Hangin' Tough 30-Hour Marathon Shameful Senate Debate Part #5

[Tatiana]

Lindsey Graham (R - South Carolina) contending Democrats are asking unfair questions of nominees.

Well, gee... sorry for not rubberstamping every single nominee! I guess confirming 98% instead of 100% of Bush's nominees is being 'obstructionist.'

Here's a nice editorial about this whole sorry saga:

Editorial: Senate talkathon/Hot air on judicial nominees

Published November 13, 2003 ED1113A

Most U.S. senators talk too much as it is. The last thing they should want is a chance to reinforce their reputations as windbags. Yet even as you read this, Senate Republicans are staging a 30-hour gabfest to make a silly point. What are they bleating about? The simple fact that, out of the scores of judicial nominees President Bush has submitted for Senate confirmation, Democrats have rejected four.

No question, the point is worth debating -- for an hour or two. But that kind of back-and-forth has already occurred. Anyone who has listened knows that, in the three years since President Bush took office, Senate Democrats have confirmed 168 judicial nominees -- more judges than Ronald Reagan got approved in his first four years. That Democrats have objected to four nominees is hardly worth mentioning when you consider what the Republicans did during the Clinton years: They refused to approve 60 judicial candidates -- often without citing any reason at all.

<snip>

What's so troubling about this small group? Democrats consider each nominee too outlandish on matters of legal theory to qualify for the bench. Take California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, for instance, whom Bush wants to move to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Her appointment has yet to be voted on. She has repeatedly challenged the high court's doctrine of incorporation, which for decades has obliged states -- not just the feds -- to honor the Bill of Rights. Brown recanted that view at her confirmation hearing -- always a worrisome sign -- but hasn't been able to live down earlier comments that court rulings upholding the New Deal marked "the triumph of our socialist revolution." This isn't the sort of dispassionate respect for precedent Americans expect in their judges.

(more on Carolyn Kuhl and Priscilla Owen as well...)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/4209144.html