Obstructing Justice

Once again the dems and libs in the Senate continue to hold up votes on the President's judicial nominees. The latest is the nomination of Thomas Griffith to the appeals court. This time the dems did not bother to show up for the committee meeting on Thursday. Not only cannot Bush nominees get an up or down vote, now they cannot even get out the committee. This is not about qualifications, it is about ideology and politcs as brought into the light in this IBD editorial.

"The other four had no excuse, except the claim expressed through aides that they were unwilling to debate and vote on the nomination with senior members in Rome. Committee rules require a quorum of 10 senators, so committee Chairman Arlen Specter was forced to cancel the proceedings and reschedule.

Of course, none of the committee Democrats, here or there, has any intention of doing anything but voting against Griffith in committee and then joining a filibuster against his confirmation on the Senate floor. And opposition to Bush's nominees has nothing to do with qualifications and everything to do with ideology.

Among these nominees was Miguel Estrada, described in a Nov. 7, 2001, borderline-racist staff memo to committee member Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as "especially dangerous, because he has a minimal paper trail, he is Latino and the White House seems to be grooming him for a Supreme Court appointment. They want to hold Estrada off as long as possible."

"They" are left-leaning special interest groups such as People for the American Way and the National Organization of Women."

I suppose that the dems that were in DC needed to get their talking points and instructions from their leadership. Again, let me state that this is not about qualifications, it is about ideology. Of course, you can see from the staff memo to Durbin, that the dems are beholding to cetain groups that want to shape the courts, but cannot get enough liberals elected to do so, so they are going the obstructionist route.

"Estrada, who had enough votes to be confirmed in the absence of a filibuster, remained in limbo for more than two years until this nominee, rated "well qualified" by the American Bar Association, gave up in frustration and withdrew his nomination for the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003.

Imagine the media feeding frenzy if a Republican had written that a Democratic nominee was "dangerous" because he was a "Latino." Or if a Republican pledged, as Kennedy did, "to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president . . . for any federal court" in the U.S.

Neanderthal? Does Kennedy consider Janice Rogers Brown, nominated to the D.C. Court of Appeals, the first black woman to sit on the California Supreme Court, re-elected with 76% of the vote, the daughter of an Alabama sharecropper, a Neanderthal?

Brown's crimes, apparently, include being (1) a staunch supporter of property rights, which she views as under assault by eminent domain abuses, (2) an articulate voice for limited government and individual freedom and (3) a black conservative."

It used to be that a "well quailified" rating by the ABA was sufficient to have a nominee confirmed. No longer, especially if that nominee is a conservative minority. The comments on Estrada and Brown are racist pure and simple. So when ever you hear some dem talking about diversity, you now know it means minorities that tow the leftist line.

It is time for Frist to go to the so called "nuclear option" and restore the Senate's original advise and consent role. - Sailor