So the Dems. in congress were just set on filibustering Bush’s judicial nominees. This is, of course, not the way the the judicial approval process is supposed to work. Nominees are supposed to get an up or down vote, but following a long-standing senate tradition of “win cheaply before losing poorly” they tried to filibuster. Bush appointed Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in a recess appointment, which gives Pickering a spot on the bench free of Congressional intervention until January 2005.
Our favorite space-boy, Howard Dean, took a moment of his precious campaigning time to call Pickering a racist.
I think the president’s appointment of Charles Pickering to a recess appointment is an ultimate hypocrisy. Yesterday he went and saluted Dr. King’s birthday. Today he appoints a racist to the Supreme Court.
He meant, of course, the federal bench, not the Supreme Court… now, those of you familiar with a bit of history probably remember the name Medger Evars. Well, his brother, James Charles Evers wrote a piece a year ago decrying the smear-campaign that the Democrats had launched against Pickering.
In recent days, I have been saddened and appalled to read many of the allegations that have been put forth about Judge Charles Pickering, whose nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was the subject of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday. These allegations are mostly made by groups with a Washington, D.C., address and a political agenda, not by anyone with real knowledge of Mr. Pickering’s long and distinguished record on civil rights.
As someone who knows Judge Pickering and is familiar with his commitment on matters of race, I could not sit by and watch these groups’ attempts to destroy a good man. Let me tell you about the Charles Pickering many of us in Mississippi have known for well over 30 years.
You should probably read the whole thing, but it suffices to say that Evers is a fan of Pickering BECAUSE of his commitment to civil rights and stance on racial issues.
Nice work, W.
National Review Online quoted this statement by Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina:
“Senator Schumer said let the fight begin. The fight has begun, and the fight needs to be taken to its logical conclusion. We need to break these filibusters, we need to bring reason back to the table, and we need to stop taking good men and women who are well qualified by the bar association and saying that they are racists.
“Do you know what it must have been like in 1967 to get on the stand and testify against the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi? Do you have any idea what courage that took? Shame on you.”
The article goes on to say:
By the end, Graham was nearly in tears and the room was silent. It was an almost stunning conclusion to a meeting that had just a few minutes before seemed entirely recycled and pre-scripted.
Wow. Kudos to her. Do you have the link to that handy?