From NR's Bench Memos (via Powerline).
Imagine, if you will, that a Democrat President nominated a judge whose constitutional and policy views were, by any measure, on the extreme left fringes of American society.And how would Republicans respond to such an out-of-the-mainstream nominee? With a filibuster to protect the Republic from judicial extremists? Of course not. Republicans adhered to 2 centuries of tradition.-strong sympathy for the position that there is a constitutional right to prostitution as well as a constitutional right to polygamySurely such a person would never be nominated to an appellate court. Surely no Senate Democrat would support someone with such extreme views. And surely Senate Republicans, rather than deferring to the nominating power of the Democrat President, would pull out all stops—filibuster and everything—to stop such a nominee.-attacked the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts as organizations that perpetuate stereotyped sex roles and that he had proposed abolishing Mother's Day and Father's Day and replacing them with a single androgynous Parent's Day
-called for an end to single-sex prisons on the theory that if male prisoners are going to return to a community in which men and women function as equal partners, prison is just the place for them to get prepared to deal with women
Well, not quite. The hypothetical nominee I have just described is, in every particular except his sex, Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the time she was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1993.
President Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg on June 22, 1993. A mere six weeks later, on August 3, 1993, the Senate confirmed her nomination by a 96-3 vote.Today's Democrats are nothing more than conniving partisans who lie about the past in order to justify their present unprecedented behavior.
The media and perceptions of the American public have everything to do with the Dems behavior. While the judicial filibuster is a recent phenomenon, what is not new is the opposing political party offering a bumpy ride to the party with the president in power.
What I am very bothered about is the inertia in the US Senate for political brinkmanship purposes, at the cost of doing good and effective work on behalf of the American people (which is naturally why they are there in the first place). I can understand why politicians are held in such low regard when they behave like this.
Posted by: WK
at June 8, 2005 01:47 PM
The Black Caucus "marching" on the Senate Chambers this afternoon should be interesting. I have to note that this is the first time I've scooped you...pardon me while I break my arm patting my back.
Posted by: DagneyT
at June 8, 2005 04:13 PM




