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CONFIRMATION PROCESS: Demeaning And Malicious[N.C.Sen.John Edwards Bears Much Of The Blame]
Herald Sun { North Carolina} ^ | March 7,2002 | Editor

Posted on 03/07/2002 6:53:09 PM PST by Lady In Blue

heraldsun.com: printer-friendly story [back]



CONFIRMATION PROCESS: Demeaning and malicious


March 6, 2002   3:31 pm

Why federal judge Charles Pickering willingly walked into a character-dicing buzz saw called Senate confirmation is a question only he can answer, but a man’s desire to get ahead in his profession is a noble ideal. What is happening to Pickering, however, is as base and malicious as it gets on Capitol Hill. North Carolina Sen. John Edwards bears much of the blame.

Pickering is a native of Mississippi, and he still lives there. He is a member of the crucial transitional generation of the 1950s that would do so much to move that bastion of racial segregation toward more enlightened thinking. Indeed, Mississippi today has more black elected officials than any other state. President Bush nominated Pickering, who is a Republican, for a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. During the civil rights revolution, the Fifth Circuit was a powerful battering ram against segregation, and it remains well respected today for the high quality of its rulings.

But to hear outfits like People for the American Way and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond tell it, Pickering is the personification of “Fergit, hell!” Not quite. The skunk juice that Senate Democrats are throwing on Pickering has met resistance in the form of many black Mississippians who think he deserves to move up to the Fifth Circuit.

Sen. Edwards, a leader in the attempt to torpedo Pickering, has been too cagey to attack Pickering directly on racial issues. Instead, Edwards zeroed in on Pickering’s judicial ethics involving racial incidents. As a federal district judge hearing a case involving a cross-burning in an interracial couple’s front yard, Pickering became so frustrated with federal prosecutors that he called the Justice Department. The prosecutors wanted to put the cross-burner away for seven years, yet another man who fired a shot into the couple’s home would have been sentenced to house arrest.

Pickering gave the cross-burner 27 months. Disparity or not, civil rights groups latched onto the sentence as proof positive that Pickering was at heart an unreconstructed segregationist. Yet this is the same man who in 1967 endured threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan in Laurel, Miss., his home. Pickering, then a county prosecutor in the vein of Atticus Finch, the heroic white lawyer in Harper Lee’s novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” had gone after Klan leaders involved in the fire-bombing death of black activist Vernon Dahmers in nearby Hattiesburg.

Of course, to those on the left who want to immolate Pickering, nothing he did in the quest for racial justice will ever be enough. Democrats control the Senate Judiciary Committee, and they almost certainly will vote against Pickering’s confirmation and for character assassination.

This time it is the Democrats doing the dirty work in a nomination. Republicans carry their share of shame for this sort of thing when they were in the catbird seat. It doesn’t matter which party throws the rope over a stout limb. The fact that both participate in such destructive orgies casts a ghastly pall over the nomination process and, by extension, representative government itself. URL for this article: http://www.herald-sun.com/opinion/hsedits/56-202640.html

© Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. All material on heraldsun.com is copyrighted by The Durham Herald Company and may not be reproduced or redistributed in any medium except as provided in the site's Terms of Use.

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TOPICS: Breaking News; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: dasshole; edwardswatch; mississippi; northcarolina; oldnorthstate
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FYI and discussion.
1 posted on 03/07/2002 6:53:09 PM PST by Lady In Blue
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To: Constitution Day
Ping for our illustrious Senator from NC. The ambulance chaser at work
2 posted on 03/07/2002 6:56:52 PM PST by billbears
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To: Lady In Blue
It would be oh so wonderful if the good people of North Carolina flooded Edwards' office with phone calls and emails. They need to shame him, and scare him to death about losing support back in the homestate, for the mean and vicious partisan attack on Pickering. .
3 posted on 03/07/2002 6:58:55 PM PST by YaYa123
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To: YaYa123
You know what would be more wonderful? If they people of NC kicked him out of office next election. Too late I guess, he's running for President...
4 posted on 03/07/2002 7:02:56 PM PST by cactmh
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: YaYa123
Great idea! I was just over at lucianne.com where I picked up this article.One of the posters over there said the same thing!
6 posted on 03/07/2002 7:09:59 PM PST by Lady In Blue
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To: Lady In Blue; ncweaver; ncpastor; Constitution Day; Howlin; Pamlico; callisto...
NC bump list.

John Edwards is a scumbag, it does no good to call, write, fax etc etc. He could care less about his constituents.

I've contacted his office several time, his staff is rude and he doesn't even bother responding to letters.

Johnny boy is using his brief stint in the Senate for one reason only, a leg up to the White House. I keep praying for a scandal to show up in his past somewhere. Although I guess scandal doesn't matter anymore.

MKM

7 posted on 03/07/2002 7:17:04 PM PST by mykdsmom
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To: Lady In Blue
"The fact that both participate in such destructive orgies casts a ghastly pall over the nomination process and, by extension, representative government itself."

Sad, but true.

8 posted on 03/07/2002 7:19:19 PM PST by deaconblues
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To: mykdsmom
Let him run , I think even the retards in the population are sick and tired of watching slick Rat lawyers lie their way into the White House.
9 posted on 03/07/2002 7:22:08 PM PST by Rome2000
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To: deaconblues
Yes,but 1 side(Dems)has a lock on it!
10 posted on 03/07/2002 7:38:48 PM PST by Lady In Blue
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To: Lady In Blue
When John Edwards ran for the senate a lawyer friend told me he was giving some thought to voting for him because he was considered a good guy by the legal profession and would be fair and non partisan. I told him that a democrat is a democrat is a democrat. Party first and always. He did not vote for Edwards and the after experience has made him a wiser and more ardent Republican.
11 posted on 03/07/2002 7:43:00 PM PST by mountainfolk
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To: mountainfolk
You did good,mountainfolk! I hope that your friend stays on the right track,if you know what I mean! lol!
12 posted on 03/07/2002 7:50:13 PM PST by Lady In Blue
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To: deaconblues
If you compare the percentage rates of how many judges are getting confirmed the Senate now run by Dems has one of the lowest in history. Just the other day FNC stated something like 43% compared with a much higher figure under the Rep senate under Clinton.
13 posted on 03/07/2002 8:07:44 PM PST by marajade
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To: billbears
Wonder if Sen. Ambulance Chaser Edwards got that giant wart removed from his lip...Ewwwwwww!
14 posted on 03/07/2002 8:12:37 PM PST by KLT
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To: Lady In Blue
There is a consistancy in the American voter over long periods. When times are good and there are no big problems, our people tend to vote for a divided governemnt. I think that it is just a result of what they want. They don't say I want divided government. They say here is the guy who will do what I want done.. and that produces divided government. When things are good they don't want people to change things that might make things bad. The out of party candidates attack whatever the president is trying to do and that appeals to the voters. The in power party is trying to change things their way,and people tend to not vote for things that change good times.

But when times are bad or there are other problems the people wants a United Government. They want a congress and president to work together to fix things.

For a president to hold popularity in problem filled times he has to be seen as trying to fix things. That is what Bush is doing. He has a plan to fix every problem. He knows that in troubled times, problem fixers are popular.

The Democrats are persuing the tactics best used when things are good. They attack Bush. But if they were smart they would work with Bush. They would present a Democrat Senate as a unifying force. They would be first with the fixes and they would propose fixes bush would oppose. That wa they could make him the force standing in the way of fixing things.

The course of action the Democrats are taking has never worked. When there are problems a good rule is to never fight with a president that is trying to fix them. They would have to present fixes that the president can't accept. You have pass them so the public sees the president as the man standing in the way of fixing the problems.

But Daschle and Gephard, and all the rest are standing in the way of Bush's fixes. In the past people who do that get run over by the voters at the polls.

15 posted on 03/07/2002 8:15:42 PM PST by Common Tator
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To: Common Tator
Loved your post,Common Tator! From your lips to God's ear!
16 posted on 03/07/2002 8:27:20 PM PST by Lady In Blue
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To: Lady In Blue
News & Observer 215 S. McDowell, Raleigh, North Carolina 27601 Editorial Page Editor: Steve Ford E-Mail: sford@nando.com Phone:(919) 829-4512 Anders Gyllenhaal - Executive Editor E-Mail: andersg@nando.com Write, phone, or e-mail and let them know how demeaning and malicious their Senator John Edwards is and what the rest of the country thinks about him.
17 posted on 03/07/2002 8:48:25 PM PST by broomhilda
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To: Ragtime Cowgirl
FYI.
18 posted on 03/07/2002 9:18:42 PM PST by Howlin
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To: Howlin
You all are nuts. I want Sen Edwards to run for President. In fact I put a bumper sticker that says 'RUN EDWARDS, RUN" on the front of my car.
19 posted on 03/07/2002 11:00:53 PM PST by bybybill
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To: bybybill
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20 posted on 03/08/2002 3:02:16 AM PST by grammymoon
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