And I think there are folks in the White House ready to receive that pitch,

One of the great ironies of this nomination is that it requires the White House machine to stop and spin in the opposite direction than they did in Roberts.

We want the president to pick another solid conservative, and that's what we expect him to do.

The left is trying to send a message to the White House: Don't send us anyone more conservative than this.

Conservatives want someone with a clear, written record. The Roberts hearing has been superb as a technical, tactical matter, but it's left some people in despair and just clamoring for someone with a written record. The left keeps asking, 'What does the right know that we don't know?' Well the truth of the matter is, we don't know anything. We're all being asked to take a leap of faith.

The nomination of a nominee with no judicial record is a significant failure for the advisers that the White House gathered around it. However, the president deserves the benefit of a doubt, the nominee deserves the benefit of hearings, and every nominee deserves an up-or-down vote.