You're absolutely right about this. The fact that they do this is bad enough, but the fact that they seem to have the attitude that this is their right, even their duty,, is downright frightening. As this attitude works its' way up the system to higher and higher courts by appointment of judges form lower courts to appellate positions , the problem will worsen till the whole system becomes worthless as a forum of law or justice. This makes the appointment process more critical than any other political activity (including elections on any level). Only the liberals seem to realize this, and they will use any method (recess appointments if nescessary) to get the activist judges into higher and higher positions on the appealate ladder.
Republicans are either totally unaware of the problem or, more likely, want the process to continue as it has and let the democrats block conservative and constitutional appointments on purpose so that they will get what they really want (liberal activist judges) and be able to blame it on the Democrats. It's called Good Cop/Bad Cop in the negotiating game, and it fools most of the people most of the time. Repubs have been in power since '94 and what has changed? Nothing, they couold blame it on Clinton and the democrats for 6 years and now blame it on them for blocking appointments.
So why don't the Repubs use the same tactics as the Democrats? Easy, because they don't want to. They want the liberal activist judges as much as the Dems, they just want to hoodwink their constituency into believing otherwise so they will keep getting their votes.
The answer lies in getting the republicans, and democrats too for that matter, to see the danger to our system if they don't change things. Getting the people to understand more about the working of the legal system and demanding that it be implemanted as it was intended, not just assuming that lawyers and judges are in charge and are the only ones who can understand it (impeaching a few judges would make a big difference). And appealing every single decision that strays from the strict interpretation of law to the highest court possible (no Judge likes to have decisions reversed and reversals by higher courts send a very strong message to activist judges).
The Rule of Law as understood by the Old Whig tradition that founded this nation was something seperate from just the legal process. It contained the freedom from arbitrary power and equality under law, a blind justice.
Law applied in the manner of activist judges leads to arbirary application of punishment. The lowly, under the eyes of courts or society, get the heavy punishment and the alleged worthy do not.
Society then reacts with harsher laws through representative legislative power as they see the rule of law unevenly applied. Activist judges then further pervert the process by applying more, and more, arbitrary justice as they see it rather than adjudicating an offense under the law and established precedent.
Rationalistic Totalitarian Democracy, it was called by Hayek.