The Confirmation Mess.

• Author: Baker, Ross K.

Stephen L. Carter has received much favorable attention lately for his book The Culture of Disbelief, a lament over the disappearance of religion from American political discourse. The country's most prominent Protestant layman, Bill Clinton, bought Carter's book in Martha's Vineyard last summer, kept it near his desk in the Oval Office, and mentioned it on several occasions. But it is always difficult to find out whether presidents actually read the books they conspicuously talk about. l remember a story that James MacGregor Burns told about meeting with Jimmy Carter after the president had publicly praised Burns' book on leadership. In the course of the conversation, it became quite clear to the author that Carter either had not read the book or (perhaps worse) that the president had read it but totally missed the point. This is an enduring problem, for to be known as a reader of writers such as Reinhold Neibuhr, John Rawls, or Robert Nozick seems to make politicians feel that they are men of many parts. I once worked for a senator who was asked what his favorite novel was. The Best and the Brightest, he replied.

When a book receives a president's public endorsement, however, it tends to be taken fairly seriously because there is an assumption that it might influence his policies. Stephen Carter's newest book, The Confirmation Mess, will probably not be the subject of any public praise by Clinton since it is highly critical of the way presidents choose and package their nominees for high posts. And Carter reserves even more severe criticism for the way the Senate confirms or rejects those nominees.

Prominent in Carter's catalog of flaws in a nomination/confirmation system that has produced debacles such as the Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas hearings and the serial executions of the nominations of Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, and Lani Guinier is the system's current presumption that a presidential nominee should, by and large, be guaranteed Senate confirmation. This school of thought holds that presidents deserve "their own team."

Yet Carter advises that we turn this presumption of confirmation on its head and instead force nominees to tell us why they are qualified. It is an intriguing thought, but would make it difficult for presidents to pay off their big contributors with ambassadorships to Barbados, Costa Rica, Ireland, and the Court of Saint James. It would have spelled doom for Harry Truman's nomination of Perle Mesta to Luxembourg and...