# The Politics of Pickering **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2003, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503 "2003-01-09T13:57:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/41 "2003-01-10T22:20:56Z")
I fear you may be right, **eluc** , and this may be the real reason for the renom. Send up Pick again, and have the dems appear to be obstructionists. Moreover, what is the public’s interest span for even this type of issue? Even if Pick is rejected, how many others will slip in thereafter. And I simply couldn’t let it pass by, seeing the terms “brilliance and legal clarity” used in the same sentence as “Clarence Thomas.” CITE PLEASE? _(Excepting, of course, a sentence beginning: “There are at least 2 things lacking in a CT opinion…”)_ I’ll give you Scalia, tho I personally think he is a right bastard. I’m outta here. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/42 "2003-01-11T02:04:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dinsdale \* > \*\*And I simply couldn’t let it pass by, seeing the terms “brilliance and legal clarity” used in the same sentence as “Clarence Thomas.” CITE PLEASE? \*\* It’s my personal evaluation. It’s based on how incredibly well he stood up to the horrendous pressure during his confirmation hearings, and also my reading of excerpts of his decisions. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/43 "2003-01-11T02:25:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > This affair looks like a dress rehearsal for the coming battle over Bush’s Supreme Court nominees. Oh, how I hope that you’re right. I would absolutely love it if Bush was insane enough to nominate a judge with Jim Crow/Sovereignty roots to the Supreme Court. Oh, how much fun that would be! He won’t, of course. He’s going to nominate a personal friend who is both personally unobjectionable and utterly unqualified to be a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and he’s going to nominate a reliable reactionary like Edith “Who Says Sleeping Counsel Are Ineffective?” Jones. Too bad, there are some absolutely brilliant conservative legal minds out there. Richard Posner, for instance, who would be the most influential Chief Justice in half a century or more. God, what a waste. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/44 "2003-01-11T02:33:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*Too bad, there are some absolutely brilliant conservative legal minds out there. Richard Posner, for instance, who would be the most influential Chief Justice in half a century or more. God, what a waste. \*\* Yep, it sure is. At least Posner writes all those fine books. Sometimes I think he must be twins. Anyhow, I don’t expect to ever see two Jews on the SC…☹ ---
**Author:** ![Spavined\_Gelding](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@Spavined\_Gelding](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spavined_Gelding)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/45 "2003-01-11T03:01:39Z")
It seems to me that it is just too easy to ascribe the renomination of Judge Pickering to some sort of Bush Family pig headedness. While Dubya may have tendencies toward being pig headed, I can’t believe that the political thinkers from the American Enterprise Institute are all that lacking in pragmatism. I don’t think that the social conservatives and business types who have been promised the federal judiciary are so unsophisticated as to mount Judge Pickering once more and again ride that lame horse into the fray. I suspect that Judge Pickering is the smoke screen for a bunch of young conservative legal thinkers of the AEI persuasion who will sneak into the federal district and circuit courts while our attention is riveted on the fight over the appointment of an elderly jurist whose thinking is mired in ideas discredited 40 years ago. Pickering isn’t nearly as important as the young Turks who will be appointed during the furor and who will dominate the lower federal courts for the next 30 years. So who else is on the list and what do they think of the powers of government and privileges of commerce? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/46 "2003-01-11T04:47:32Z")
Here’s what [People for the American Way](http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=1292) have to say about it. It’s interesting that they do not differ in the facts at ALL with the National Review’s account. But they characterize it differently: > [@](#): > > Specifically, questioning by Senator Edwards revealed that Pickering had threatened to order a new trial in the case (even though the time for such an order had expired and Pickering had no authority to order it on his own motion), ordered Justice Department lawyers to take his complaints about the proposed sentence personally to the Attorney General, and initiated an ex parte communication with a high-ranking Justice Department official to complain about the case. A Justice Department letter released after the hearing revealed a series of “off-the-record” efforts by Pickering to pursue his complaints, including a direct phone call by him to the home of one prosecutor the day after New Years’ Day, 1995. Senator Edwards expressed serious concern that Judge Pickering had violated Rule 3.A.4 of the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, which specifically forbids ex parte contacts between a judge and attorneys for one side of a case about that case. > > Pickering tried to justify his actions, focusing on his concern about the disparity in sentencing for the three defendants, but Senators clearly remained troubled. Although Pickering had referred to the cross-burning as reprehensible, Senator Durbin was concerned about the extreme lengths to which Pickering went to assist the defendant to obtain reduced punishment for conduct - the cross-burning – that Pickering at one point called a “drunken prank.” You know, this sounds a lot more tendentious than the NR account. No mention is made of Pickering’s concern that the ‘truly guilty’ party got off. Pickering claims that he petitioned the Justice Department for guidance on sentencing, this article claims he went to ‘extreme lengths’ to get the sentence reduced. This is all par for the course. I didn’t expect the National Review or Washington Post to lie about the details. Smears are generally done not through lies, which are easily fact-checked, but by twisting and distorting, assigning motivations, and using loaded terms to describe actions. Likewise, the defense of despicable behaviour uses the same tools. So one man’s ‘extreme lengths to minimize the sentence of a cross burner’ become another’s ‘concern about inequitable sentencing, and refusal of the Justice Department to act’. It’s called spin. With all this talk about the Pickering nomination, let’s not forget another possible motivation - the new tax plan. I think the Bush Administration sees the Democrats as being vulnerable to the charge that the Democrats have moved too far left, and have no ideas of their own. That seems to have hurt them in the last election. So Bush puts Pickering back up, and forces the Democrats into a filibuster. Then he forces them to oppose the tax plan. In the end, the Democrats come off exactly the way the Bush administration wants them to - unreasonable and obstructionist. If he manages to sting them with that charge, they’re going to have a hell of a time trying to do the same thing with other appointments. So to avoid the charge, they may wind up having to cave on the tax plan. Or they allow Pickering to go through, and box themselves in a corner when other, even better qualified applicants like Miguel Estrada get nominated again. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/47 "2003-01-11T05:35:44Z")
There’s more I’d like to know about Mr. Pickering. For instance, is this the only time he went to such lengths for someone before his bar? If not, under what circumstances? I would say go ahead and vote. Make the case, and take the vote. Win, lose, or draw and be done with it. Don’t waste time and political ammo on this crap, it aint worth it. With all the trouble coming down the pike as it is, we’ll be really lucky if in six months we still think this is important. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2003, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/48 "2003-01-11T11:17:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*There’s more I’d like to know about Mr. Pickering. For instance, is this the only time he went to such lengths for someone before his bar? If not, under what circumstances? \*\* As I pointed out above, > [@](#): > > He also granted a reduction in sentence to a 20-year-old black man convicted of a first-time drug offense. The man’s lawyer said his client’s “sentencing experience” with Judge Pickering was "a positive life-changing experience. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/49 "2003-01-13T15:06:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by elucidator \* > \*\*There’s more I’d like to know about Mr. Pickering. For instance, is this the only time he went to such lengths for someone before his bar? If not, under what circumstances? \*\* A [follow-up article by Byron York](http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york011303.asp) gives a more detailed answer to this question. > [@](#): > > “One case involved a 20 year-old African American male who faced a mandatory minimum five year sentence,” Pickering wrote. “I departed downward to 30 months. I also recommended that he be allowed to participate in the intensive confinement program which further reduced his sentence.” Pickering also described the case of a 58-year-old black man who faced a five-year mandatory sentence, plus a minimum of 46 months for a separate drug charge. Pickering again sentenced the man to 30 months. In two other cases, he threw out any jail time for men who faced prison terms of 18 and 40 months, respectively. Both defendants were black. “I have departed downward in far more cases involving African Americans than I have in cases involving white defendants,” Pickering wrote. > > Pickering sent Hatch the names of the cases, the case numbers, letters from the defense lawyers involved, and the phone numbers of people to call to check his account of his sentencing practices. Of course, by that time, Democrats on the committee had already killed his nomination on a straight party-line vote. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/50 "2003-01-13T16:46:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*Too bad, there are some absolutely brilliant conservative legal minds out there. Richard Posner, for instance, who would be the most influential Chief Justice in half a century or more. God, what a waste. \*\* I’m curious, exactly what in Posner’s CV, publications, or decisions leads you to characterize him as “conservative.” It seems as tho at times he delights in intentionally being outrageous - any number of his writings are inflammatory enough to give either party sufficient grounds to gum up his elevation to the Supremes. I’ve appeared before him several times. IME, he is a real jerk in the courtroom. Won some, lost others. And I’ve seen during several other arguments. He routinely goes out of his way to berate and humiliate attorneys, seemingly most interested in proving that he is the most brilliant person in the courtroom - if not the planet. He clearly is brilliant. And he is a really hard worker. He writes all of his opinions - and writes opinions for most cases on which he is on the panel. And his book/article output is incredible. But IMO, he has a lousy judicial temperment. Of course, mine is the minority opinion, because he generally is raved about in lawyer publications/ratings. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/51 "2003-01-13T16:50:19Z")
Now that I re-read it, I guess I’d welcome an explanation of whether you are referring to Posner’s as a judicial or a political “conservative” (or both). ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2003, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503/52 "2003-01-13T18:07:59Z")
Is Pickering just a red herring for Dubya’s true pet, Owen? I would think the Dems would figure out that Pickering’s perceived gaffs are far less clear than Owen’s on-the-bench-while-the-court-reporter-types activism. Who would Bush prefer? A right-wing activist from Texas, or a moderate with local NAACP approval? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-politics-of-pickering/147503.md?page=2)