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First of all, the senators who are blocking these judges on the judiciary committee are IMMUNE to Republician pressure. They are in safe seats and don't care what most Americans think. They are not going to send those nominees to the floor of the Senate if you massed 100,000 people outside Congress carrying pitchforks and torches.

There are other ways to move an object than brute strength. Leverage is one.
One needn't move all of the Dems on Judiciary to get a nomination to the Senate fkoor, any single Senator from the Committee would be sufficient. Each of those Senators has goals the President can thwart. Each of those Senators has allies on the floor with goals the President can thwart, or isn't sitting in a safe seat. Each of those safe Senators has compatriots in the House who aren't. The Democrats in Judiciary may be a bit more resistant, but they are far from immune to political pressure. They are politicans.

And not only are they immune to political pressure, but the expenditure of political pressure on this issue would be not only ineffective but counter-productive, because it would show the President as being ineffectual in getting something accomplished.

That's a bit defeatist.
The spectacle of a popular war-time President being hamstrung be extremists on the Democrat Left in a split Senate could as easily be used in the Fall campaign against that party's candidates.
Where advantages and opportunit exist, they should be pressed. Republican timidity to do so isn't the excuse, it's the problem.

The judges are the number one priority of the Rats. Name me ANYTHING that would move ANY ONE of those senators. You can't, because the ONLY thing that might make them move on this issue is giving them an even greater issue, like repealing the tax cut.

Leahy doesn't care one bit about anything except keeping those judges from being voted on.

The best thing to do is to hold the nominations open (which Bush has done with both Pickering and Owen) and then get them confirmed after November.

I am not a defeatist. I am simply pointing out that President Bush chooses his battles wisely, and this is one that cannot be won. He has elected to go with taking back the Senate as the preferred course of action.

And if you saw his speech which just concluded in Davenport, you would be convinced of his desire to do just that.