ConfirmThem

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The always delightful Neil A. Lewis has an article in tomorrow's edition of the NYT, in which he notes, inter alia, that

When the battle over judicial nominations resumes in the next few weeks, President Bush may have a good chance of winning confirmation for some of his previously blocked candidates, Democrats and Republicans said this week . . . .

One reason for that view is that the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Arlen Specter, has been quietly building a strategy that could break the logjam over judicial nominations.

Mr. Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who became chairman over the objections of many conservatives, has been lobbying Democratic senators on behalf of some of the Bush nominees in order to obtain the needed 60 votes to foil a filibuster. He said in an interview that part of his approach was to begin with the nominees he believed had the best chance of attracting Democratic support first.

"I'm going to put up these nominees up in a particular order," he said.

He said the nominee he intended to bring up for a vote first, in a move he hoped would end the divisive partisan battle over judges, was William G. Myers III . . . nominated for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit . . . . Next in line, he suggested, would be William H. Pryor Jr., the former Alabama attorney general who was put on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, temporarily by Mr. Bush during a Congressional recess, after Democrats blocked his confirmation . . . .

Mr. Pryor, the former Alabama attorney general, was criticized by Democrats who blocked his nomination last term as someone who would be unable to divorce his strong personal views from his role as a judge. They cited his strong opposition to legalized abortion and his advocacy of a greater role for religion in government . . . .

Although Democrats on the Judiciary Committee objected to Mr. Pryor's rhetoric before he went on the bench, Mr. Specter said, "he has written about a half dozen moderate to progressive opinions on the bench which show a judicial temperament and judicial disposition that would be admired by anybody."

Mr. Specter recently circulated a memorandum to Democratic senators outlining five of Judge Pryor's decisions, asserting that they showed he stood up to corporations, protected immigrants and upheld a sex discrimination claim.

Mr. Lewis, being the dispassionate journalist that he is, ends his piece with this factually inaccurate (and no doubt intentionally so) sentence, "Although it was not included in the memorandum, Judge Pryor also provided a critical vote upholding Florida's law against adoption by gay couples."

Actually, Mr. Lewis, Judge Pryor did no such thing. What he did was vote to deny a petition seeking a rehearing of a three-judge panel's decision upholding the constitutionality of Florida's law prohibiting adoption by gay parents. And while Judge Pryor's vote in this regard may have had the effect of "upholding" the decision of panel, I fail to see how any senator can speculate as to his reasons for doing so.

Moreover, Mr. Lewis makes a huge gaffe in his article by asserting that Judge Pryor's "recess appointment expired recently." Oh really? I am sure this will come as a surprise to Judge Pryor, who is apparently under the "mistaken" impression that his appointment lasts until the end of this year. Who fact checks your work, Mr. Lewis? Jayson Blair?

(Cross-posted at Southern Appeal)