[BobL]

...and another thing - if we pull off the nuke option, these judges still get votes of the full Senate. As we've learned in the past couple of months, there are a lot of Republicans who do not necessarily rubber-stamp everything that the leadership wants.

So, if some nominee is really off the wall, then all the Dems have to do is find 6 of these Republicans to go along - that shouldn't be so hard.

The problem is that there is nothing wrong with these people, except that the Dems are trying to impose an ideology on the courts, even though they are a minority.

On the other hand, if I remember correctly, Clinton to elevate a District Judge to the Appellate level (Philadelphia, I think). The guy was pathetic - he was throwing out 1000 lb. drug busts because of slavery (or something like that). The Republicans threatened to make it an issue, and Clinton withdrew him.

There are ways to fight those who you don't like without cheating - and that's all we ask.

[middie]

Your supposition about some unrecalled judge is like the end of the whisper line at a party where a rumor is begun at one end of the room and passed along from person to person until, at the end, there is no similarity between what began and what comes out at the last person's report.