Underneath the robe: What's really going on with Bush's judicial nominees

Joseph O. Patton writes by Joseph O. Patton
Editor and Publisher
Capital City Free Press
http://www.capcityfreepress.com

What's the difference between a litter of puppies and Republicans in the U.S. Senate? Puppies stop whining after six weeks.

If I hear another word emanate from Senate Repubs about their Democrat colleagues blocking George W. Bush's nominees for federal judgeships, I'm gonna spit up my coffee. For months now, they've whimpered and sniveled incessantly like neglected lap dogs, claiming in shrill tones that their Democrat colleagues are causing the wheels of justice to grind to a halt due to batting down Bush's appointees to various federal appellate courts like a bad Tom Brady pass.

They complain and bawl that the central government's appellate court system will suffer irreparably due to Bush's sweetheart nominees being jilted in the Senate by those pesky Dems. I hate to allow the facts to get in the way of their pity party, but here goes....

The Dems are simply doing their job. The entire premise of having the Senate confirm or discard the president's judicial nominees is so that the president cannot dole out jobs to unqualified, extremist or simply nutty individuals like an emperor running amuck, abound by the other branches of government. Darn those silly "checks and balances!"

For example, let's take Charles Pickering, one nominee shot down by the Dems, who was calling for an outright, no exceptions, constitutional ban on abortion. Any thoughts on this, ladies?

Secondly, the numbers don't lie, even if you engage in Bush's infamous "fuzzy math." Senate Dems have only filibustered the nominations of four (that's right, you can do that calculation on one hand) Bush nominees, bringing the grand total of the president's nominees blocked by the Senate to an earth-shattering six (still just one hand and a finger). Two were not given hearings. But if you listen to the Repubs tell it, they would have us believe that piles of dust are collecting on the benches of appellate courts from coast to coast and moth balls are overrunning all those unused judicial robes due to the alleged lack of judges.

And no such drama would be complete without an elephant-sized dose of hypocrisy. Though the Repubs claim that their Democrat counterparts are killing the possibility of every pending judicial nominee (a total of six in case you missed the paragraph above), the Senate as a whole has confirmed a whooping 98 percent of Bush appointees thus far for a total of 168 judicial confirmations. To put it into proper prospective, there are fewer federal judgeships vacant now than at any time during the past 20 years.

In contrast, many of the same Repubs who are crying because the Dems are merely doing their jobs, blocked an unforgivable 63 such nominees during Bill Clinton's tenure. Most of these appointees never even received a hearing in the Senate. Please note the glaring gap between the number six and 63. I hope you're keeping score.

As already shown, if Bush sends competent and qualified (i.e. not right-wing loonies) judicial nominees to the Senate, their nominations will sail through without any notable blood-letting. So don't buy the Republican spin on this one unless you're just itching to get ripped off.

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printed from Underneath the robe: What's really going on with Bush's judicial nominees on 2004-06-03 15:06:52