Will the Republicans never learn how to nominate a judge? This editorial from Newsday is right on the money. Some highlights:

The blast of Republican invective that followed Estrada's decision was probably inevitable in the run-up to next year's presidential election. But if the goal is to fill court vacancies and not just make points with the Republican right wing, then President George W. Bush blew it in a way that bodes ill for any Supreme Court nominations on his watch.

Bush should have advised Estrada not to stonewall legitimate Senate inquiries. And he should have allowed senators a look at Estrada's legal writings from his time in the solicitor general's office. Lacking any real sense of what Estrada thinks about the legal issues of the day, senators were right to block his appointment to the powerful U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Stealth nominees shouldn't be rewarded with lifetime jobs on the federal bench. Neither should nominees with ideologies outside the broad mainstream of political thought, like the handful currently being blocked, as Estrada was, by Democratic filibusters.