Stakes High In Judicial Showdown

(Weekly Standard)  This column from The Weekly Standard was written by Hugh Hewitt.

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In recent days I interviewed Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, and Ralph Neas, executive director of People for the American Way. Together these two are the architects of the policy of unyielding obstruction by Democrats of George Bush's judicial nominees. It is difficult to overstate their influence on the Democratic caucus: They are widely considered to be the hands steering Democratic policy on judges.

Both blew the usual rhetorical smoke about how well President Bush is doing with his judicial nominations -- Bush has by far the lowest approval rate to the appeals court for modern times for a president three months into his second term. And both used the same talking points on all the blocked nominees, including the risible assertion that Democrats had no idea Bill Pryor was a Roman Catholic until Senator Hatch asked him. The transcripts provide a summary of the threadbare case against the blockaded judges, and far from a persuasive one.

But they also provide much more: A clear warning to the GOP that the stakes in the coming showdown over the filibuster include the Supreme Court.
Here's Nan Aron:

Hewitt: Do you expect Democrats to filibuster Supreme Court nominees as well, Nan Aron?

Aron: You know, that's a fairly good question because if President Bush did what President Clinton did and share names with prospective candidates to get the Democrats's consent as Clinton did, if Bush did that, his nominees would sail through.

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