NYT - Slow pace of President Obama's judicial nomnations

[Hawaii Hiker]

Remember when Bush was president, Republicans always stated how every nominee deserves an up or down vote...Notice how that has changed now that a Democrat is president...

A quick look at some of the people who got confirmed under Bush:

"Senate Democrats used the filibuster very selectively against Bush nominees who were true extremists. The real outrage was who was approved. Jay Bybee, the author of the infamous legal memorandums justifying the use of torture, is now a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

The Democrats also allowed J. Leon Holmes to be confirmed to the federal bench in Arkansas. He had made a number of offensive statements about women, African-Americans and gay people. In 1997, he wrote that in marriage, “the woman is to place herself under the authority of the man."


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/opinion/17tue1.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1258462917-kXzTq0M5N3K6LDPU5q8QNA

[babylonsister]

1. Blame goes solely to Senate rethugs (except Lugar)...

From the op-ed:

Senate Republicans have been doing their best to drag things out. In March, every Republican senator signed an outrageous letter to the White House warning that they would filibuster any nominee from their home states if they did not approve the choice in advance. That was a dizzying reversal. In the Bush years, Senate Republicans professed to be so upset about Democrats’ filibustering that their majority leader threatened the “nuclear option,” which would have eliminated the use of filibusters for all judicial nominations.

snip//

Republican senators, by contrast, are unreasonably opposing good nominees who are well within the legal mainstream. A current example is David Hamilton, a distinguished federal district court judge in Indiana who has been nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. Judge Hamilton has decidedly moderate legal views and strong centrist credentials, including the enthusiastic endorsement of Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican. Judge Hamilton in no way resembles extreme Bush nominees that Democrats opposed.

[Toucano]

2. Another great benefit of the super majority?