I see Ted Kennedy has joined Charles Schumer and Pat Leahy in the public vlackmail game that the Democrats have turned judicial selection into:
The process has not always been contentious. When presidents understand and respect the constitutional “advice and consent” role of the Senate on judicial appointments, the process can be smooth and cooperative, especially when the president obtains and heeds the Senate’s advice before requesting its consent on a nominee. But when a president tries to ignore the Framers’ careful decision to have the Senate share the appointment power, then the responsibility the Framers placed on us may require us to stand up to the president, and over the course of the nation’s history the Senate has done so when necessary.
Apparently the Senate Democrats want to give advice like the Godfather- take it, or else. This is simply more blackmail- what they are saying is we do not respect you as a legitimate President, and even though we have been voted out of power in every arena of the federal government, we think it is our job to choose court appointees. Bush should tell them where to stick it, and let the loony left and the Common Dreams crowd moan on and on about how ‘arrogant’ Bush is.
*** Update ***
Real Clear Politics notes that in his current op-ed, Kennedy wrote this:
“Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork, and the Senate, after carefully considering and debating his qualifications, defeated him.”
Real Clear Politics then points out these remarks that Kennedy made during the Senate hearings on Bork:
“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would have to sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police would break down citizen’s doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.”
I guess we shall add blackmail to the list of Kennedy offenses, which include serial liar, adulterer, alcoholic, and lest we forget, murderer.
You know, the more I think about it, the angrier I get. Chante Mallard gets stoned, hits a guy, lets him bleed to death in her garage, and she goes to jail for 60 years. Kennedy gets drunk, drives off a bridge, let’s a girl slowly drown to death, and he gets a lifetime Senate seat.
Joe Johnston
It’s been my experience that most Bork-baiters, those thinking they actually know something about Robert Bork, are bascially shallow twits who have nothing more than an opinion based on the media’s biased summation of the man. It’s equally amazing that all his critics seem like intellectual lightweights compared to the man nominated to the Supreme Court.
But whadda I know. I, too, am in the ranks of the lightweights.