Winning Through Intimidation

The reactionary liberal effort in recent years to slow the march of progress by filibustering George W. Bush's judicial nominees was a political disaster for Senate Democrats in many ways, but it was successful in a few. Although most were ultimately confirmed, liberals stopped the president from placing young Grade A jurists on the federal appellate courts who, had they been confirmed a few years earlier, would now be perfectly suitable for Supreme Court elevation.

This is exactly what liberals intended. Proof of that came in staff memos from Dick Durbin of Illinois, quoted by the Wall Street Journal in November 2003. They showed that the Democrats blocked Miguel Estrada, the longest-debated appellate court nominee in Senate history, expressly because, in the words of one memo, "he is Latino." Mr. Durbin, and the Washington lobbyists for whom he shills, wanted to avoid having a qualified Hispanic jurist that Mr. Bush could elevate to the Supreme Court.

Of course, as we saw in the case of Mr. Estrada, the distortion effort rises in intensity if the nominee is female, black or Hispanic. Liberal Democrats and the feminist and race lobbyists become apoplectic when talented members of these groups escape the intellectual ghetto within which we are expected to live out our lives. It is no surprise then that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada has already signaled that if the president nominates Judge Owen, now on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Democrats would filibuster. Judge Owen is a woman, and she is close to the White House. In fact, Mr. Durbin's published papers showed that was why Democrats chose Judge Owen to be blocked in 2001 nearly one year before she even had a Judiciary Committee hearing.

Continued...

To understand how distortion works, let's follow this map. First let's stop and see what the always-entertaining liberal columnist Dahlia Lithwick wrote last week about another much-distorted jurist, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, formerly of the California Supreme Court and now on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Arguing that appointing women or minorities who were not liberal was useless, Ms. Lithwick wrote that Judge Brown "won't be happy until courts are once more adjudicating witch trials and drive-by tar-and-featherings." Now you see, that's how rumors get started. Ironically, such hyperbole becomes more common the less able opponents are to actually find something to point to. I was on the floor of the Senate when Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa referred to Mr. Estrada as a "right wing kook" even while the party line on Mr. Estrada was Democrats did not know enough about him. And the vitriol rises higher if you are a brilliant black woman, raised in Alabama and Texas, who put herself through college and law school, all the while raising her son by herself, as Judge Brown did.

Here is the next step. This is what New York Times news writers reported about Brown just yesterday:

Republican strategists close to the White House worry that Judge Brown, an African-American known for her fiery speeches to conservative crowds, might try to fight back against vigorous questioning. Other conservative strategists say that she also lacks experience on the federal bench and that supporting her highly ideological oratory might strain the solidarity of the Senate Republican caucus. You cannot shrug this off as the New York Times talking. True, what the Times calls "fiery speeches" might have rolled off the lips of Adams, Jefferson, Franklin or Madison. True, too, it is Republicans who are saying these things about Brown. Probably these Republicans include "Republican strategists" desperate to get some other nominee considered, and who do not yet know that Democrats intend to attempt a filibuster against any appointee of any conservative merit for the O'Connor vacancy, simply because now they must. Certainly these Republican strategists were not at Judge Brown's hearing in 2003 when she gave a performance in intellect, patience and grace second only in 2003 to John Roberts, but more meaningful because of who she was. More than anything these are Republicans who have succumbed to liberal distortion and forgotten that Judge Brown was the woman reconfirmed by 76% of Californians and most often picked by her colleagues to write the majority opinion of the California Supreme Court. But that is the art of distortion, liberals clap their hands and some Republicans believe.

Had nothing to do with his ethnicity or career success. Everything to do with abortion.

"Miguel Estrada's nomination was blocked for one reason and one reason only," said David N. O'Steen, Ph.D., NRLC executive director. "He refused to commit to supporting abortion."

O'Steen added, "Nothing else mattered. Not that the ABA rated him 'well qualified'; not that he had served in both the first Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration; and not that he had argued 15 cases before the Supreme Court."

http://www.nrlc.org/news/2003/NRL09/miguel_estrada_withdraws_name_fr.htm

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