Not only is the notorious Senate slowdown for picking judicial nominees for appellate courts a waste of time, it may eventually be harmful to the views of those urging the slowdown. So says Jeffrey Rosen, an associate professor at George Washington School of Law and the legal affairs editor for The New Republic. His observations should make advocates on the left and right rethink their strategies and may even help the Senate pick up the pace.

Writing not long ago in The New York Times, Mr. Rosen points out that with the lack of opportunity for interest groups to shout about a Supreme Court nominee (the last court nomination was eight years ago), the groups have turned to the more populous federal appeals courts to make their cases, in particular the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia District. But arguing over whether a potential appeals-court judge would ignore Roe v. Wade or extend rights to gays makes no sense, he says, because, unlike the Supreme Court, “lower-court judges are required to apply Supreme Court precedents, rather than second-guess them.”

And he uses a great example of two friends and former law partners, both trained at the best schools and with successful careers and both nominated for the D.C. appeals court. John Roberts, a Republican, was chosen by George H.W. Bush, but never got a hearing in a Democratic Senate and his appointment lapsed when Bill Clinton took office. Allen Snyder, a Democrat, was nominated by Clinton in 1999 but a Republican Senate denied him a hearing. Mr. Roberts has now been nominated again and is again waiting. The point of the example is that here are two lawyers of opposing political views with high regard for each other and who, more importantly, trust the other to administer the law fairly, no matter their political outlook.

Mr. Rosen acknowledges that judges aren’t always so judicious, but the larger point is that hectoring nominees or slowing and trying to kill their hearings tends to force them further into their supporters’ camps, from where they might write opinions they would not have otherwise written. Clarence Thomas is one example of this, according to Mr. Rosen.

Certainly, the Senate has a duty to reject nominees its members believe are unfit, and President Bush may have nominated one of those in Texan Priscilla Owen, but as with most things in Congress, votes are almost never solely about the issue at hand. For the most active interest groups, nominees become a test of the question of “whose side are you on?” Mr. Rosen sums up the argument neatly as follows:

“[B]ecause a minority of extreme Republican and Democratic interest groups and judges refuse to accept the Supreme Court’s relatively moderate compromises on abortion and religion, our confirmation battles continue to be fought over the most extreme positions in the culture wars, which the American people have already rejected.”

Perhaps if nominees handed out the Times article before their confirmation hearings, the process would be easier for them and more helpful for everyone else.