<<At least the Democrats had the balls to put their ideological opposition on the record instead of sticking their heads in the sand.>>
I actually agree with this, as regards Owen. (Quibble: " sticking their heads in the sand" isn’t quite right. More like “instread of giving phony excuses.”)
In a way the Democrats had no choice but to 'fess up, because Owen was a flawless candidate. They couldn’t demonize her as a racist (Pickering), an incompetent (Thomas), a drug-user (Ginsberg), a mean-spirited weirdo (Bork), or any of the other excuses used in the past to defeat candidates whose real objection was ideology.
I, for one, am sorry to see ideology become formally in play. You know a lot more than I do, minty, but my impression is that judges are not always that uniformly skilled. New ideological constraints may lead to a further reduction in general ability.
Well, El Jeffe, the distinguished Senior Senator from my adoptive state (NC) held up every nominee whom Pres. Clinton placed before the Senate for the Circuit Court of Appeals covering this area, with the net result that the circuit was down two judges and nobody from NC was serving on the court. This was over a multi-year span, so the question of timing is invalid. And Pres. Bush either nominated or was urged by leading Republicans to nominate (I cannot recall which) one of the Clinton selections, so it would appear that if that person was “grossly inappropriate” then leading Republicans, perhaps including the President, are advancing “grossly inappropriate” candidates for the judiciary.
I followed your advice, Collounsbury, and looked it up. Apparently you were using Definintion 2
In fact, there are two debates going on at the same time. One debate (call it #2) concerns whether Dem or Rep Senators have been worse in fulfilling their duty to vote on judicial appointments. On this score, both sides deserve a lot of criticism.
The OP (call it #1) said that Democrats demonized Republican appointees much more typically than vice versa. On this score, I have provided some cites and quotes. The opposition has responded, but I believe the current state of the evidence tends to support the OP.
Note minty’s point that the Reps didn’t bring some nominees up for a vote, which he says had an identical result to voting them down. He’s right as regards debate #2. However, as regards debate #1, the deserving judges who weren’t brought up for a vote at least were not slandered, as Pickering and Owen were.
Well, what’s that saying? “If my aunt had balls, she’d be my uncle”? For one thing, the Democrats don’t seem to be choosing to delay Republican Hispanic nominees…they chose to delay Estrada’s nomination. The only people who brought up that Estrada was a Hispanic were the Republicans. It’s possible the Democrats didn’t confirm him because they didn’t like him or his judicial philosophy.
Besides, Lott’s statement doesn’t suggest that Democrats have some Machiavellian strategy to keep Hispanics from voting Republican by condemning and voting against notable Hispanics (how would that work, anyway?) Lott’s statement suggests that Democrats don’t want to confirm Hispanics because they don’t like them.
Let’s say I were to say, “Mr. Smith didn’t hire Bill because Bill is black.” While it’s possible Mr. Smith has some reason other than racism for not hiring blacks, all things considered, racism or prejudice is a good bet.
Vaguely amusing, pity you didn’t actually follow my advice.
Of course you believe that. Should you have actually integrated anything of substance into your debate and subsequent responses, I might have expected to see pigs outside my window, gracefully winging their way across town.
Perhaps december, just for the sheer novelty value. you might care to read over citations provided, including certain characterizations (ex-hearings) offered by your sinless, blameless co-ideologues in the service of their upstanding something or other in regards to Clintonian nominees.
Pox on both houses. The rank hypocrisy of squeeling about the process is really … astounding.
And you still don’t appear to recognize the definition of “slander” either, december. Calling an uber-conservative an uber-conservative is not slander because it is true. Owen is, politically and judicially, an extremely conservative judge. Hence, where’s the damn slander you keep asserting without even a semblance of evidence?
december surely you are aware that, according the the Treaty of Westphalia, as amended by the Diet of Worms, excerpting from a dictionary toward sarcastic and/or obfuscatory ends is strictly verboten. You are given to assume that no one on this board, least of all the esteemed Colloun, is in need of vocabulary building.
As to the unvarnished non partisan veracity of Trent Lott…you gotta be kidding! If Ol’ “WorldCom” Trent were to swear to me that pigs dont fly, I would immediatly sink my entire investment portfolio into umbrella manufacturers.
What a lovely statistical blip you have there. Not that it really does much to refute the suggestion that, overall, Clinton deliberately picked nominees destined to lose. FWIW, I don’t necessarily believe that it’s true, I just found the aforementioned commentaries interesting. It certainly sounds like something Clinton would do, but that doesn’t mean he did it.
Actually, he nominated two of Clinton’s selections. And just because some of Clinton’s nominees were bad picks, that doesn’t mean all of them, or the two that were re-nominated by Bush. I don’t know why the two re-nominees were never confirmed, whether it was for ideological reasons, time constraints, chronic halitosis, or what.
Jeff
Hey, Minty, you would probably know. Wasn’t Ms. Owen one of the Texas “justices” who asserted that the guy on trial for murder who’s lawyer fell asleep had gotten a fair trial?
And has she made any public statement as regards that utterly disgusting fiasco in Tulia?
minty, if Leahy had merely called Owen “very conservative,” or “uber-conservative,” I absolutely agree that would not be slander. When Leahy used the word, “extremism,” that was slander. He intended to demean her; that’s why he didn’t simply say “very conservative.”
Teddy Kennedy is very liberal. If I accused him of extremism, that would be slanderous, but it wouldn’t hurt him. Nobody would believe it, because he’s already so well known.
However, when the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee publicly accused Owen of “extemism,” that word created a nationwide reputation for her.
What does the word suggest? I entered the word "extremist into google. Here are some hits I got:[ul][li]Hate On Display: A Visual Database of Extremist Symbols, Logos and Tattoos[]Gangs and Extremist Groups[]Education may be key to extremist actions… Terrorism has little or nothing to do with economics[/ul]Using the word extremism lumps Owen in with hate groups, gangs, and terroists in the public mind.[/li]
I wondered whether you were going to make another argument. Leahy’s statement isn’t actionable as slander because it was spoken on the floor of the Senate. Anything said there is legally protected. However, the word “slander” simply means “a false and defamatory oral statement,” so it’s appropriate to use the word, even though Judge Owen has no legal recourse.
No, absolutely not. The Texas Supreme Court handles only civil cases. Criminal cases go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the court I described earlier as a total disgrace.
december: “Extremism” is not slander, for it is not false, and your google search on the term is just stupid. Try searching on “liberal” and see how many negative references you turn up.
<<“Extremism” is not slander, for it is not false, and your google search on the term is just stupid. Try searching on “liberal” and see how many negative references you turn up.>>
I did as you suggested, and I found no negative references on the first google page. The negative references I cited above to “extremist” were all from the first page. On the second page, I did find “Hollywood liberals are a mass of contradictions.” That’s certainly negative, but it pales in comparison to the terrorists, gangs, and hate groups that correspond to the word “extremist.”
It’s closer to slander than anything he’s come up with. But I’m also trying to remember that I didn’t come here to argue his nonsensical thesis that the Senate Democrats are somehow worse than the Senate Republicans were during the Clinton administration.
Yes, I certainly consider it slanderous for Ashcrot to have called
Ronnie White “pro-criminal.” I already had criticized the Republican slandering of White. Republicans are not perfect (duh!), but at this moment, on this issue, Dems are worse.
My point is that we have seen one case of Republican slander and 5 instances of Democratic slander. The Republican slander was an exception; the Democratic slander is a pattern.