ConfirmThem

Posted at 2:09pm on Aug. 12, 2008 ABA & O'Connor to the Rescue

By Curt Levey

Monday, the ABA's House of Delegates overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for the use of "bipartisan commissions of lawyers and other leaders, reflecting the diversity of the profession and the community" to recommend nominees to the federal courts." The objective is "a less contentious judicial selection process," a goal I wholeheartedly support. However, even if one puts aside the ideological agenda behind the "diversity" requirement, there is every reason to doubt that the recommendations of these commissions would be "bipartisan." Just look at the many states that use a commission system for judicial nominations. Exhibit number one is Missouri, which pioneered the system in 1940. As I described in a Human Events op-ed last year,

Missouri governors must appoint a judge chosen from a panel of three candidates submitted by the state’s Appellate Judicial Commission. ... [O]ver the years, the Commission’s secretive selection process has become increasingly controlled by the Missouri Bar Association, an organization with close ties to liberal special interest groups. As a result, the three finalists chosen by the Commission to replace retiring Justice White have [activist] records. ... Faced with choosing from among three unacceptable candidates, Republican Governor Matt Blunt criticized the Commission’s highly politicized, backroom selection process.

But not to worry. The Associated Press reports that incoming ABA president H. Thomas Wells "is enlisting the help of retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor to study threats to fair and impartial state courts."

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Posted at 2:03pm on Jun. 10, 2008 McConnell Not Satisfied with Today’s Confirmations

By Curt Levey

The Senate confirmed three district court nominees today: Mark Davis of Virginia and Stephen Limbaugh and David Kays of Missouri. Sen. McConnell took the opportunity to chastise the Democrats about their obstruction of circuit nominees and to again make good on his pledge to slow down the Senate until the obstruction is eased. From McConnell’s office:

Although the Majority fulfilled their commitment from last week to confirm three more District Court nominees today …, Leader McConnell did not feel these actions were sufficient in light of the continued lack of circuit court confirmations. … Therefore, Leader McConnell invoked the two-hour rule with respect to the Judiciary Committee meeting today. This will affect the Committee continuing its hearing this afternoon on interrogation. In order for the Committee to continue the hearing this afternoon, the Democrats will be forced to recess the Senate circa 2:15, and the Senate will be in recess for the remainder of the Committee’s hearing.

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Posted at 2:28pm on May 24, 2008 Hatch laments Bizarro World

By Curt Levey

Senator Hatch scolded “Democratic leaders”—with initials HR and PJL I presume—for breaking their commitment and frequently twisting the truth. Hatch noted that the judicial confirmation process reminds him of Bizarro World, “where up is down, right is left.” Complete remarks here and excerpts below.

On playing fast and loose with the facts:

“We also hear the claim that in presidential election years the judicial confirmation process is, to quote the current Judiciary Committee Chairman, ‘far less productive.’ Once again, this claim is not true. The average number of appeals court nominees given hearings and the number of judicial nominees confirmed goes up, not down, in presidential election years.”

“Another claim … is that when I chaired the Judiciary Committee, I blocked more than 60 of President Clinton’s judicial nominees by denying them a hearing. … A dozen of those nominees were not confirmed because President Clinton withdrew them. … Many of those unconfirmed nominees did not have the support of their home-state Senators.”

“Some have claimed that the Senate has confirmed 86 percent of President Bush’s judicial nominees, compared to only 75 percent of President Clinton’s. … The most recent figures from the Congressional Research Service show that the Senate has confirmed 85 percent of President Bush’s appeals court nominees compared to 84 percent of President Clinton’s nominees.”

On breaking the ‘3 by Memorial Day’ promise:

“There was a clear path to keep that commitment, with nominees who had long ago been fully vetted, nominees who have been pending for up to two years, highly qualified nominees who have the support of their home-state Senators.”

“In November 1999, Majority Leader Trent Lott promised to hold a vote by May 15, 2000, on two of President Clinton’s most controversial judicial nominees, Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon to the Ninth Circuit. He made a commitment, and he kept it. … It is a very different situation today.”

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Posted at 1:37am on May 15, 2008 Judges Issue in '08 Election

By Curt Levey

This afternoon, I will be on a panel at the National Press Club entitled "Election 2008: What the Media Isn't Telling You." I’ll be discussing the role of the judges issue in the ’08 election, the prospects for Supreme Court personnel changes, and the current judges fight in the Senate. The panel runs from 1:00 to 2:30 in the Lisagor Room.

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Posted at 9:29pm on Apr. 2, 2008 Hatch Presses His Point on Judges

By Curt Levey

Sen. Orrin Hatch expanded on his op-ed in Monday’s NRO with a floor speech yesterday, again emphasizing both the shamefully slow pace of judicial hearings and confirmations and Judiciary Chairman Leahy’s hypocrisy on the issue. As part of his remarks, Sen. Hatch put a February 13, 2008 letter from a coalition of about 60 pro-constitutionalist organizations in the record.

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Posted at 12:15pm on Mar. 25, 2008 More Cox News

By Quin

Because Whacker77 and other great readers of this site continue to ask the latest on the Veep chances of onetime (brief) 9th Circuit nominee Chris Cox, it is worth noting that not only did Robert Novak tout him last week, but that today the Wall Street Journal's online Political Diary did the same. (Subscribe to the diary at https://secure.djnewsletters.com/OJ/OJGetInfo.aspx -- it is well worth it.) Because some readers are not subscribers, I have received permission to post it in full:

Meet Chris Cox

While the Democratic slugfest sucks up all the media attention, John McCain will have at least one big chance to move back to center-stage -- when he picks his veep nominee.

Mr. McCain needs to bolster his economic street cred, especially after admitting minimal expertise on the subject. He needs to rally pro-growth Republicans and calm the fears of ordinary voters amid the mortgage meltdown. Who to call? California Republican Chris Cox was on George W. Bush's shortlist eight years ago and didn't get the nod. Now his moment may have arrived, judging by a growing murmur among his GOP fans. (MORE)

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Posted at 5:14am on Mar. 10, 2008 No. 44 Should Boldly Recess-Appoint

By Curt Levey

In today’s issue of the National Law Journal, Catholic University law professor Victor Williams decries the fact that the confirmation process for federal judges, as well as for executive and regulatory nominees, has become a lengthy “Orwellian ordeal – anonymous holds, blue slips, slow walking, character attacks and filibusters.” Recognizing that “the challenges facing the next president require a fully formed government,” Williams advises No. 44 to “boldly recess-appoint” and argues that recess appointments can be made no matter how short the recess. Here is his suggestion for how the next president can “jump-start” the government:

A list of executive nominees through the subcabinet level should be presented to the Senate by December's meeting of the Electoral College. Regulatory and initial judicial picks should be readied by year's end. . . . The next president's inaugural address should demand immediate Senate confirmation votes. . . . The Senate should be given one month to ‘ratify or reject’ each wave of nominees. With or without its help, the new government could be fully staffed by Presidents' Day.

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Posted at 9:45am on Mar. 5, 2008 Cox at the Helm

By Quin

Again I take the liberty to broaden the focus here from court appointments to broader legal issues. Just as an FYI, my latest on legal matters at the Examiner.

The best tort reform is to avoid lawsuits in the first place.

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Posted at 11:32pm on Feb. 23, 2008 Chilling Effect on DOJ Attorneys

By Curt Levey

Today’s Washington Post reports that the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility “is investigating whether Bush administration lawyers violated professional standards by issuing legal opinions that authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques.” Regardless of the soundness of the opinions in question, this investigation – especially because it’s been made public – threatens to have a dangerous chilling effect on Administration attorneys, who must now weigh the future weight of public and Congressional opinion when giving legal advice.

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Posted at 11:16am on Feb. 22, 2008 Telecoms Deserve Immunity

By Quin

This isn't really about judges, but it is about the law, so I thought y'all might want to read my latest take on the telecom immunity issue: http://www.examiner.com/a-1235377~Quin_Hillyer__Telecoms_face_double_ris...

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Posted at 8:43am on Feb. 15, 2008 Protect America Act and Judicial Nominees

By Curt Levey

My thoughts on the parallels are over at the CFJ blog.

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Posted at 10:42am on Jan. 28, 2008 Class-Action Firms Take Beating

By Quin

The recent Stoneridge case and the high court's refusal to hear the Enron case are only a couple of the reasons I cite in this column at the Washington Examiner in noting that the big class-action plaintiffs' lawyers are taking a well deserved beating. These developments are good news for the economy and good news for all who care about equity and about the rule of law. And the Stoneridge case also shows why business interests, too -- who often provide too little support on judicial fights -- have serious reason to make the issue one of their biggest areas of interest. Without Roberts and Alito, businesses big and small could be facing disaster.

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Posted at 9:53pm on Jan. 7, 2008

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Posted at 12:21am on Nov. 30, 2007 Lott Liked the Game, Not Southwick

By Curt Levey

Why Trent Lott fought for the confirmation of Judge Leslie Southwick (from the Washington Post, via a Lott aide):

Just last month, as he labored to crack a wall of Democratic opposition to the confirmation of U.S. Appeals Judge Leslie H. Southwick, Lott wondered aloud to an aide why he was working so hard for a man he did not really know and for someone who was much more closely allied with Mississippi's other Republican senator, Thad Cochran.

"I said to him, 'You know, it's not that you like Southwick. You just like the process. You want the deal,' and he just smiled," recalled the Lott aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was divulging private deliberations. "It was a game. It was, 'Let me figure out how to get this done.'"

Whatever their reason, Republican senators’ willingness to fight for the President’s judicial nominees is the key to getting them confirmed. Everything else, including the desire of Senate Democrats to play fair, is secondary.

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Posted at 3:17pm on Nov. 26, 2007 There's Manny

By AndrewHyman

Jeffrey Toobin has a December 3 article in the New Yorker titled "Where's Manny?" that some of you may find interesting, about Manuel Miranda:

Miranda ... surfaced as the leader of an organization that came to be called the Third Branch Conference—a private lobbying group dedicated to pushing for confirmation of Bush’s conservative judicial nominations. Working out of a Capitol Hill town house, Miranda organized conference calls of conservative activists, sent e-mail blasts to reporters, and regularly appeared on television as a booster for Bush’s judges. In the summer and fall of 2005, Miranda helped orchestrate support for John G. Roberts, Jr., as Chief Justice, and opposition to the short-lived nomination to the Court of Harriet Miers, which Miranda called "a significant failure." As for Samuel A. Alito, Jr., who replaced Miers as the nominee, Miranda called the choice "a grand slam." After that, there was silence from Miranda. (The criminal investigation went nowhere.)

Turns out that, unbeknownst to me, Miranda has been in Iraq for almost a year. Toobin has details. Well done, Manny.

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Posted at 7:14pm on Nov. 10, 2007 Red State Democrats

By Curt Levey

I was disappointed to see that 15 of the 18 Democratic senators from red states – states which twice voted for George W. Bush – voted against Mukasey’s confirmation. Sens. Bayh (IN), Landrieu (LA), and Nelson (NE) were the notable exceptions. I would have been surprised that there were only three, but for CFJ’s recent analysis showing that red state Democrats typically side with the Senate’s most liberal members on the closely related issue of judicial confirmations.

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Posted at 5:29pm on Nov. 10, 2007 Mukasey Can Make a Difference on Judges

By Curt Levey

As I noted in a Committee for Justice press release yesterday, the new attorney general is in a unique position to effectively argue for the confirmation of the President’s judicial nominees:

Even the Democrats concede that Mukasey is non-partisan and was one of the nation’s best trial judges during eighteen years of service. When he says that a particular judicial nominee would make an outstanding judge, it will be difficult for Senate Democrats to argue with his assessment.

We’re calling on the new attorney general to make the confirmation of the President’s judicial nominees a top priority. . . . Mukasey has the reputation and moral authority to make a difference on this important issue. He needs to be personally involved in persuading Senate Democrats that each and every nominee deserves, at very least, an up-or-down vote by the full Senate.

I would be particularly pleased to see Mukasey weigh in on Peter Keisler. Commenting on the fact that Keisler is still in committee more than 16 months after being nominated, I said:

That’s appalling treatment of the man who has served as Acting Attorney General since Alberto Gonzales’s resignation. The least Senate Democrats can do to thank Keisler for his service to the nation while they took they’re time confirming Mukasey is to allow him an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

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Posted at 9:31pm on Oct. 23, 2007 Race-Based Debate

By Curt Levey

If you’ll be in the Philadelphia / Camden area tomorrow and would like to hear my take on why the Supreme Court did not undercut Brown v. Board in June’s Parents Involved decision, stop by Rutgers School of Law in Camden, NJ at 12:30 Wednesday. I’ll be debating Professor Bruce Afran, in Room 106 of the law school building, on the topic of race-based student assignment.

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Posted at 9:09pm on Oct. 23, 2007 Guess Who’s Been Voting Like Hillary and Ted

By Curt Levey

When the Senate’s red state Democrats vote on the Southwick cloture motion tomorrow morning, let’s hope they take the opportunity to differentiate themselves from their liberal blue state colleagues. Differentiating themselves on the judges issue has been the exception rather than the rule, according to an analysis of red state Democrats’ voting patterns released today by the Committee for Justice. As CFJ’s executive director, my goal is to let red state voters know whether their senators’ votes in Washington match their conservative rhetoric back home. It turns out that, with the exception of Ken Salazar and especially Ben Nelson, the Senate’s red state Democrats have a lot of explaining to do. A scorecard, list of votes, and press release are available here.

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Posted at 7:51am on Aug. 13, 2007 Rove on Judges

By Curt Levey

The announcement today of Karl Rove’s resignation gives me an excuse to remind you of his words on the electoral importance of the judges issue. From a 2004 Washington Times article:

There's no doubt in my mind that we won races all throughout the country [on the judges issue]. We won the Senate race in South Carolina – judges; won the North Carolina race – judges; won the Georgia race – judges.

If [President Bush] said judges, people cheered. They didn't know exactly what it was, but they'd know that something was fundamentally flawed with the courts, that we've got a bunch of judicial activists, that Bush could be trusted to appoint good people to the courts, and there was something stinky about how all these people were being held up.

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Posted at 6:28am on Mar. 12, 2007 Are Law Firms Breaking the Law?

By Curt Levey

That question is the title of a panel this Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute, in which I'll be presenting a paper on the legal implications of the growing use of race and gender preferences in law firm employment. My deep interest in the preferences issue dates back to my five-plus years with the Center for Individual Rights, including my work on the University of Michigan affirmative action cases and several cases challenging gender quotas in college athletics. In fact, it was these issues — specifically my frustration with the triumph in the courts of political correctness over sound legal arguments — that motivated me to work on putting more constitutionalist judges on the federal bench. So, while my paper and the AEI panel are not directly connected with my work at the Committee for Justice, the judges and preferences issues are inexorably linked.

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Posted at 8:56pm on Jan. 23, 2007 A Warning for People Who Write Online

By AndrewHyman

Have you ever written an article for an online journal like Slate or Findlaw's Writ or National Review? If you have, then I advise you to take a look at your article every now and then to make sure it hasn't morphed into something else. Maybe that might not happen at Slate or National Review, but I just discovered it happened to me at Findlaw's Writ.

In 2002, I wrote a Writ article titled, Abortion and Free Speech. Unfortunately, it looks like the article has been tampered with, and a critical paragraph has been completely deleted. You can view the missing paragraph in the archived versions from August 2, 2002 thru August 28, 2005 at archive.org. I am in the process of contacting people at Writ to get this cleared up.

These are the same people who publish all of the Supreme Court opinions on the internet. This is extremely disturbing.

UPDATE [1:00 AM, Jan. 24]: Wow, that was fast. The Findlaw people have kindly corrected the article. Apparently, when Findlaw added advertising, the ads corrupted the online versions, but authors were not informed.

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Posted at 10:39am on Jan. 16, 2007 Dave II Departs, Alexham Arrives

By AndrewHyman

We are pleased to announce the latest addition to the ConfirmThem blogging team: Alexham. Alexham is an attorney in private practice, a member of the Federalist Society, a former federal appellate clerk, and has been following the judicial nomination situation in the Senate for years. Please welcome him to our blogging community.

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Posted at 7:00pm on Oct. 31, 2006 Salon Hit Piece Debunked

By Curt Levey

Both the Committee For Justice blog and Bench Memos have responses to today's Salon.com hit piece by Will Evans, entitled "Money trails lead to Bush judges." Both blogs note that the "shocking" news exposed by the Evans piece – that Bush appointees to the federal bench made political contributions to key Republicans while under consideration for their judgeships – is really rather mundane. As Sean Rushton points out on the CFJ blog, such donations are legal, conform to accepted ethics standards, and are historically common – Clinton judicial nominees did the same. Evans admits as much, but you have to dig to find the concessions. For example, the information about Clinton appointees is both incomplete and buried in an appendix on the last page of a 66-page report which accompanies Evans's article.

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Posted at 10:32pm on Oct. 24, 2006 An Insider's Account of the War on Terror

By Curt Levey

Since my post about John Yoo’s recent op-ed on Congress’s response to Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, I’ve had a chance to review his new book, “War by Other Means: An Insider's Account of the War on Terror.” The book is aptly subtitled. Yoo’s critics and supporters alike agree that he was the chief architect of the legal analysis behind the Administration’s war on terror, while serving as deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel from 2001 to 2003.

“War by Other Means” examines all aspects of the war on terror, including the NSA wiretapping controversy, the Patriot Act, the legal status of enemy combatants, coercive interrogation of detainees, the Supreme Court’s Hamdan decision, the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, military commissions, and the cases of specific terrorist suspects, such as Jose Padilla.

Throughout the book, Yoo’s central theses are that 1) during wartime, the boundaries of the separation of powers shift, giving the President, as commander-in-chief, broader authority; and 2) in Yoo’s words, "it would be a mistake to believe that the Constitution's framework for criminal justice should apply to war.” Yoo explains that

[Criminal justice] involves the fundamental relationship between the people and its government, and so ought to be regulated by clear, strict rules defining the power given by the principal to its agent. [War], however, involves a foreign enemy who is not part of the American political community, and so should not benefit from the regular peacetime rules that define it.

I highly recommend reading “War by Other Means.” You may not agree with Yoo’s theses, but his arguments are sure to be thought-provoking, and you'll come away with an in-depth understanding of the legal case for expanded presidential power in wartime.

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Posted at 1:32am on Oct. 21, 2006 Quote of the Day

By AndrewHyman

I always liked the bluntness of this quote:

Aware that in Roe it essentially created something out of nothing and that there are many in this country who hold that decision to be basically illegitimate, the Court responds defensively.... I do not share the warped point of view of the majority, nor can I follow the tortuous path the majority treads in proceeding to strike down the statute before us. I dissent.

---Justice Byron White dissenting in THORNBURGH v. AMERICAN COLL. OF OBST. & GYN., 476 U.S. 747 (1986).

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Posted at 6:00pm on Oct. 19, 2006 Judiciary Smackdown

By Curt Levey

For those of us who would like to see the federal courts put in their place, today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed by Berkeley law professor John Yoo is heartwarming. He sees the Military Commissions Act, signed by President Bush this week, as “a stinging rebuke to the Supreme Court,” specifically its “stunning power grab” in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the enemy combatant case decided last June. Yoo notes that the Act cuts the courts down to their constitutionally-envisioned size in a number of ways, including
1) stripping them “of jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus claim filed by any alien enemy combatant anywhere in the world;”
2) “forbid[ding] courts from relying on foreign or international legal decisions in any decisions involving military commissions;” and
3) “directly revers[ing] Hamdan by making clear that the courts cannot take up the Geneva Conventions.”

It is, says Yoo, “the first time since the New Deal that Congress had so completely divested the courts of power over a category of cases.” We’ll see whether the courts fight such “court-stripping” by creatively finding loopholes in the new jurisdictional limits, as the High Court did in Hamdan. But Yoo’s apparent confidence in the landmark nature of this legislation gives me reason to believe that a corner may have been turned.

I realize that conservatives are divided on the wisdom of court-stripping and that it can be abused by liberals. Nonetheless, I hope the Military Commissions Act portends Congressional push back in other areas of judicial overreach. Court-stripping is particularly useful, in my view, where it can preempt future power grabs, say in the area of gay marriage. Sure, judicial self-restraint is much preferable to jurisdiction-limiting legislation, but absent the former, the latter is the best weapon of those who oppose judicial activism.

For those who consider court-stripping legislation to be Congressional overreaching, consider that the Constitution specifically authorizes Congress to create “exceptions” to and “regulations” of the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction. As for the lower federal courts, Article III makes clear that they exist purely at the pleasure of Congress.

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Posted at 5:09pm on Oct. 13, 2006 I'm a Real Lawyer Now

By Dave II

It's a slow news month, so I thought I'd let y'all know the Virginia Bar results came back yesterday, and luckily my name is on the list, so I passed. I'll be sworn in by the Supreme Court of Virginia at the end of the month.

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Posted at 2:24pm on Aug. 10, 2006 Judges do matter

By Quin

For what it's worth, I played the issue of judges prominently in my column today. Letter writers honed in on the judges issue when I did. Their response shows that we are all correct to pay so much attention.

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Posted at 5:30pm on Jul. 20, 2006 Pessimism on Haynes, plus other news

By Quin

Okay, I am hearing from a solid Senate source the following bits of information... with my commentary afterwards:
1) My impression, reading the tone and substance from my source, is that things are not looking good for Jim Haynes. Lindsey Graham and John McCain seem "dug in" against him, and McCain has harassed him (and in so doing, pulling a page from Ted Kennedy's book) by submitting right about 150 written questions (I think it's 152, but am checking) for Haynes to answer. (Quin comments: When the questions get so numerous, it's not a real attempt at info-gathering; it's sheer meanness. Kennedy and other Dems did the same thing to Bill Pryor.) And with Chafee almost always a problem and Susan Collins also having expressed reservations about Haynes, the odds of successfully using the constitutional option are low--and that is even assuming Haynes reaches the floor, which probably won't happen, because Graham would probably join all the Dems in voting against him in committee.
2) Tonight's nominees set for passage are Gorsuch and Shepherd. (By the way, I attended the Sheperd/Moore hearing several weeks ago), and never reported on it because I was busy, but I expect at some point to have more on Shepherd for ya'll's edification, if I ever get around to it.
3) Moore and Holmes are not set for passage tonight, but they probably will be confirmed soon. There doesn't seem to be a critical mass against either of them.
4) The hearing for Wallace should be real soon. After that, the new spate of nominees -- Livingston, Murphy, Keisler, et al -- will receive hearings.
5) Randy Smith remains in limbo (Quin's comment: For no good reason whatsoever; just the dumb jurisdictional dispute with the Californians, which isn't a good reason at all.)
6) Jury is still out on Myers and Boyle; apparently, there still is at least some hope of breaking the impasse over them, with Boyle's odds seeming slightly higher if anything happens in the short run.
Now, Quin's fuller comments after the break:
1) The treatment of Haynes by McCain and Graham is unconscionable, especially after Haynes has corrected the misimpressions about his role in the misnamed "torture memo." Both McCain and Graham ought to be made to pay a heavy political price for their asininity. All my sources tell me that Haynes is a real star and a terrific lawyer and human being. It is expected for Dems these days to mistreat nominees by mischaracterizing their record; for Republicans to do it to one of their own is abominable. If Graham REALLY thinks he is acting on principle (even though he's actually acting only out of personal pique), what he should do is not show up at the committee vote so that Haynes can reach the floor on a 9-8 vote. He then, on principle, should be willing to invoke the constitutional option to kill the filibuster. And THEN, if he feels so strongly, he should make his case on the Senate floor, vote no on final confirmation and try to convince others to do likewise. He would still be wrongheaded if he did that, but it would be the more honorable thing to do, to give the president of his own party and the nominee the right to have their case made under fair rules and the issue decided on majority vote. Haynes might STILL lose under such circumstances, but at least he would have received a somewhat fair shake. As it is, words cannot express the contempt that McCain and Graham merit through the course they appear to have chosen.
#5 and #6) Enough is enough is enough. It is long past time to stop making these nominees twist in the wind. The Senate leadership and the president of the United States should use ALL their power to force a vote on Smith, Myers and Boyle, INCLUDING use of the constitutional option, NOW. It is a travesty for Boyle to wait 15 years, and for Myers to be filibustered for two years solid, and for Smith to dangle without there being a single note of substance against him but instead merely because of a California power play that on its very face is dishonest. It is time for the president and the leadership (especially the president) to twist arms, butt heads, and come down like a ton of bricks (to use way too many cliches) against all GOP senators who fail to support a full, fair, simple majority vote on these three nominees, including use of the constitutional option if necessary. The White House should tell Chafee he's dead meat against Laffey if he doesn't comply. Bush should tell Graham that he'll back Ravenel in 2008 if he continues acting like a jacka$$. Etc., etc., etc. These nominees are not politicians, but human beings with families and lives and financial obligations, etc. TO treat them as badly as they have been treated is to fail a basic test of decency. To see them dangle in the wind makes me sick to my stomach. And it should be held as a black mark against this administration, forever, if the administration does not use all its powers, a la LBJ, to get these nominees a resolution to their situations (and, for that matter, successful resolutions, meaning confirmation!).

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