Guilt by association.
Never underestimate the Bush family’s capacity to bear a grudge. Even though they don’t like Pickering, it was a personal affront to them that their nominee was rejected.
Who’s talking “guilt”, december? 'luce’s question was why the attention to Pickering, when other equally or better qualified candidates palatable to the GOP exist? Personal interest on the part of a powerful senator who may now be owed a favor by the administration seems plausible to me.
Are you now blaming Jenna? Or Barney? 
xenophon41 – I understood your comment 'Nuff said to mean that Charles Pickering was a Lott protege so he was therefore also a racist. And that Charles’s father therefore must also be a racist. Is that not what you meant?
I meant what I just said I meant.
Saw your reply, december. In your mind, does it come down to saving face? Which gets us back to the propriety of the original appointment. Whether or not one agrees with Bush’s praise of the man, a blind man could see that he was a potentially controversial candidate. Anyone who has any familiarity with the federal courts knows full well that there are any number of extremely competent lawyers, magistrate judges, and district court judges out there. So why pick one whose nomination will predictably result in divisiveness?
Appointments to the federal judiciary are so long lasting. With implications on so many vital important parts of our lives for years and decades to come. While I might say that it is disturbing to see such an important issue dealt with as a political football, in all honesty I cannot say I would be distressed if a number of very young, very liberal jurists were appointed.
Disclaimer - for my job - federal appellate litigation defense - I generally do far better the more conservative the judge(s) in question. But my personal views seem pretty consistently on the more liberal side.
I can’t speak for Bush, but here’s how I, a Bush supporter, feel. Pickering’s nomination didn’t thrill me the first time around. He is fully competent to be a appellate judge, according to the American Bar Assn. But, as you say, there are many other fine candidates and he’s in his 60’s, so he won’t serve that long.
OTOH I totally support his re-nomination. Race-mongers attacked him using methods worthy of Jeseph McCarthy. I don’t want to see those techniques triumph.
Put another way, the Pickering’s overall biography shows that he was an anti-Jim Crow, pro integration leader in Mississippi. He fought the KKK when it was still powerful, at risk to himself and his family. He chose to put his kids into integrated schools, when segregated schools were available. He helped the university to improve its racial practices. If someone with this record can be tarred as a racist, then any Southerner can be tarred as a racist. It’s important to fight that sort of thing.
The above link is a good synopsis of the issues so far.
Interesting to note that a a fillibuster hasn’t been successfully used in more than 30 years. I think GWB nominated Pickering as a poke in the eye to the Dems, knowing full well that a shit-storm would ensue. He can then "regretedly"withdraw Pickering’s nomination and appear to be listening to the Dems., or accept Pickering’s voluntary withdrawl and lament how the Dems ran a “fine candidate” out of the judiciary.
Here’s a thorough description of the cross-burning case that Pickering’s critics have seized upon. It’s worth reading. The full details are a lot different from the sound bite version.
Thanks for the response, dec.
Do you have any idea of numbers of judges appointed to the fedeal bar in southern states/districts? Say, in the last 2 decades?
I do not. But I am unaware of any disproportionate vacancies on Southern benches due to consistent across the board accusations of racism.
Pickering was singled out, whether fairly or not. But didn’t SOMETHING in his background provide his opponents with ammunition? Same with the woman from Texas? (Tho IIRC her issue was abortion.) How many low-profile nominations do not draw this type of attention?
Please, dec, don’t insult us by resorting to NR for an objective representation of the facts.
I agree. The point isn’t that race-mongering is always used. It’s that the race card is always available, regardless of what the real objection may be.
There’s something in everyone’s background – particularly since the accusers don’t need to be fair. E.g., take a look at the New York Times edtorital cited in the OP.
– It pulls one case out of a 40-year career
– It doesn’t give the details of the case.
– It doesn’t give the reasons why Pickering’s action was appropriate
– It doesn’t mention another case where Pickering took similar action on behalf of a black defendant*
– It leaves out all of Pickering’s positive civil rights activities
Similarly, the critics of Judge Owen selected one single decision, without providing the full background, and claimed that was enough to show she was unqualified.
In preview, Dinsdale, I see your objection to the getting the full details from the right wing National Review. Note that the Wall St. Journal cite above gives a similar report.
I’d like to balance them with a full description of the case from Pickering’s critics, but I don’t think it exists. The full facts show that Pickering did something reasonable. The attack only works when it’s condensed to a sound-bite.
Thanks again for your response.
As I’ve said before, I am no expert on the facts of this matter.
Moreover, my interest in things politic has significantly waned in recent years, due to what I perceive as the near-impossibility of getting objective facts concerning just about any potentially contentious issue. In nearly every case it is, instead, a matter of choosing whose biased report you read.
NR has many good qualities, and I read and enjoy it on many occasions. But I would hesitate to cite it as an unbiased authority on much of anything. Not to say NR is incapable of presenting accurate facts, but I would try to find a less partisan source. Moreover, objective facts within its pages are often colored by the surrounding commentary.
I don’t know much of anything of Pickering. And we could go back and forth naming conserv and lib nominees we felt were railroaded for inaccurate ideologigical reasons. But this specific nomination - whether successful or no - certainly does not appear to be done with intentions of “uniting, not dividing.” What bad feelings will be created, and what resources wasted, while that bench remains vacant during the process!
IMO the Repubs are- and have been - wrong. As are and have been the Dems. Will either party be big enough to take the first step? And what would that step be?
Which causes me to focus my attentions on things going on within the 4 walls of my home. Those problems seem understandable, and manageable.
As if the Wall Street Journal is any more objective or non-partisan? That gets so tiresome, and you have been called on it so many times.
But, since you asked, being uninterested yourself in actually looking for views that disagree with your favorite righty “commentators”, try this.
Oh, I see.
You don’t really like the candidate, but you support him as an attack on the people you disagree with. That’s a really effective way to get people you “aren’t thrilled” with into lifetime appointments.
Wouldn’t it be more constructive for you (and your president) to support candidates you are thrilled with?
(Say, like conservatives who are willing to rule contrary to the judicial philosophies they’ve based their whole careers on, when it puts their candidate into office? Oh yeah. You ARE supporting one of those. I guess your position is consistent after all. Except you don’t say why you weren’t thrillied with him the first go-round.)
I wasn’t thrilled because although he was capable enough, he didn’t seem to have the brilliance or legal clarity of a Scalia or a Thomas. Also, given his age, he could be expected to serve only a few years.
Not an attack on the people, but an attack on the McCarthyite methods. It’s unhealthy for that sort of demonization to prevail.
ElvisL1ves, thanks for the cite from lefty Joe Conason. Note that his column does not provide any details on the cross-burning case. I continue to believe that a full explanation would acquit Pickering of wrongdoing or even embarassment. It was a difficult case. The ringleader served no prison time due to a SNAFU by the Clinton Justice Dept. Pickering was seeking some sort of justice for a drunk who went along with him.
Consason instead presents another phony smear trying to link Pickering to the vile and racist State Sovereignty Commission, although he was never affialiated with them in any way. Conason doesn’t even claim that his smears are true. He mentions “a long record of apparent hostility to equal rights for blacks.” Also, "led him perilously close to lying under oath.
Hmmmm. So, then, if a less than utterly worthy candidate is kept from office by unsavory means, he thereby becomes more worthy?
Crocodile tears, me laddie. Note that Conason does describe at least one documented link to the State Sovereignty Commission, although your blinkers apparently screened that part from your sensitive eyes. It is an opinion column anyway - hence the use of the terms “apparent” and “perilously close”, although your revered Wall Street Journal editorial page fails to be so scrupulous when ritualistically attacking Democrats, doesn’t it?
BTW, it doesn’t help you to cry “McCarthy!” every time a conservative runs into trouble. You really ought to learn what the term means first before you debase it.
I also enjoy the idea that a man who has already reached his sixties (!!!) is nearly dead anyway. That argument is silly on its face, ignoring as it does the damage he could do in the meanwhile, as is the suggestion that he ought to be confirmed just to do something nice for some crotchety old geezer before pushing him into his grave.
Did you read the rest of the Conason link, btw? Very interesting story about the Cal. GOP state secretary (black).
Maybe I’ve been reading the Wall St. Journal too long. Not only does James Taranto agree with me, he even chose the same title for his article. I hope he’s right that
One other thought. This affair looks like a dress rehearsal for the coming battle over Bush’s Supreme Court nominees. Both sides will get a chance to try out their weapons before the real war begins.
Personally, I would not favor a filibuster in order to prevent Mr. Pickering from his bench. Too much ammunition wasted on too small a return. There are much larger questions before us