Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Chicken The Moderate Voice: "Playing chicken with OUR government." Media Matters: "MSNBC host Keith Olbermann noted that the Family Research Council (FRC), which is currently campaigning to stop filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees by Senate Democrats, was quite vocal in the late 1990s in defending the right to filibuster another presidential nominee, James C. Hormel, who was nominated by President Clinton as ambassador to Luxembourg." Political Wire: 'Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), "in a rare news conference conducted on the Senate floor, said he would not accept any deal that keeps his Republican majority from confirming judicial nominees that have been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee,' the AP reports." Bull Moose: "You have to feel sorry for Reverend Bill Frist, M.D. (Faith-healer - TN). He genuflects before the religious right on 'Justice Sunday' and all he achieves is getting his pants dirty. But as is said in John 4:22 - 'When ye takes the path to pandering, there are no detours', or something like that." Blogs for Bush: "Senate Democrats have made a sudden shift in tactics over judicial filibusters. It is no coincidence that just as it is reported that Republicans have the votes to ban judicial filibusters that the Democrats suddenly want to compromise." Category: 2004 Presidential Transition 7:37:10 PM

Salazar and the Dems U.S. Senator Ken Salazar is making up some ground he lost with the liberals in his party with his recent stand on judicial nominees, according to the Denver Post [April 26, 2005, "Salazar wins points in filibuster tussle"]. From the article, "Salazar was booed by many at Colorado's March 5 Democratic State Central Committee meeting for a series of aisle-crossing votes that set the tone for his first months in office. He endorsed Bush's nominations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, along with legislation making it tougher for people to use bankruptcy to get out of debt." Mike Littwin weighs in on the flap over filibusters in his column in today's Rocky Mountain News [April 26, 2005, "Littwin: Key issue for Dobson goes beyond the filibuster"]. He writes, "No matter how it's framed, the filibuster is hardly a moral issue. The filibuster has been used by both parties, and for both good and ill. In the past, particularly in the Clinton years, Republican senators have held up judicial nominations without the filibuster. If they had to use it, though, as they did back in 1968 to stop Abe Fortas from becoming chief justice of the Supreme Court, they would. This isn't simply a question of whether you need 60 votes or 50. And it's not simply a political showdown. The stakes are far higher. The real issue is tolerance. And this is where you may have seen Dobson overreach." Ahhh tolerance ... Ed Quillen takes on the premises of "Justice Sunday" kids in his column in today's Denver Post [April 26, 2005, "Justice Sunday belies its name"]. He writes, "They say that Senate Democrats are blocking votes on nominations for federal judgeships because those nominees are 'people of faith.' It follows, then, that the nominations which did get through must be those for 'people of no faith,' since they were acceptable to the faith-blockers who would have otherwise used the rules of the Senate to halt the nomination. Now note that of the 215 judicial nominations made by President Bush, 205 have been confirmed by the Senate. This means that 95 percent of the time, Bush must have proposed a faithless judicial nominee - an agnostic, an atheist, a humanist, who knows? Why weren't they railing against the president if they think it's so important to have federal judges who are 'people of faith'?" Ahhhh logic... Category: 2004 Presidential Transition 6:18:02 AM

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