Hentoff: Bush MIA on Judicial Appointments

The Bush administration is losing its battle to nominate experienced, capable and diverse candidates to the D.C. Court of Appeals, as Democrats filibuster one qualified candidate after another to keep the full Senate from a floor vote.

But it doesn't have to be that way, says Village Voice columnist and constitutional scholar Nat Hentoff.

"I don't know why Bush is reticent in pushing this," he told WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg on Sunday.

"If this had happened under Ronald Reagan or under Harry Truman, they would have been on television more than once" explaining that what the Democrats are doing is unconstitutional.

Sens. Schumer, Kennedy and Clinton have led the charge, blocking full floor votes for Charles Pickering, Priscilla Owens and Miguel Estrada, who finally withdrew his name earlier this year after being strung along for 22 months.

Now a similar battle is looming over the nomination of Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who, says Hentoff, is eminently qualified.

"I've rarely seen such a sharp legal mind - and clarity," he told Malzberg, based on his reading of more than 20 of Judge Brown's opinions. "I've rarely seen a judge since William O. Douglas who writes so well so that people can understand it."

Hentoff warned that there's too much at stake to let the Dems do to Brown what they did to her predecessors.

Democrat insinuations that Charles Pickering is a racist were particularly galling, he said, since "he is being supported by most of the black leaders in his home state of Mississippi, including NAACP officials - and even including a reverend who runs Jesse Jackson's Operation Breadbasket."

"This never gets into the media," complained the longtime liberal.

Why are the Democrats willing to go to the mattresses to keep these qualified candidates off the federal bench?

The D.C. Circuit Court has gained the reputation as the "feeder" court for nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. Judges Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg served on the D.C. Circuit Court.

It's far easier for Dems get away with blocking nominations to the lower court - a process most Americans are oblivious to - than it would be if Bush were to tap an Estrada, Owens or Brown for the high-profile Supreme Court.

In the end, however, the Schumer-Kennedy-Clinton strategy could produce unforeseen results, warns Hentoff.

Citing a recent survey of top lawyers and judges around the country, he reported, "more and more of them are saying that [the confirmation process] is not worth it, because your character does get defamed. ... So we're not going to get really first-class, independent judges."

Brendan Lantry contributed to this report

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