ConfirmThem

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Two articles are out today re: Pryor's nomination:

First, is this article by the Mobile Register, "High profile likely aided Pryor's bid--Vote on judicial nominee from Mobile probably coming next month," which notes, inter alia, that:

While the Senate was already proceeding Tuesday afternoon toward a final confirmation vote for Owen, the timetable for Pryor remained unsettled. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Mobile, had hoped it could take place as early as this week; other observers said it would probably occur after lawmakers return next month from their Memorial Day recess.
. . . .

As recently as this month, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee again argued that Pryor's opposition to legalized abortion, along with other outspoken positions on divisive social issues, raised troubling questions about his ability to serve impartially as a judge.

But those views have also won him influential allies in conservative Christian organizations that have become a crucial part of the GOP base.

"I think he fits the exact model of what a judge should be," said Jay Sekulow, an influential Christian evangelical leader who is chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, a Washington, D.C.-based organization specializing in constitutional law.

During Pryor's tenure as attorney general, he and Sekulow worked together on a high-profile school prayer case. In a front-page story in The Wall Street Journal last week, Sekulow stressed the importance of Pryor's nomination for "our people."

At the same time, Pryor "absolutely" benefited from his gamble to accept the temporary 11th Circuit judgeship, said Sheldon Goldman, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an authority on the judicial selection process.

As a judge, "he didn't do anything so outlandish or grandstanding that the Democrats could point to as (evi dence) that this man was not fit to serve on the bench."

"He didn't stand out as an extremist."

And the B'ham News has this excellent editorial, "A deal at last in Senate standoff":

It serves Pryor well because it gives him a shot at a lifetime appointment to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a position he already holds on a temporary basis. Democratic senators had threatened to block consideration of Pryor, who they portrayed as a dangerous judicial candidate who had put his conservative ideology above the law.

As Alabamians know, nothing could be further from the truth.

They recall Pryor as the courageous prosecutor who took on former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for disobeying a federal court order to move a Ten Commandments monument from the state court building. They recall him arguing, successfully, for the popular chief justice's removal from the bench. They know Pryor did not take the challenge because of any disregard for the Ten Commandments. He certainly did not do it to score political points. He did it because he believes, first and foremost, in the rule of law.