Time To Stop Playing "Small Ball"

Bush needs to move on judges, now:

It is time for George W. Bush to call on those who owe a service to him. When John McCain came to the president and sought “justice” from the political insults of his enemies, Don Presidente granted his request and signed McCain-Feingold into law, despite his serious reservations with its legality. When Arlen Specter sought protection from the slights of his fellow Republicans, Don Presidente stepped into the Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania and backed Specter over his more conservative challenger, Pat Toomey, drawing the howls of Bush’s most ardent supporters. Many others have called on the kindness of the president for similar political favors, not to be disappointed. Early in his tenure as capo, he even reached out to the other families, appointing two of President Clinton’s holdover nominees to the federal courts of appeals.


And what does he have to show for these acts of kindness? Very little. Languishing in the Senate for the last four years are a group of highly qualified, top-notch nominees to the federal court, supported by a majority of U.S. senators but unable to receive an up-or-down vote. Fueled by ultra-liberal interest groups like Moveon.org and People for the American Way, Democrats have successfully blocked the majority of the Senate from exercising one of its most important constitutional functions, advising on and consenting to the president’s nominees to the federal court. Using the filibuster, a procedural device never before used to block a judicial nominee who would otherwise be confirmed by the Senate, Democrats in the Senate have prevented nearly 1/3 of the president’s nominees to the U.S. Courts of Appeals, the prestigious courts that sit in review of lower-court judgments. Because of obstruction by Democrats, President Bush has been the victim of the lowest confirmation rate for appellate-court judges in modern history.