ConfirmThem

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR200810...

" President Bush stepped gingerly into the presidential campaign on Monday, offering an implicit endorsement of Sen John McCain's judicial philosophy and accusing Democrats of contributing to a "broken confirmation process" for federal judges."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/politics/07bush.html?ref=us

"Mr. Bush has put considerable energy into fighting with Senate Democrats over judges. In 2005, a procedural dispute over Mr. Bush’s judicial nominees nearly paralyzed the Senate. It was resolved only after a bipartisan group of 14 senators, including Mr. McCain, stepped forward to broker a deal in which some nominees would be approved in exchange for a promise from Mr. Bush to consult more closely with senators before naming judges.

On Monday, Mr. Bush accused the Senate of using partisan “tricks and gimmicks” to block his nominees. Complaining of the “broken confirmation process,” he called on the Senate to use its lame-duck session to confirm pending nominations.

“If Democrats truly seek a more productive and cooperative relationship in Washington,” he said, “then they have a perfect opportunity to prove it, by giving these nominees the up or down vote they deserve.”

Judicial appointments are an important issue to Mr. Bush’s conservative base, and Republicans have successfully used the issue in past years to build enthusiasm for their candidates. This year, with the focus intensely on the economy and, to a lesser extent, Iraq, it is unclear how much attention Americans are paying to the courts."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122333824151509789.html?mod=article-outs...

"In judicial nominations, Sen. McCain is likely to rely on advice from the Republican legal establishment, which has helped pull the court firmly to the right in recent years. Backers say that as president, Sen. McCain would use his "gut instinct" to make the final cut among qualified candidates.

"He's going to count on his advisers, people like Ted Olson [the litigator who won the Bush v. Gore case], to tell him that the person has a good law background," says Sen. Kyl. Sen. McCain likely "will be looking more at the kind of character the individual has."

Possible candidates could include federal appeals judges Janice Rogers Brown, Brett Kavanaugh, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor, former judge J. Michael Luttig and Paul Clement, a former Bush administration solicitor general."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122333844642409819.html?mod=article-outs...

"'I appreciate the temptation on the part of Justice Scalia...to assume" that if the 18th century text is followed "without question or deviation...all good will flow,' Sen. Obama writes in his book, "The Audacity of Hope." 'Ultimately, though, I have to side with Justice Breyer's view of the Constitution -- that it is not a static but rather a living document.'

As a result, Sen. Obama's advisers say, he may look beyond the courts for candidates to lawyers with practical, political or scholarly experience. Names mentioned in Democratic circles include federal appeals judges Merrick Garland and Kim Wardlaw, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, and Profs. Cass Sunstein of Harvard, Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford and Harold Hongju Koh, dean of Yale Law School."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122333824151509789.html?mod=article-outs...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122333844642409819.html?mod=article-outs...

Neither article is particularly good at laying out the candidates' legitimate short lists. The Obama piece says "names mentioned in Democratic circles" are Garland, Koh, Sullivan, Wardlaw, Patrick and Sunstein, completely ignoring Sonia Sotomayor, Diane Wood (who admittedly is getting a little old) and Elena Kagan. Ignoring those three also is silly given the WSJ's other names; Sunstein more likely will advise Obama on judges, rather than actually be nominated to the Supreme Court himself, and I would highly, highly doubt that Patrick gets the nod. I know Tom Goldstein and Ed Whelan have written on Patrick's chances and on Obama's willingness to pick non-judges for SCOTUS, but my guess is that Patrick wouldn't want it; far more likely is that Deval sees himself as a future president and wouldn't want the solitude and reduced spotlight as a judge.) The McCain article said possible Supreme Court candidates under a President McCain "could include" Janice Rogers Brown, Brett Kavanaugh, Priscilla Owen, William Pryor, Michael Luttig and Paul Clement. Again, the article lists several names who would be DOA given the next Senate's likely makeup, and it completely omits some other more likely choices by McCain. Brown likely is too old for a nomination to SCOTUS (she turns 60 next year), while Kavanaugh has been accused of perjury in his DC Circuit nomination hearings (and may well be pursued under a President Obama). Dems would shoot down both of them. In addition, Democrats would fight hard against Pryor, who may not be confirmable. Clement is of course an incredibly well-qualified choice and easily confirmable. And Luttig's definitely confirmable also, but his role in the Padilla case might cost him support from his base. Owen's confirmability is questionable. My question to the Journal: where are Diane Sykes, Michael McConnell, Neil Gorsuch, Connie Callahan, Maureen Mahoney, Karen Williams, Debra Livingston, Deborah Cook, Raymond Kethledge, Steven Colloton, Wallace Jefferson, Lavenski Smith, Raymond Gruender, Catharina Haynes, Thomas Hardiman, Jeffrey Howard, Michael Chagares, Kent Jordan, Steven Agee, Jennifer Elrod, Timothy Tymkovich, Jay Bybee, Richard Griffin, Jeff Sutton (who might run into confirmation problems), Dennis Shedd (ditto), Kimberly Moore or Sandra Ikuta? It's not that there aren't many well-qualified, young choices for McCain for SCOTUS; rather, the WSJ article contained the most polarizing ones (i.e., hardest to confirm) and some of the least likely.

My other question, more broadly: how come few articles ever mention Thomas Griffith as a SCOTUS possibility? In the end, was he just not a very good choice for the DC Circuit by Bush? Would the law license kerfuffle really keep him from getting nominated?

I find it odd that Bush in his speech yesterday would use Kelo v New London as precedent, seeing as how he didn't do much (http://volokh.com/posts/1151111493.shtml) to actually mitigate its deleterious effects....and that his administration refused to file an amicus brief on behalf of Kelo (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/06/25/bush-and-kelo/),.... and that, in other property rights cases, the administration has come down wholeheartedly on the wrong side, as in the Carabell and Rapanos wetlands cases (http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org/oh/030206_great_lakes.htm).
Memo to President Bush: Words don't mean diddly if your actions contradict them.
Quin Hillyer

Far too little too late from Bush on judges.

STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined.

This probably could have come 2-3 weeks ago, but the financial crisis hit.

He is a liar, an incompetent, and a fraud who deserves no respect from conservatives, libertarians, or indeed anyone who wants America to be a truly free country again.

It's not the financial crisis that prevented Bush from going to the mat over judicial nominees over the past 2 years and more. Bill M is right, and more charitable to Bush than Bush deserves.

It's not the financial crisis that prevented Bush from directing the filing of an amicus curiae brief on the side of private property rights in Kelo.

It's not the financial crisis that "caused" Bush to acquiesce -- and then some -- in the ongoing Mexican colonization of America.

And it's not the financial crisis that "caused" Bush to spend several trillion dollars over the past 8 years on socialist programs that are nowhere authorized by the Constitution. Not counting defense, homeland security, and border control, Bush and Congress increased spending faster than the rate of population growth. Faster than the rate of inflation. Faster than the rate of GDP growth. That is not an honest, good-faith effort at controlling the size, cost and power of the federal government -- especially considering that he had a majority in Congress to work with for most of that period.

the Republican reputation for fiscal conservatism and competence is shattered. Bush's reckless deficit spending and slavish support for effectively unlimited illegal immigration played a large role in the GOP losing Congress in 2006 (right up there with the Iraw War, in my opinion). Those same factors are apparently about to play a large role in Obama becoming President with larger Dem majorities.

By helping the Dems re-take the Senate and probably the White House, Bush will ensure that his solid re-making of the federal judiciary is thoroughly undone over the next 4-8 years. It is frightening to imagine what the federal judiciary will look like soon.

The man has been rather lousy for a long list of reasons. Fundamentally, I don't see a whole lot of difference between him and Lyndon Johnson.

He made his own bed. But the situation is what it is. He had already curtailed his own power by the time 2007 rolled around, which led to record lows in confirmations.

All I'm saying is that any chance at post June 2008 confirmations was pretty much slammed shut a few weeks ago. You're right, though, I have no idea why he decided to blow smoke now.

He's already mentally checked out; I have no idea why he hasn't physically checked out to some golf course in Florida.

How about Fortas and Marshall vs Roberts and Alito?

Nominees aside, what about the rest of his policy?

Massive Government spending? Check.
Medicare? Check.
Federal involvement in education? Check.
A war in asia that the President failed to run properly? Check, at least up through 2007.
A weakening of immigration policy? Check.
The fracturing of the party base? Check.