Hentoff: Bush MIA on Judicial Appointments
The Bush administration is losing its battle to nominate
experienced, capable and diverse candidates to the D.C. Court of Appeals, as
Democrats filibuster one qualified candidate after another to keep the full
Senate from a floor vote.
But it doesn't have to be that way, says Village Voice columnist and
constitutional scholar Nat Hentoff.
"I don't know why Bush is reticent in pushing this," he told WABC Radio's
Steve Malzberg on Sunday.
"If this had happened under Ronald Reagan or under Harry Truman, they would
have been on television more than once" explaining that what the Democrats are
doing is unconstitutional.
Sens. Schumer, Kennedy and Clinton have led the charge, blocking full floor
votes for Charles Pickering, Priscilla Owens and Miguel Estrada, who finally
withdrew his name earlier this year after being strung along for 22 months.
Now a similar battle is looming over the nomination of Judge Janice Rogers
Brown, who, says Hentoff, is eminently qualified.
"I've rarely seen such a sharp legal mind - and clarity," he told Malzberg,
based on his reading of more than 20 of Judge Brown's opinions. "I've rarely
seen a judge since William O. Douglas who writes so well so that people can
understand it."
Hentoff warned that there's too much at stake to let the Dems do to Brown
what they did to her predecessors.
Democrat insinuations that Charles Pickering is a racist were particularly
galling, he said, since "he is being supported by most of the black leaders in
his home state of Mississippi, including NAACP officials - and even including a
reverend who runs Jesse Jackson's Operation Breadbasket."
"This never gets into the media," complained the longtime liberal.
Why are the Democrats willing to go to the mattresses to keep these qualified
candidates off the federal bench?
The D.C. Circuit Court has gained the reputation as the "feeder" court for
nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judges Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and
Ruth Bader Ginsburg served on the D.C. Circuit Court.
It's far easier for Dems get away with blocking nominations to the lower
court - a process most Americans are oblivious to - than it would be if Bush
were to tap an Estrada, Owens or Brown for the high-profile Supreme Court.
In the end, however, the Schumer-Kennedy-Clinton strategy could produce
unforeseen results, warns Hentoff.
Citing a recent survey of top lawyers and judges around the country, he
reported, "more and more of them are saying that [the confirmation process] is
not worth it, because your character does get defamed. ... So we're not going to
get really first-class, independent judges."
________________________________
Changes to your subscription (unsubs, nomail, digest) can be made by going to http://sandboxmail.net/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
