What is sad is that unlike the Republicans, Democrats seem to just let things be. If the last Democrat had a 75% confirmation rate while the Republican had a 55% confirmation rate Republicans would be on FoxNews and every channel complaining and blaming every judicial incident as a failure of the Democrats inability to confirm.
Moreover, following FoxNews’ lead, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, & NBC would make it a lead story. They would then all do “investigative” reporting detailing Congress’ ineptitude in confirming judges. It is sad that the mainstream media, our main informers, simply let this story fester. Corporate media control? Of course.
I knew Republicans were slow in confirming President Obama’s nominees. I did not know it was this bad. The fact that many who keep themselves in the know did little research on this is proof positive of Democratic messaging ineptitude.
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Obama’s Chief Counsel: A Cold War Political Crisis Is Endangering Judicial Nominees stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
WASHINGTON — In an extremely rare public appearance on Tuesday, White House Counsel Bob Bauer attributed the "pernicious" crisis over the state of confirming judicial nominees to a Cold War-style political standoff that few properly witnessed or understood.
Appearing at a conference organized by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, Bauer declined, from the outset, to assign blame for the poor rate and state of judicial confirmations in the Senate. There was, he said, "no need for rhetorical embroidery." But he did call the state of affairs "disturbing" and castigated even seasoned political observers for not recognizing the gravity of the crisis.
"If it is a war," he said, "it is a cold and not a hot war … Nominees left languishing on the floor for as much as hundreds of days without a vote, are basically ignored, not because … of perceived deficiencies in their record or shortcomings as a potential jurists. It is a quiet blow to the process. But it is a heavy blow nonetheless. No shouting on the floor, just nothing on the floor. It is as if … it did not matter at all. But of course it matters a great deal: to the nominees, to the courts to which they were nominated to serve, and to the parties to those courts."
According to data compiled by the Alliance for Justice, President Obama has nominated a total of 109 justices to circuit and district courts as of Jan. 28, 2011. Of those, 60 have been confirmed. Obama’s circuit court rate of confirmation is better than that of his immediate predecessor, George W. Bush. But his District court rate is far worse. In total, Bush had 74 percent of his nominees confirmed. Obama has had 55 percent confirmed.
"The confirmation rate is perilously low. And one result is the large number of seats designated as judicial emergencies. More than half of the nominations now pending in the Senate are judicial emergencies," said Bauer. "If it is okay to keep the courts short of the judges needed to administer justice, than this only goes to show how the costs have become bearable and how the loss of the quality of justices have some how come to see not to matter."
If the White House counsel’s remarks were meant to help underscore the state of crisis, they fell short in offering any overwhelming solutions. Bauer’s main pitch for speeding up the confirmation process seemed to be a broad appeal to common sense.
"I’m convinced in conversations with Republicans and Democrats that there is a growing recognition that however we got to this point, over however many years, we cannot in good conscious remain here," he insisted.
Obama’s Chief Counsel: A Cold War Political Crisis Is Endangering Judicial Nominees