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Astrocloud · 01-26-2004, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by lurkette
Sigh. If you kids can't learn to get along I'm going to have to send you to your rooms without dessert.

Sorry mom, I promise to stay on topic and not discuss the individual making the remark. However -if someone starts thumping their chest; telling others why their opinion is better than someone else's -shouldn't we be allowed to point it out why their opinion isn't better?

I suppose it's just a false appeal to authority anyways.

http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/aa.htm

Back on Topic

Quote:

Clinton and Bush court appointments: a study in contrasts

The philosophies which Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush have followed in nominating judges have been very different.

Clinton took a centrist approach and most of the persons nominated by him were clearly moderates. In fact, many liberal Democrats thought Clinton's nominees were not liberal enough.

Bush, however, has stated that the judges he regards as role models are Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, two of the most conservative justices. He clearly wants to move the federal judiciary to the right.

Clinton, as a lawyer, law professor and former attorney general of Arkansas, was in a better position to make his own judgments about potential court nominees.

Bush has to rely almost completely on others to evaluate his judicial nominees. The right wing of the Republican Party has long taken a special interest in getting conservatives appointed to the federal courts, and a number of observers believe that both President Bush and his father have used conservative judicial appointments to curry favor with the Republican right wing.

Clinton made it clear that he wanted to diversify the federal judiciary, particularly as to race and gender. In fact, according to a Report of the Alliance for Justice, "he appointed more women and African-Americans to the federal bench than Presidents George H.W. Bush, Reagan, Carter and Ford combined."

Clinton had also make it clear he wanted to appoint very qualified people and, according to the Alliance for Justice Report, the American Bar Association "ranked Clinton's appointees the most qualified of any they had assessed since they started the process (of reviewing potential court nominees) in the 1950s."

Beginning in the Eisenhower administration, the procedure has been for the Bar Association to evaluate federal judges prior to formal nominations by the president. After nearly 50 years this was discontinued by the current Bush administration because right-wing Republicans regard the ABA as "too liberal."

The importance of the Supreme Court was dramatically demonstrated by Bush v. Gore, which stopped the manual recounting of votes in Florida and effectively guaranteed Bush the presidency. In the opinions of many pro-choice advocates, Roe v. Wade is hanging by a thread. In addition, recent affirmative action and sodomy cases were decided by close votes. Many important cases have been decided by 5-4 votes in recent years.

While the Supreme Court is the most important venue, it only accepts a limited number of cases so that in most cases the decisions of the federal appellate courts are final and very significant.

Republicans rejected 60 percent of Clinton's nominees to the federal district and appellate courts. In contrast, the Democrats have approved 168 of the current Bush nominees for federal judges, while rejecting only four as ultra-conservative.

Republicans should stop whining about Democratic opposition to a very small number of ultra-conservative nominees, and Bush should start making good on his promise "to be a uniter, not a divider" by not trying to pack the federal courts with nominees who are way out of the mainstream, such as Alabama Attorney General Willliam Pryor, Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, all of whom have been filibustered by Democratic senators, including Florida's two senators, Bob Graham and Bill Nelson.

Bush's recess appointment of Mississippi District Court Judge Charles Pickering to a federal appeals court seat on Jan. 16 is but the latest example of the president's pandering to his right-wing base by nominating and appointing judges out of the mainstream. This is in sharp contrast to Clinton's conciliatory approach in consulting with and getting the constitutionally mandated "advice and consent" of the Senate in appointing moderates to the courts.

John E. Clay is a retired senior partner of the international law firm of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw. He is president of the Longboat Key Democratic Club

http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pb...ST13/401260429