places like Bali, extract their relatively inexpensive pleasures, and return home suntanned and rejuvenated. It is, rather, our responsibility to work alongside the Indonesian people to establish effective social infrastructure and development models—and to offer our profound respect and gratitude for the Indonesian's grace and hospitality. Too often we advance on the territories and cultures of the developing world without due regard for our host's deep history and the complexity of their struggles.

The July 17 bombings are, among many other things, a symptom of our own deficiencies in this regard.

Jeff Lewis is a professorial research fellow in the Global Cities Institute, School of Applied Communications at RMIT University, Belinda Lewis is a researcher in health promotion and international health in the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University, and they are the authors of Bali’s Silent Crisis: Desire, Tragedy, and Transition.

Sotomayor's Confirmation Opens a New Battle in the "Confirmation Wars"

By Benjamin Wittes

First Latina Picked for Supreme Court,” read the Washington Post’s banner headline announcing Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the high court. “GOP Faces Delicate Task in Opposition.”

It is worth pausing a moment over the second half of this formulation. Only a few years ago, a Supreme Court nominee like Judge Sotomayor could expect quick, nearly unanimous confirmation. She is, after all, a long-serving appellate court judge who has also served on the federal district court bench, as a prosecutor, and as a private sector attorney; she has a stellar academic background. She is, in brief, qualified for the high court in every formal sense. The degradation of the judicial confirmation process has seen many watersheds—most recently, the refusal of most Democratic Senators to support conservative nominees of sterling credentials on the suspicion that the senators would disagree with their future votes. The Post’s headline, with its assumption that Republican opposition to a qualified Democratic nominee is simply a given, represents a recognition on the part of the press that the rules have fundamentally changed.

In the past, first-day headlines concerning a qualified nominee reflected the assumption that confirmation would almost surely follow. “In Pursuit of Conservative Stamp, President Nominates Roberts,” a typical New York Times headline read as late as 2005. “Judge Ruth Ginsburg Named to High Court; Clinton's Unexpected Choice Is Women's Rights Pioneer,” the Post reported in 1993. Even the battle royal over Clarence Thomas began with a whimper from the Post’s headline writers: “Bush Picks Thomas for Supreme Court.” To be sure, headline writers would sometimes note looming ideological fights when the editors saw one coming, as the Post did with Justice Samuel Alito and newspapers did with Judge Robert Bork. But this was not the norm. And they never simply presumed that the opposition party would inevitably oppose a president’s nominee and used a first-day headline to highlight the complexity of the project of opposition.

The change in journalistic expectations regarding nominations is not a creature of media bias or press sensationalism. It reflects reality. Based on recent trends in Supreme Court nominations, Sotomayor can probably expect a minimum of 30 votes against her, maybe more like 40; if she gets fewer, her good fortune will say more about Republican fears of alienating Hispanic voters than about a renewed outbreak of comity in judicial confirmations. She can expect, as well, highly contentious questions about everything she has ever written or said. She can expect a team of operatives to spend the next few months digging up dirt on her. And she can expect insinuations of perjury before the Senate Judiciary Committee to the extent that there is any tension between her voluminous judicial work and the words she speaks in the careful dance in which she will engage with the committee.

To put the matter simply, our system has gone from one in which people like Sotomayor, Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito are shoe-ins for confirmation to a system in which they are shoe-ins for confirmation confrontations.

I wrote Confirmation Wars three years ago because I was struggling with the question of why and how this change took place and what exactly America gets in exchange for the new presumptions we have collectively adopted, other than political battles that serve to energize both political bases. I remain convinced that the trade has been a bad one, one that offers only the crudest sort of check on executive appointments to the judiciary and that, along the way, puts nominees in the most untenable and unfair situations.

In the recent past, this argument has largely moved conservatives, for a Republican president was naming judges and Democrats in Congress and their affiliated interest groups were opposing them, deploying procedural tricks—some of them novel, some of them pioneered by Republicans during the prior administration—to block fair and timely consideration of nominees. Now, however, the tables are turned. A popular Democratic president with a strong Senate majority is naming judges, and Republicans are openly contemplating the adoption of tactics they only recently decried as unconstitutional. They will surely also adopt the premise that underlies the use of those tactics: That senators should aggressively question nominees for their views on contested legal questions and condition their votes to confirm the nominees on the answers they receive. The change in party control will, of course, produce comical hypocrisy among liberals too. They will suddenly discover a newfound appreciation for deference to presidential selections and for the obligation of nominees to remain silent in the face of precisely the sort of extortionate questioning they did so much to establish as standard fare.

In this environment, I suspect that one of the basic theses I advanced in Confirmation Wars will become once again evident: the change in the judicial confirmation process American has been experiencing over the past several decades is not fundamentally partisan in nature—an evil wrought by Democrats and liberals on the one hand or by Republicans and conservatives on the other. It is, rather, an institutional shift, a change in the Senate’s bipartisan and cross-ideological posture towards the executive and the judicial branches over time.

The current moment is a delicate one—one in which we will consummate the institutionalization of confirmation wars as a permanent feature of our political culture if we do not deliberately and self-consciously push back against it. We have to look ourselves in the mirror and ask some uncomfortable questions: Do we really want a political and legal culture in which the Washington Post quite reasonably regards it as so self-evident a reality that a highly qualified nominee will trigger the out-party’s opposition that it belongs in the first-day headline? Do we really want judges who, as a rule, take office having been roughed up by the political party opposite the president’s? Do we really prefer a confirmation environment in which neither President Bush nor President Clinton could place the highly-qualified judges of his choice on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to one in which that court would be enriched by the talented people of both parties to whom the Senate denied a vote? Do we really want to conduct an inquisition into the contents of a person’s soul before confirming that person to the bench? And do we really want to require that person to cooperate with the inquisition as a condition of consideration?

It is not inevitable that we do these things. We came to them through a series of unfortunate choices that altered—sometimes deliberately, sometimes unwittingly—a set of substantive and procedural confirmation norms that existed to protect the independence of America’s court system. While one can easily understand how growing judicial power over recent decades put enormous pressure on those norms, our modern confirmation process was a most unfortunate outcome. It offers dangerous opportunities for members of the Senate to pressure would-be judges for substantive outcomes once on the bench, and if offers dangerous temptations for nominees to yield to such pressure.

And eventually, a nominee will yield. Judge Sotomayor’s nomination takes place in the presence of a Democratic Senate majority strong enough that the pressure on her will be largely rhetorical; it will probably never threaten her ultimate confirmation. But sometime, probably sometime soon, a nominee will confront an opposition party capable, either by outright vote or by filibuster, of rejecting her and demanding reassurance on some substantive issue: abortion, same-sex marriage, executive power, affirmative action, or something else. And this nominee, after squirming and wriggling in the weird under-oath dance the Judiciary Committee now compels, will take the fateful step of addressing the questions directly and saying more than she should about how she thinks about contested legal questions.

Confirmation Wars was my effort to account for the road to this point—a road down which we have already driven far but along which, with a concerted bipartisan political effort, we could still begin to retreat.

Benjamin Wittes, senior fellow in Governance Studies at The Brookings Institution, and author of Confirmation Wars: Preserving Independent Courts in Angry Times, Updated 2009. His writings have appeared in a wide range of journals and magazines including Slate, The New Republic, The Wilson Quarterly, and The Weekly Standard.

Why Sarah Palin’s Unorthodox Road Will NOT Lead Her to the White House

By Nichola D. Gutgold

When Sarah Palin surprised the press and public by stepping down as Alaska’s governor, she said, “I’m not a quitter, I’m a fighter.” Though the timing of her announcement caused some observers to question if there was another motive, the stigma of quitting is more damaging to her than the unorthodox risk-taking she is describing as her choice. If she “never believed that I, nor anyone else, needs a title to do this - to make a difference... to HELP people” then why did she seek the office in the first place?

In my study of women and the American presidency two factors that significantly increase the chance of a woman president are perseverance and being governor.

Perseverance is one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid is so important to the trajectory of women and the American presidency. She was not a symbolic candidate and she persevered in the face of horrible ridicule and terrible odds. That she didn’t drop out of the race when the going got tough won her respect from even the staunchest Hillary Clinton detractors. When she spoke at the Democratic National Convention she quoted Harriet Tubman, the anti-slavery activist who risked her own life to save others. She said, “If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they’re shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” No doubt it was at least partly due to her tenacity that made President Obama believe she would excel as Secretary of State.

Secondly, the governorship is an important title, especially for an aspiring politician who is a woman. Though her circuitous and folksy style of speaking belied her title as governor, it was that very title, that distinguished her as a vice presidential candidate. It was a position that none of the three men in the top ticket positions (Obama, Biden and McCain) could claim. And it is governors who are most likely to become presidents—especially true for women because they need more credentials, not less to break through the glass ceiling. Barbara Lee, president of the Barbara Lee Foundation even created a guide, Keys to the Governor’s Office to help women running for governor. At first her interest was focused on women and the presidency, but she noted that “as I understood more about the paths to power, it was clear that electing a woman president would become a reality only after we unraveled voters’ complex reactions to a woman seeking full executive authority. Brenda DeVore Marshall and Molly A. Mayhead, editors of Navigating the Boundaries: The Rhetoric of Women Governors, note, “the increasing importance of the state governor throughout the history of the country, coupled with women’s steadily expanding the role in that office, demonstrates that the face of the governorship has changed. Research on women political leaders has revealed that examining women who are governors in America is a good place to start when identifying women most likely to make successful bids for the presidency. By quitting the most viable launching pad she had, Sarah Palin has taken herself off the path to the United States presidency.

Nichola D. Gutgold is is Asssociate Professor Communication Arts and Sciences at Penn State University, Lehigh Valley Campus and author of the following books: Paving the Way for Madam President (2006), Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (2008), and the forthcoming Almost Madam President: Why Hillary Clinton ‘Won’ in 2008 (July 2009). She specializes in examining the communication skills of women in male dominated fields.