Salon Hit Piece Debunked
By Curt Levey Posted in Uncategorized — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
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.
I guess this clown from Salon never has heard any of RBG's speeches on the wonders of international law, or Souter's exhortations to "vote very, very carefully".
As for next Tuesday, hang in there. John Kerry may just save us yet, combined with some last minute commercials emphasizing judges.