Fox News reports that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has confirmed that President Bush was acting within his powers when he used a one week senate recess to make a recess appointment to the court, David Pryor, who had been yet another victim of the Daschle/Kennedy judicial freezeout. Kennedy, who is the leader of what can only be described as a crusade against Pryor, unsuccessfully attempted to invalidate the appointment in June as well, but that challenge was rebuffed by the court. Since his second attempt to remove Pryor has failed, he is challenging Pryor again, arguing a Pryor ruling in a civil rights case. It is another case of Democratic Party carpet bombing, or destruction by insinuation. They did it to Newt Gingrich (almost 100 charges were filed against Gingrich by David Bonior, only one of which stuck, and Gingrich was eventually cleared), and against Bush (the endless, and baseless, rehashing of Bush's TXANG record), and against several of Bush's other judicial nominees. Bush essentially flipped off Kennedy with the recess appointment, although he should have really made a statement by appointing somebody like Robert Bork, which probably would have caused Fat Teddy to stroke out, eliminating one of the biggest (literally) impediments to his judicial nominees.
Kennedy had a typically arrogant response to the ruling:
"It's hard to imagine a more flagrant attempt by the president to bypass the constitutional requirement of Senate consent in appointing a federal judge."
And it's equally hard to imagine a more flagrant attempt by a minority of senators to bypass the constitutional requirement of Senate consent in allowing a vote for appointing a federal judge. Never before has even one judicial appointment been filibustered, and simply on ideological grounds, rather than real questions of judicial fitness. (Owen and Estrada were unaminously judged as well-qualified by the American Bar Association, but Daschle, Kennedy, Schumer, Leahy and a few others have led the Democratic Party to filibuster them and a host of other Bush nominees.)
posted on October 16, 2004 08:32 PM
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It is another case of Democratic Party carpet bombing, or destruction by insinuation.
posted on October 16, 2004 08:32 PM
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