Posted on 02/24/2003 10:16:15 AM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl
His aid all but admitted that he was using that as an excuse not to touch the Miguel Estrada issue. Did you notice that Graham was well enough to put out a press release re. his future run for Pres. last Friday?
I looked: This account will be suspended until 2003-02-25
I had no idea. Yes, Free Howlin ...
WASHINGTON - President Bush's legal adviser, pressing the White House's case for Miguel Estrada, contended Sunday that the Hispanic lawyer was being treated differently from other federal judicial nominees.
Senate Democrats have held up a confirmation vote on Estrada for almost two weeks, saying they know little about his views, particularly on abortion rights. That makes it impossible, the Democrats say, for them to evaluate the Washington lawyer's qualifications to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, widely considered the country's second-most-powerful court.
"I'm not going to speculate on the motivation behind this," White House counsel Albert Gonzales said on "Fox News Sunday."
"I will say that he is being treated differently. I think he's being held to a double standard," said Gonzales, who rarely appears on the Sunday talk shows but was brought out to defend the embattled Estrada nomination.
"There is ample information about Miguel Estrada," Gonzales said on ABC's "This Week."
Bush used his weekly radio address Saturday to urge a Senate vote on Estrada, an immigrant from Honduras who would become the first Hispanic on the appellate court in the capital. "I call on the Senate Democratic leadership to stop playing politics," the president said.
The GOP has the 51 votes needed to confirm him, but not the 60 needed to stop a filibuster and end Senate debate to allow a vote.
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus issued a statement Saturday noting that Republicans have rejected Democratic Hispanic nominees in the past and said lawmakers are right to want more information about Estrada's views.
"Republicans must realize that there are other highly qualified Hispanics, who are not ashamed to discuss their views," caucus chairman Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, said.
---With friends like these, who needs enemies? (RobFromGa) -----
Democrats have complained that they know too little about Estrada's views to evaluate him.
They requested copies of confidential Justice Department memos Estrada wrote while working in the solicitor general's office, which represents the White House before the Supreme Court. The Bush administration has refused to release the memos.
Gonzales complained that 67 other former Justice Department employees have been appointed to federal courts, and they were not asked for internal memos.
"So it appears to us that Miguel Estrada is being held to a different standard. And I don't know why, because this person is very well qualified and should be confirmed quickly," Gonzales said.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which sent Estrada's nomination to the Senate floor on Jan. 30, accused the White House of stonewalling. "If Mr. Estrada were a mainstream conservative, I would vote for him. Many others would. But we don't have any idea of how he feels on any issue at all," Schumer said on ABC's "This Week."
Gonzales hinted that the matter could hurt Democrats politically with Hispanic voters.
"I think if the Hispanic community believes that Miguel Estrada is being treated differently or is being held at a different standard, I think that it may be harmful in the future," Gonzales said.
"For much of our nation's history the Senate didn't even conduct Senate hearings, not even for the Supreme Court." They simply deferred to the President, or voted "no".
"It was not until 1925 that the first nominee to the uSSC would actually appear in person." "After that nominees would revert back to the tradition of not appearing." Until a decade later..1939, Felix Frankfurter...who read a prepared statement saying he would not give his personal feelings about cases.
"Even in cases of Supreme Ct nominations, hearings have traditionally been brief.""Justice Byron White's confirmation lasted less than 2 hours."
"The nomination of Miguel Estrada is the culmination of a destructive judicial nomination process that must stop."
"So that Presidents now and in the future will be able to nominate candidates for judicial office who will be willing to subject themselves to this unreasonable (process)."
"This filibuster must stop."
What will she lecture the Senate on next??
I heard Scummer locally a couple of days ago. What a jerk!! How could NY be so lucky to have two jerks for Senators.
From an Upstate New Yorker dealing with winter weather and Democrat Senators...They both give me the chills!!
Amen. The Dems. voting against Miguel are siding with the Castro-Hugo Chavez wing of the Democratic party...and against the United States, imho.
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