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...whose appointment is strongly opposed by civil rights activists

Wow! Did you know that, Kevin? Apparently ALL "civil rights activists" oppose this guy — every last mother's son of them! ALL of them!

...and if not, the opposition had better start grabbing cameras and microphones, and making itself heard. Doncha think?

Dan

"Yeah, and, Kevin, he's (psst) from Mississippi, you know. They're all racists (psst) down there in the south, you know. "

I just wish our side could explain effectively to the sheeple the bigotism the democratic party leadership exudes by labeling people according to their racial group, income group and geographical group. It's bigotism and primitive politics at its worst.

"...whose appointment is strongly opposed by civil rights activists"

Wow! Did you know that, Kevin? Apparently ALL "civil rights activists" oppose this guy — every last mother's son of them! ALL of them!

Reuters could just as easily have written "whose appointment is strongly supported by civil rights activists".

Like, for example, the former head of the NAACP chapter in Pickering's hometown:

But such comments carry little weight among those who actually know the man personally here in Laurel, in southeast Mississippi. Judge Pickering, now a federal district judge in the nearby city of Hattiesburg, was praised by black city officials for helping to set up after- school youth programs here, and for directing federal money to medical clinics in low-income areas when he was a state senator. Black business leaders say he was influential in persuading white-owned banks to lend money to black entrepreneurs, helping to strengthen the city's black middle class.
"I can't believe the man they're describing in Washington is the same one I've known for years," said Thaddeus Edmonson, a former local president of the N.A.A.C.P. who is now president of the seven-member Laurel City Council and one of its five black members. "If those people who are voting against him because of some press release would just come down here and talk to the people who know him, I think they would have a very different opinion."

The above passage is from http://www.aclj.org/news/judicialconf/020218_pickering_home_support.asp, which does a *spectacular* job of documenting how well-liked and admired Pickering is by those blacks who have known him for years, and the sort of vicious propaganda campaign that national "black" organizations are waging against him because he's not liberal.

Local leaders' support for Judge Pickering has put them at odds with several black state officials and the Mississippi conference of the N.A.A.C.P., which oppose his appointment. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat who represents the Delta region on the opposite side of the state in Congress, has called the judge's black supporters "Judases." State N.A.A.C.P. officials say the judge's supporters in Laurel have succumbed to an effort to cover up his feelings with small acts of kindness. This alternately angers and amuses local residents, who say no such masquerade can last for decades. "If he's been putting on a show for us, it's the greatest show on earth," said Mr. Thomas, who runs the city's only black-owned pharmacy and who served with Mr. Pickering on the local economic development board in the 1980's.

And:

Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, which is leading the opposition to the appointment, said many of the judge's supporters in Laurel simply did not know the full details of his record.

Note how condescending the national liberal groups are towards Pickering's black supporters...