And yet, Justice Antonin Scalia, who is clearly even more extremist in his views than Justice Alito, was confirmed in a 98 - 0 vote! Hell, he was supported for nomination by Mario Cuomo! No one was buying a pig in a poke with him; everyone knew exactly where his viewpoint lay. But the Democrats didn’t take him on, didn’t fulminate about his extremist views and didn’t lie down on the floor of the Senate chamber kicking and screaming about how unfair it was that a CONSERVATIVE judge was going to be on the nation’s highest court. Amazingly, they looked at the situation, saw that he was a rational person, crossed their fingers, and hoped that he would be a good justice, even if he wasn’t going to be a liberal justice.
Which is not to say that they didn’t have politicking going on behind the scenes, just that they didn’t make a public scene about it to pander to their demoralized fan base (it was 1986, remember :p).
Well, if your point is that the nominations went smoothly except when they didn’t, fine, but that is not much of a point.
If you merely pointed out that liberal or centrist justices tend to be easily confirmed (Breyer, Ginsberg, Souter) while only those detectably right of center trigger nasty fights, then you would be on to something.
Was it that Close on Alito? Well I guess they were trying ride the wave of anti-Bush sentiment at the time. Same thing really. Still about their own personal hides, not about sincere ideology or party (though I will say that Alito had some genuinely sketchy issues).
As for Ginsberg and Breyer. That was a different time. I’m not saying the Republicans have always been this much under the thumb of their base, only that they are right NOW more than they ever gave been. They hated Clinton, but Obama is making them positively hysterical.
Boy, you really don’t want to accept the truth of what I’m saying, do you? :rolleyes:
Assertion: Bork politicized nominations; Sotomayor’s hearings are a continuation of that process.
Facts as I’ve pointed out: Not true; Bork was followed by several appointments, both Democratic and Republican, which followed the previous pattern best exemplified by the justice nominated prior to Bork, Antonin Scalia. It wasn’t until the polarized era of the Bush administration that the Dems decided that the political gloves needed to come off regardless of who was up for nomination.
I’m not sure it’s Obama that’s making them hysterical; I think it’s the lack of control over the direction of the discourse. At least with Clinton, they still had a feeling of being close, and indeed, they demonstrated that by regaining control of the House in '94. Now, the discourse is going in a direction they increasingly cannot control, and they don’t understand that, and it scares them.
And we can discuss why that is, but that’s another thread.
But I think you are right that the change that occurred during the Bush era, as demonstrated by the fight over both Alito and Roberts (who was confirmed 78 - 22, Democrats splitting evenly, and reported out of committee by 13 - 5, with even relatively moderate Sen. DiFi voting against) has to do with politics and pandering, rather than with true devotion to the concept of “advice and consent.”
But – but – but that doesn’t make the Democrats WRONG! What’s the matter with you ? Why don’t you want to make the Democrats WRONG? Are you a Usual Suspect or something?
Remember Souter was a Bush I nomination and not thought to be a lefty at the time. He became moderate (and hence a lefty in conservative eyes) only once on the court.
Absolutely not. I already pointed out the brick wall the GOP put in place against Clinton’s federal judge nominees. You ignored that, and repeated again that foolish assertion that “it” didn’t start until Bush.
IOW, Bork began the process of opposition to conservative justices. You keep trying to cherry-pick the ones you want to consider.
Bork did not begin a process of politicizing the confirmation process. He began the tradition where Dems oppose anyone who is right of center. IOW, the only times it doesn’t go smoothly is when the Dems pitch a tantrum. Exactly as I said.
FWIW, you are generally correct that, up unti Bork, the Senate generally vote based on judicial qualifications. After Bork, they did not.
Not conservative = no fuss. Conservative = fuss. This has happened fairly consistently from Bork to now. Not to mention the rather silly implication that merely not voting for a nominee like Sotomayor is at all comparable to Sen. Simon (and Nina Totenberg) forcing Anita Hill to go public with her lies as an attempt to torpedo a nomination based on political disagreement. Or, as mentioned, the kind of extremist rhetoric that Kennedy and Kerry used.
The notion that everything was fine until Bush is wrong. Everything was fine until Bork. Then the process of confirming conservative Justices was sidetracked.
Personally, I think Bork disqualified himself by agreeing to be Nixon’s hatchet man. If those were his principles, I’d prefer them off the court. I also believe Anita Hill and that Thomas was a sexual harasser. For those two, politics had squat to do with my objections.
