I have to ask...
Does anyone know who's lying this time? Or, more specifically, what each is counting? I don't have the energy to track it down, at least not right now. But...
I have seen both liberals and conservatives claiming that the majority of judges currently sitting were nominated by the other side.
So who is right? Conservatives point out that some really high percentage are Clinton appointees, as if this is any kind of surprise: He is our most recent ex-President, and was President for 8 years. People get older, they retire. At any given time, we're apt to find the largest numbers of sitting judges were nominated either by the current President or by the previous one, with diminishing numbers going further back.
I'd venture to bet that the percentage of judges appointed by Democrat Presidents that were not nomindated by Clinton is approaching zero. You have to go back 25 years before you find another Democrat President, and in 25 years, I'd best most of Carter's nominees have retired.
I'm betting that the "Clinton Majority" people are again using old numbers, the same numbers from 18 months into the Bush Presidency that show that, at that time, less than 50% of his nominees had been confirmed.
But really, both sides are making the claim. "Far and away the Judges of this country are Liberal appointments". "This country has had a majority of Republican appointees on the federal bench and Supreme Court for generations".
Anyone know?
Liam.
posted by Liam at 5/20/2005 12:53:00 AM
1 Comments:
This link may give an answer. In either case, I think it's rather scary to hear the comments. To quote the post (the quote is a transcript of an interview of Pat Buchanan by Catherine Crier):
===Begin Quoted Text===
Crier: “The Republicans, the conservatives, have dominated the courts now for thirty years in this country, and certainly the Supreme Court, so we know we have Conservatives—but that doesn’t seem to be enough.”
Buchanan: “No, that is not enough.”
Crier: “Yeah, the Terri Shiavo case--those were conservative judges, and all of a sudden, we’re saying we want strict constructionists?”
Buchanan: “Exactly. Look, ten of the last twelve justices have been appointed by Republicans. Nixon gave us Blackmon, Gerry Ford gave us John Paul Stevens, Reagan gave us Kennedy and O’Conner, and (Bush Sr.) gave us David Sutter…”
Crier: “Those aren’t good enough?”
Buchanan: “They have been failures. The battle is over the Supreme Court. (It) has become a judicial dictatorship in this country. It dictates racial policy on quotas, affirmative action. It tells us we must have abortion on demand. It’s now into gay rights. It has become a super legislature. Control of it is more important tin the social culture war in America than control of Congress in the United States. That ultimately is what this is all about. The President has got to get those Supreme Court justices…and if that means breaking these ridiculous obstructionist filibusters, he ought to do it.”
===End quoted text===
Interesting. So the argument here seems to be "It doesn't matter if they were appointed by conservatives, they're not conservative ENOUGH".
I think I'm starting to see why the Dems might be a little bit nervous about the most extreme of the already extreme. (Of course, this assumes the administration agrees with the views of Buchanan, which may not be true...)
But still, talk of "activist judges", it sure sounds like Buchanan, anyway, wants judges of such a conservative bent that they do away with that whole pesky "church & state separation" thing, put the Christian faith at the center of our society and create a Theocracy. Judges who will do away with equal rights for minorities and gays.
Just some food for thought.
Liam.
Friday, May 20, 2005 1:16:00 AM
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