Winning Through Intimidation
Opinion Journal ^ | 9/21/05 | MANUEL MIRANDA
The reactionary liberal effort in recent years to slow the march of progress by filibustering George W. Bush's judicial nominees was a political disaster for Senate Democrats in many ways, but it was successful in a few. Although most were ultimately confirmed, liberals stopped the president from placing young Grade A jurists on the federal appellate courts who, had they been confirmed a few years earlier, would now be perfectly suitable for Supreme Court elevation.
This is exactly what liberals intended. Proof of that came in staff memos from Dick Durbin of Illinois, quoted by the Wall Street Journal in November 2003. They showed that the Democrats blocked Miguel Estrada, the longest-debated appellate court nominee in Senate history, expressly because, in the words of one memo, "he is Latino." Mr. Durbin, and the Washington lobbyists for whom he shills, wanted to avoid having a qualified Hispanic jurist that Mr. Bush could elevate to the Supreme Court.
Of course, as we saw in the case of Mr. Estrada, the distortion effort rises in intensity if the nominee is female, black or Hispanic. Liberal Democrats and the feminist and race lobbyists become apoplectic when talented members of these groups escape the intellectual ghetto within which we are expected to live out our lives. It is no surprise then that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada has already signaled that if the president nominates Judge Owen, now on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Democrats would filibuster. Judge Owen is a woman, and she is close to the White House. In fact, Mr. Durbin's published papers showed that was why Democrats chose Judge Owen to be blocked in 2001 nearly one year before she even had a Judiciary Committee hearing.
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