# I'm hearing this more and more about Bush appontees. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2005, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809 "2005-06-18T14:41:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![D505](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@D505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D505)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809/21 "2005-06-20T14:37:17Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > I did mention my worries about the type of judge that Bush will appoint. Bush seems to me to appoint a lot of people who are willing to pick and choose from among the data underlying a technical or scientific report in order to get an outcome suitable to GW’s business campaign contributers. He also seems to have appointed attorneys who are willing to look for any pettifogging nit in order to justify holding people indefinitely without their having any recourse. So I assume he will appoint judges who will pick and choose from among the various precedents in order to come up with a decision that will allow the executive department to pretty much do as it pleases in the cases where the executive wants such an outcome. Yeah, I actually don’t debate your first two assertions, but your unspoken premise is that Bush is spinning things more than previous administrations. As quick examples so early in the morning, I can think of how we’re supposed to be in an environmental wasteland, overpopulated and starving, and completely out of oil today according the Carter administration. Also, most people feel that the Waco incident had overly contrived justifications for the destruction of that ultra-rightwing compound full of kooks. I’m fairly certain if you only read left-wing newspapers, you’ll get an impression that Bush is worse. As to the first two assertions leading to the conclusion that his appointees will allow him to do whatever he wants, that’s a stretch. Unless, of course, GW wants to do only conservative things and a conservative judge will rule in a conservative way… allowing conservatives to have in their own conservative way.😉 I know liberals react with horror to something like that… but it’s all within the rules, something liberals don’t like either. -d ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809/22 "2005-06-20T14:43:24Z")
> [@](#): > > I can think of how we’re supposed to be in an environmental wasteland, overpopulated and starving, and completely out of oil today according the Carter administration. I don’t recall such a prediction- do you have a cite? > [@](#): > > Also, most people feel that the Waco incident had overly contrived justifications for the destruction of that ultra-rightwing compound full of kooks. Again, how do you know how “most people” felt? > [@](#): > > I know liberals react with horror to something like that… but it’s all within the rules, something liberals don’t like either. It is quite possible to discuss matters rationally without resorting to smearing those with opposing viewpoints. You may wish to try it sometime. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809/23 "2005-06-20T17:45:41Z")
> [@D505](#): > > I’m fairly certain if you only read left-wing newspapers, you’ll get an impression that Bush is worse. I need no left-wing media to draw this conclusion. Reality is sufficient. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2005, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809/24 "2005-06-20T17:46:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Unless, of course, GW wants to do only conservative things and a conservative judge will rule in a conservative way… allowing conservatives to have in their own conservative way. I know liberals react with horror to something like that… but it’s all within the rules, something liberals don’t like either. This is going to surprise you but there aren’t any such rules. Neither conservatives or liberals or Republicans or Democrats get to “own” the legal system. Judges are supposed to obey the law not advance the political agenda of the politicians that appointed them. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809/25 "2005-06-21T01:27:33Z")
> [@D505](#): > > No one Bush nominates would be as far right as Ruth Bader Ginsberg is far left, and she passed 96-4. Evidence that R.B.G. is “far left”? > [@](#): > > Any dirty trick is OK now, including demands for documents which they fully know that they have no right to demand and changing confirmation rules from simple majority to 60 votes. > > Don’t expect fair and unbiased sources in the media like the LA Times :eyeroll: to sit idly by and report both sides fairly. Be sure to check out what right-leaning sources have to say about these matters. > > -d Well, you seem to be proving that point that listening to right-leaning sources…or even the mainstream media…leaves one lacking in basic facts. You seem to be bothered by the fact that Democrats have used the filibuster against a few of Bush’s most extreme nominees, thus allowing 41 votes to block confirmation. However, I guess you are blissfully unaware of how the “blue slip” process operated during the Clinton Administration during the time when the Republicans controlled the Senate. Basically, they gave home-state Senators a veto over having Clinton appointees ever getting a vote. Blocking a nomination with 41 votes is a lot fairer than blocking a nomination because one extremist Senator like Jesse Helms is single-handedly vetoing the President’s nominees. (In the circuit that included North Carolina, Helms blocked several nominees…essentially holding vacancies on that circuit hostage.) ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2005, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809/26 "2005-06-21T02:27:37Z")
[Here](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/25/opinion/main683182.shtml) and [here](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/28/223716/871) are some discussions of how judicial nominees were treated in the Clinton era: > [@](#): > > Between 1996 and 2000, 20 of Bill Clinton’s appeals-court nominees were denied hearings, including Elena Kagan, now dean of the Harvard Law School, and many other women and minorities. In 1999, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch refused to hold hearings for almost six months on any of 16 circuit-court and 31 district-court nominations Clinton had sent up. Three appeals-court nominees who did manage to obtain a hearing in Clinton’s second term were denied a committee vote, including Allen R. Snyder, a distinguished Washington lawyer, Clinton White House aide, and former Rehnquist law clerk, who drew lavish praise at his hearing – but never got a committee vote. Some 45 district-court nominees were also denied hearings, and two more were afforded hearings but not a committee vote. > > … > > But when the Republicans took over the White House in 2001 and the Senate in 2003, things sped up. In 2003, Hatch announced that he would abandon the “blue-slip system” he had insisted on since 1995, whereby a senator could block action on a nominee from his or her home state; North Carolina’s Jesse Helms had used this power to block every one of three black candidates to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Anonymous floor holds were abolished, as was the rule requiring that at least one minority-party senator on the Judiciary Committee must agree to a vote on a nominee if any committee member objects. These rules changes left the Democrats with only the filibuster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-hearing-this-more-and-more-about-bush-appontees/308809.md?page=1)