Bench Stuff

*D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Brett Kavanaugh is being screwed by Hillary Clinton.

That at least appears to be the obvious conclusion after his nomination, originally made back in 2003 and then re-submitted last Valentine's Day, got caught in the undertow of the "memo of understanding" incident, and as of last Saturday is not being held over to the next congressional session, meaning that the White House will have to re-re-nominate him. The underlying reason for his stint in limbo is thought to be that he was a deputy to former Omnibus Independent Counsel Ken Starr during the latter's five years of investigations of the ongoing criminal conspiracy that was the Clinton administration, and the former first lady who is now the junior senator from New York (only technically) has placed a permanent "hold" on his nomination out of vengeful spite.

One can only imagine the press reaction if Laura Bush decided to run to succeed Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Senate during a first Hillary term and did the same thing to Patrick Fitzgerald after the Queen appointed him to a federal appellate judgeship as a reward for his "Plamegate" efforts. One doesn't have to imagine the utter lack of media interest in the abuse of senatorial power being indulged in by the Queen-in-waiting right now.

If Bill Frist or "Snarlin' Arlen" Specter aren't going to get off the schnied and come to Kavanaugh's rescue, and expose the anti-democratic "hold" process in the, well, process, the President should do what he did with now-confirmed appellate court Judge Bill Pryor and just give him a recess appointment along with the third nomination.

After all, it's not as though Mrs. Clinton is president yet, right?

*The Extreme Media now appears to lack even the stamina it mustered to try and smear Chief Justice John Roberts back in late summer. Here we are nearly two months since Judge Samuel Alito was nominated to the SCOTUS, and a mere two weeks away from the beginning of his confirmation hearings, and their coverage of the man already appears to be leveling out:

Papers released yesterday show a young Samuel Alito as a cautious attorney and advisor to the Reagan Administration, offering a conservative strategy in terms of the use of the courts for political purposes, as evidenced by two memos reported by the Washington Post and the New York Sun. The main issue involved a Black Panther lawsuit that had won a technical ruling on standing for its lawsuit against a number of government officials, including Bush's father, that Alito advised should not get challenged....

Another memo given a bare mention by the Post notes that Alito also advised the Reagan Administration not to argue against divestment by state governments in the apartheid nation of South Africa as unconstitutional. At the time, the US had wanted to play a balancing act with South Africa, seeing the issue in the binary Cold War vision and wanted to ensure that the federal government controlled all foreign-policy approaches towards the controversial nation. Alito's advice not only ran counter to what the Reagan Administration wanted to hear, but it also allowed state governments to continue their economic protest of apartheid and discrimination against black South Africans. This runs counter to the attempt to paint Alito as a closet racist.

FWIW, the press seems to have grasped from how utterly foolish they and their Dem hack allies on the Senate Judiciary Committee were made to look by the CJOTUS, and they can see that the Alito hearings are going to be no different. It's yet another indication that the Democrats are saving their resources for the true balance-tipping SCOTUS nomination that will come when Justice Stevens or Justice Ginsberg steps down. And it's also a vindication of the advice that I recall Pat Buchanan offering up way back in the Robert Bork mugging: keep sending up one qualified conservative jurist after another until the Donks give up.

Just imagine a third SCOTUS slot opening up next year, right in the middle of the '06 midterm campaign, and Democrats having to run on repugnant judicial confirmation obstructism and foreign policy sedition. Sure makes my mouth water.

*And, not to leave out actual bench action itself, looky what Cap'n Ed belatedly noticed out of the Sixth Circuit, and shouldn't feel bad about having initially missed since even so voracious an online surfer as I didn't see it either:

A federal appeals court has upheld a display of the Ten Commandments alongside other historical documents in the Mercer County, Kentucky, courthouse.

The judge who wrote the opinion blasted the American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the display, in language that echoed the type of criticism often directed at the organization.

Judge Richard Suhrheinrich's ruling said the ACLU brought "tiresome" arguments about the "wall of separation" between church and state, and it said the organization does not represent a "reasonable person."

Thank you, Judge Suhrheinrich. A lot of us have been saying that very same thing for years about the bigots and Christophobes and hatemongers at the ACLU. It is cathartic to finally hear a federal appellate judge tell it like it is.

This ruling came from a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit, so I suppose there's at least the theoretical possibility that the full court may reverse it, though that is highly unlikely. What is doubly interesting, as Ed elaborates, is that when the inevitable appeal reaches the SCOTUS (and assuming that they consent to hear the case), Samuel Alito's careful originalism will have replaced Sandra Day O'Connor's magic eight-ball. Assuming that Justice Kennedy doesn't let being the hinge of Olympus go to his head (admittedly an awfully big if), the ACLU's campaign to completely stamp out every last vestage of religious expression in the United States will be headed for some well-earned and long-overdue hard times.