A memo by staffers for Ted Kennedy recommended the stonewalling of Bush’s nominee to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Julia Gibbons. Nobody is making a big deal out of this, just as they’re not making a big deal over Kennedy smearing Bush’s female, Hispanic and black nominees as “Neanderthals” and letting special interest groups decide which judges they vote for.
You’re not going to hear much about this from many media sources… those of you looking for an example of how the “liberal media” operates.
People like Rush Limbaugh or Trent Lott say something that might be construed as racist, and they get ousted from their positions from all the public outcry the media has installed.
Not going to see that here.
But here’s some blatant racist statements coming from the so called “color blind, defenders of minorities” liberal democratic party - These are from memos as well… it’s in writing.
I guarantee, that if this memo came from a republican’s office, it’d be the number one news story right now - and his career would be near death.
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Again… Liberals are generally the exact opposite of what they say they are. Yet another example of their blatant hypocrisy on display.
_“That’s a list of what the groups saw as dangerous positives,” Mr. Shoemaker said. “In their opinion, Miguel Estrada was especially dangerous from a political standpoint for Democrats because they wouldn’t want to vote against him for those very reasons.”
There is a difference in stating someone is dangerous because they are latino and noting that opposing a latino may be politcally dangerous. However, the main objection with Estrada is that he has no paper trail, something your quote omitted.
Further, how is it that these democratic memos keep ending up in Republican hands? Might there be some unethical conduct going on?
Nice attempt at outrage, EG. Dick Durbin is my Senator and only a complete fool would think that he would oppose someone for the federal bench because “he is Latino”. Estrada’s race had nothing to do with his rejection; it was his far-right political views.:wally
Did he call them neanderthals because of their gender, race, or ethnicity? Who, specifically, was Kennedy referring to? Were there any white males in the group?
I would also point out that, although I don’t claim to have any proof of this, I think it is not hard to envision that the Bush Administration might have gone looking for minorities and women who are extremely far right out of the hope that they would be more difficult politically for the Dems to oppose than far righters who were white males.
Here are some fun figures from Albert R. Hunt, the only regular voice of sanity on the Wall Street Journal OpEd page [Nov. 13, 2003]:
Number of African Americans Bush judicial nominations blocked by the Senate: 1, Number confirmed: 13. The numbers for Hispanics are exactly the same. The numbers for women are 3 and 33, respectively.
Another point in that article: Democrats are filibustering or threatening a filibuster on 6 nominations. During Clinton’s 8 years, Republicans blocked over 60 nominations who didn’t even get a floor vote. And, the Senate has confirmed 168 of Bush’s judicial nominations which is one more than was confirmed under Clinton at this point in his term.
>Further, how is it that these democratic memos keep ending up >in Republican hands? Might there be some unethical conduct
>going on?
Funny, isn’t it, that the Dems are more interested in stopping information from getting out than actually justifying their positions?
Does anyone have any information on the stated reason that the Clintoners were blocked? Because these four are blocked for purely ideological reasons.
As for Bush nominating “far-right” minorities…shrug. If they’re qualified, there’s no reason they can’t get a proper vote. On the other hand, Democrats seem to be opposing the minority/women with particular vigor. Maybe they’re afraid that their monopoly on minorities is being broken?
(I’m also amused by the fact that the NAACP is blocking the advancement of JRB, as is NOW. Gone from race/gender-based advancement groups to ideological/policy group.)
After Republicans gained the majority in Congress in 1994, Senator Hatch – as the new Chairman of the Judificary Committee – revived a practice of requiring that both Senators representing a state to which a judge would be appointed must approve of the nomination. This is often called the “blue slip” policy.
Refusals by Republican Senators to approve of Clinton nominees to their states meant that those nominees would not be given hearings. For example, according to this site, Senator Helms did not approve of any Clinton appointees. In effect, it was one Senator blocking a hearing on a nomination, as opposed to 45 (or so) blocking a vote on a nomination.
As the article linked above notes, in 2001, Hatch changed his blue slip policy to say that he would give “great weight” to whether there was home-state opposition to a judge, but would not let a single Senator’s opposition to a nominee block a hearing. At least one of the judges now being blocked – Judge Kuhl – does not have the approval of both Senators of her state, which would have torpedoed the nomination in the period from 1994 to 2001.
The democrats are not opposing the nominees because they are minorities they are opposing them because they are minorities who may be nominated to the Supreme Court. This is why the memo calls the Hispanic nominee dangerous. White males are less dangerous because they would be easier to vote against . Apparently Democrats think that discrimination against people of color or gender is okay as long as it serves to keep abortion legal in all 50 states. This type of discrimination is illegal in the private sector
What the devil is your point here? Are you saying that it is racist to oppose the nomination of an anti-choice person to a lifetime post, if that person is also a minority?
Perhaps if you had read my entire post you would have noticed that I had already explained that the memo referred to the political danger that might happen should the democrats filibuster Estrada.
However, considering you chose only to quote a certain part of my post, should I assume that you are less interested in a real answer and are more interested in partisan sniping?
If you have a real disagreement with my points, that is fine. But to only take one part of my post and then claim I’m unresponsive while completely ignoring the rest of my post is not only intellectually dishonest, but it’s petty as well.