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• You're right, but ... (Score:1)

  by vsergu (505)

  It's hard for me to feel a lot of sympathy considering the way the Republicans similarly unfairly blamed Clinton for the attacks earlier. It'll blow over soon enough, and the Republicans can get back to hilariously hypocritical complaints about the treatment of Bush's judicial nominees.
  
  People reap what they sow.
  • Re:You're right, but ... (Score:1)

    by pudge (1)

    Well, Clinton was partially to blame. Just as Bush, Sr. was, of course.
    
    And I don't see how you can call the nomination complaints hypocritical. Sure, Clinton claimed there was a "vacancy crisis" when there were 64 vacancies on the federal bench, but while the Democrats controlled the Senate in 1992, there were 63 vacancies -- only one fewer -- and Clinton said that was equivalent to "full employment in the federal judiciary".
    
    The fact is that recent new Presidents have had 90 percent or better confirmati
    • Re:You're right, but ... (Score:1)

      by vsergu (505)

      Chief Justice Rehnquist said there was a vacancy crisis during the Clinton years. Was he just a puppet of the Democrats?
      
      Whether there's a disparity in treatment, and which direction the disparity goes in, depends entirely on who's tweaking the statistics. And the complaints about treatment of Clinton's nominees had more to do with unprecedented delays than with rejections. In any case, Bush hasn't yet had the pleasure of having any of his nominees kept waiting for years to have even a hearing. That's p
      • Re:You're right, but ... (Score:1)

        by pudge (1)

        You misunderstand either my statements, or Rehnquist's. Clinton said when the Democrats controlled Congress that there was no crisis, and when the Republicans did that there was. Rehnquist said at both times that there was a vacancy problem, in 1993 first, and then again in 1997. I did not say there was no vacancy problem, I said that the Democrats are clearly selective in when they think there is one.
        
        And no, the statistics aren't up for grabs. They are quite clear. On any measurement, Bush is getting
        • Re:You're right, but ... (Score:1)

          by vsergu (505)

          If you're saying that the Democrats are selective about when there's a vacancy problem, then we agree about that. I just think the Republicans are similarly selective.
          
          None of this is about justice or reasonable treatment of nominees. It's about each side wanting to get their people in and keep the others out, and if we had a Democrat in the White House the two sides would simply switch scripts.
          
          Tweaking statistics isn't about making up numbers. It's about choosing parameters and deciding exactly what co
          • Re:You're right, but ... (Score:1)

            by jordan (120) on 2002.05.18 11:26 (#8543) Homepage Journal

            You seem to be assuming that this situation is symmetrical. That the Democrats put up their nominees and they were blocked and now the Republicans are putting up theirs and are getting the same treatment. And, that Republicans would be doing the exact same thing if the situation were reversed.

            If you check the history, judicial nominees typically have a more difficult time of it later in the President's term (nearer to elections), easier at first. In fact, Clinton had an easy time of it earlier in his term. Actually, Clinton had rather an easy time of it overall. You might not like the source or the slant, but the statistics [rnclife.org] on this page are accurate:

            “In his 7½ years in the White House, Bill Clinton has had 369 of his judicial nominees approved (46% of the bench), and only one rejected; during 5 1/2 of those years, the Senate has been controlled by Republicans, whose record of suport for Clinton judges is astonishingly overwhelming — 240 federal judges have been approved and only one rejected.”

            I note you criticize the use of statistics without offering any counter statistics of your own. Is this because the statistics are in fact damning to the Democrat's case?

            What's happening now is that the Democrats have refused to even hold hearings on most judicial nominees, at the beginning of the Bush's term.

            Our Justice system is suffering, and I don't recall that being a claim during the Clinton administration.

            What the Democrats are doing now is pure payback, probably for Ronnie White - who Ashcroft borked when he was in the Senate - without regard to what the affect it's having on the Justice System and the Country, which they are sworn to protect.

            I'm sorry, but it just seems like the Democrats are constantly putting political jockeying ahead of the interests of the country. Like this divisive "What did George know and when did he know it" crap going on now. Nobody seriously believes that George W. Bush wanted the WTC disaster to happen, but they can gain some political milage, at the expense of national unity, by positioning Bush as an incompetent idiot who can't put facts together to protect the country.

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