Posted on 06/11/2007 4:55:09 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
Mention the name Charles Pickering to anyone but the most committed news junkie, and you’re apt to get a blank look or, at best, one of dim recognition. In the era of the 24-hour news cycle aimed at the ever-shortening attention span, the bitter Senate battles over the federal judiciary in which Pickering played so dramatic a part a few years back can seem like ancient history.
But with the publication of A Price Too High, Pickering’s insider account of the nearly four years he spent in limbo as a nominee to the federal bench, as Democrats and their press enablers trashed his record and reputation, we’re reminded of how extraordinarily much is at stake in the ongoing battle for control of the nation’s courts; and how far one side, at least, is willing to go to win the battle. Liberals are no longer even coy about using the courts to achieve social engineering ends that they cannot get through democratic means. “Environmentalists, prison reformers and consumer advocates have learned that what can’t be won in the legislature or executive may be achievable in a federal district court where a sympathetic judge sits,” liberal Wise Man Joe Califano wrote in a 2001 Washington Post editorial. Conservative Wise Man C. Boyden Gray, quoted in Pickering’s book, notes that Nan Aron, president of the liberal activist group Alliance for Justice, unapologetically echoed that view during a debate at the Federalist Society. According to Gray, she said that with Republicans at the time in control of Congress “we have to look to the courts to create new rights that we won’t be able to get from the legislature.”
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
The remark by Nan Aaron tells us exactly what’s at stake. The GOP MUST hold the White House next year, even if the nominee falls short of our ideals.
“The GOP MUST hold the White House next year, even if the nominee falls short of our ideals.”
The most conservative candidate that’s is electable. I believe that man is FDT.
I agree and I think the person with the strongest chance of winning is Fred Thompson, though Duncan Hunter would be my first choice. And remember, it was Thompson who guided John Roberts through the confirmation process.
Hopefully, he’ll choose his running mate wisely.
So says the man that leftist Democrats tried to destroy.
“The remark by Nan Aaron tells us exactly what’s at stake. The GOP MUST hold the White House next year, even if the nominee falls short of our ideals.”
Fine! I’m with you, so long as it isn’t Rudy!
Or Crazy Johnnie, or Precious Willard, or Dr. Demento...
If this is true it is hard to believe. The Senate Republicans' refusal to fight and fight hard for Pickering's nomination was a terrible failure.
Slander, pure and simple.
No question, Pickering got Bork’d !!!
It will be good to see how Thompson fares in the arena that is the trial by fire. If he wins the primaries, great. If he does not, the reason will be failure on the part of his supporters to get votes.
Votes win. Votes derive from fundraising and organization. Those numbers will tell us much in weeks upcoming.
I didn't recall this. Kuydos to Linsay Graham for trying to preserve the reputation of a good, Christian man.
That’s one book that’s going on my shelf.
I agree, and for the same reasons. I think Fred Thompson has the strongest chance of communicating and connecting with voters across the political spectrum, and giving them a reason to vote for him rather than against other candidates.
The GOP never imagined that the DemocRATS would resort to the tactics that they wound up using. And the charges were so patently false, Senate Republicans never expected that the opposition would not be called on it by the press.
In other words, they were caught completely off guard.
What a remarkable article. It makes me angry all over again. The left’s destruction of a good man’s reputation for the sake of a radical agenda is gutter politics, and shows the moral debaseness of the modern left.
If your analysis is correct the Republicans were not only caught off guard but are completely incompetent.
“the Republicans were not only caught off guard but are completely incompetent.”
True (they had the spineless Trent Lott leading them), but after 2004, they partially recovered. They got the Democrats to back down on Janice Rogers Brown and Pricilla Owen.
Marxists cannot be shamed.
Actually lI don’t think that Janice Rogers Brown was ever appointed to anything.
She was appointed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, being confirmed by the U.S. Senate after Democrats dropped their filibuster of her.
Good! Thanks for the correction.
In other words, they were caught completely off guard.
for TWENTY YEARS? I might have believed this pabulum after Bork.....maybe. However, we have had over 20 year of Ralph Neas, Pat Schroeder, Califano, Kennedy, Patricia Ireland, and their willing allies and enablers in the press. They knew, or should have known, EXACTLY what to expect. Charles Pickering was a baptist statesman with an impeccable record on ABORTION, and that was the pisser that just could not be passed over by the left. The racial crap was just the only rope they could find that would fit.
The truth is that Republican senators like the effete lifestyle, the idea of being thought "statesmen," and the idea that they are admired. They are embarrassed by the rubes in the party (ESPECIALLY the religious rubes), and they have no heart for the knife fighting trench warfare that it takes to get these kinds of changes enacted/people appointed in a place like DC. Rather than be thought "reactionary" they politely fold their hands and go away. TO THIS DAY there is no media relations arm of the GOP designed to counter the torrent of filth, vomit, and sleaze that will certainly issue forth the moment a candidate like Pickering is set forth. Pickering was as good a man as you could ever HOPE to have. he was honest, sefl-effacing, non-partisan, and wholly committed to the contstitution and the justice enshrined in it. He is not on the appeals bench because of the cowardice of the Republican party, who is afraid to drop a dime on Townhall, Cato, or any number of conservative thinktanks who could come up with EXCELLENT rebuttals and "made for tv/youtube" counters to the lies puked out by the left.
You wanna win? Fine. Win then. But don't surrender and then whine "they were so MEAAANNNNNN!!!"
Missippy ping!
This is a very good read,
by a very good man.
Yeah, there was absolutely no excuse to be ‘caught off guard.’ Ever since Bork, leftist slander of good judges should have been expected.
Looking back, its sort of surprising that perhaps the strongest defense of Pickering came from Senator Lindsey Graham, who is now acting like a leftist himself in calling opponents of Ted Kennedy’s immigration bill ‘bigots.’
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