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The Sad State of Advice and Consent

by John F. Tamburo, Editor in Chief, Publisher
Originally Posted: 10/12/2005 11:10:50 AM

Yesterday, Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, a Christian minister, revealed the nature of his conversation with Karl Rove.  It made me truly sick.  Not at Dr. Dobson, who is a man who daily lives up to his Christian faith daily, and is an example to all of us.  What made me sick was the sad state of the judicial confirmation process.

The comments from Dr. Dobson, courtesy of Matt Drudge: "What Karl told me is that some of those individuals took themselves off that list and they would not allow their names to be considered, because the process has become so vicious and so vitriolic and so bitter that they didn’t want to subject themselves or the members of their families to it."  Dr. Dobson was referring to the judges on our President’s short list to replace Sandra Day O’Connor.  Good, even great, judges are being scared away from service by the Left’s vicious attacks!  This all started with Robert Bork, and continued at a whole new level with Clarence Thomas. 

"We saw a shadow of this disgusting vitriol with the John Roberts confirmation hearings, where leftists voted ’No’ because this brilliant man did exactly what Ruth Ginsburg did when she was confirmed (almost unanimously).  They asked him if he would look out for "the little guy," when Chief Justice Roberts’ job is to look out for the Constitution."

We saw a shadow of this disgusting vitriol with the John Roberts confirmation hearings, where leftists voted "No" because this brilliant man did exactly what Ruth Ginsburg did when she was confirmed (almost unanimously).  They asked him if he would look out for "the little guy," when Chief Justice Roberts’ job is to look out for the Constitution.  The extreme Left, who runs the Democratic party nowadays, is, as I have noted before, completely intolerant of anything that is not as extreme Left as are they.  I once joked that the only nominee that would have sated them was Hillary Clinton.  I now retract that; even the ultra-liberal Sen. Clinton has earned their ire by failing to dance the happy jig over abortion, calling it a "tragedy."  I actually wonder if Ruth Ginsburg would pass their extremist muster.

The extreme Left knows that we have prevailed at the polls.  Their last hope for the enactment of their agenda is judicial fiat.  That’s why they want justices who will rely on foreign precedent, which has no accountability to the American people, to determine the scope and effect of our Constitution.  As Chief Justice Roberts so correctly noted in his Confirmation testimony, foreign precedents can be found to support any leftist judge’s personal policy preference.  Should a judge in the People’s Republic of China have influence over our First Amendment?  Should an Iranian Sharia court judge set precedent for how American women are treated?  Hell, no!  But the Left cannot force the people to live under their standards unless they force the issue of judges.

"From 1954 to the present, the Supreme Court has been progressively more liberal.  I speak not of great decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, which is a conservative’s dream decision.  I speak of decisions that allow the government to silence political speech within a certain number of days prior to a Federal election."

From 1954 to the present, the Supreme Court has been progressively more liberal.  I speak not of great decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, which is a conservative’s dream decision.  I speak of decisions that allow the government to silence political speech within a certain number of days prior to a Federal election.  I speak of decisions that enable the government to condemn the private property of normal, common folk, and then hand it over to someone who may pay more taxes on it.  I speak of decisions that gut the Bill of Rights by ignoring the Constitution’s plain language to stymie our Second Amendment rights.  These decisions are bombs at the foundations of our Republic.  Our President knows it, and has steadfastly appointed strict constructionists to every level of every Federal court.

How has the Left reacted?  With terrified lashings-out.  They see the end of their judicial tyranny in sight, so they resort to the first weapon of the intellectually vacant:  ad hominem abusive.  Robert Bork is dishonestly labeled a racist, his nomination sunk.  Clarence Thomas gets slammed by Leftist plant Anita Hill, so badly that liberal Arlen Specter did his own investigation and publicly branded Ms. Hill a perjurer.  They went straight into the gutter.  Janice Rogers Brown, a black woman, was derided as a racist!  A racist!?!  Evil Leftist filibusters against judicial nominees led us to prepare the Nuclear Option.  Only a gang of GOP turncoats who collaborated with leftists prevented its exercise.

"Is it any wonder that normal, honest judges shy away from being nominated to the Supreme Court?  The terrorist tactics of the Left were designed to remove conservatives from the pool of judicial nominees.  Our President was hamstrung.  The extreme Left has morphed the judicial confirmation process for every judge nominated by a GOP president into a minefield of invective, libel and ill will."

Is it any wonder that normal, honest judges shy away from being nominated to the Supreme Court?  The terrorist tactics of the Left were designed to remove conservatives from the pool of judicial nominees.  Our President was hamstrung.  The extreme Left has morphed the judicial confirmation process for every judge nominated by a GOP president into a minefield of invective, libel and ill will.  Has the press exposed the truth?  No.  They’ve glommed on to the destruction train and made it their mission in life to turn every single event of any kind against the GOP.

The Left has no choice, you see.  The tactic is designed to prompt the President to appoint "stealth" nominees.  Bork failed, we got Kennedy.  "Stealth nominees" rarely turn out well for the GOP.  Our President got one great shot with Chief Justice Roberts, who is such a Boy Scout that there was nothing that the Left could tack onto him.  Also they went soft on Roberts after he was switched to replace the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, a fellow conservative.  However, O’Connor is a swing vote on the Left’s touchstone issue:  abortion.  A solid conservative in that role would lead to at least some change in the "sacrament of the Left" (quoting Rush Limbaugh, who is, of course, right).

The Left thinks that they have terrified President Bush into a "punt" pick with Harriet Miers.  Alternatively, they knew that a Miers pick would split the conservatives, and are acting to "defend" her while hoping that she quits.  Either the Left thinks that Harriet Miers is David Souter II, a liberal in conservative’s clothing (she gave money to Al Gore’s 1988 presidential bid), or they think that the conservatives will split and our President will be humiliated with a rejected nominee.  What they fail to realize is that Harriet Miers has converted both to the GOP and conservative Christianity.  Those judicial nominees that our conservative brethren wish were nominated, but who bowed out over distaste of the process, were Harriet Miers’ recommendations to our President!

Harriet Miers is my ideal stealth pick.  She is a conservative pro-life Christian who is also a solid attorney.  She is not a judge, meaning that she has real-life, boots on the ground legal experience.  She has the steel spine that a conservative in D.C. needs.  I am getting happier and happier with her pick every single days.