Leahy, a lying sack of...

Well whatever... below is Ed Whelan's fisking of Senator Patrick Leahy's disingenuous Orwellian clarification, i.e. lie, today regarding the Democrat Senate's abuse of Miguel Estrada's nomination from 2001 to 2003. I am posting the full excerpt from Bench Memos at NRO as posted by Ed Whelan.

Senator Leahy’s Level of Integrity [Ed Whelan]

When Senator Lindsey Graham used the example of Republican support for President Bush’s D.C. Circuit nominee Miguel Estrada to make the elementary point that Republican concerns about Judge Sotomayor are based on her judicial philosophy, not on her Hispanic ethnicity, Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy saw fit to respond in this way:

I'd just note, just so we make sure we're all dealing with the same facts, Mr. Estrada was nominated when the Republicans were in charge of the Senate, was not given a hearing by the Republicans. He was given a hearing when the Democrats took back the majority in the Senate ….

Well, let’s “make sure we’re all dealing with the same facts,” Senator Leahy:

1. President Bush announced his nomination of Estrada to the D.C. Circuit on May 9, 2001. Fifteen days later, Senator Jeffords left the Republican Party and flipped control of the Senate from the Republicans to the Democrats. Leahy surely remembers that well, both because Jeffords was his fellow Vermonter and because the flip made him chairman of the Judiciary Committee.

2. When Leahy says that Estrada “was not given a hearing when the Republicans were in charge of the Senate,” he is technically accurate in that Senate Republicans did not try to hold a confirmation hearing on Estrada’s nomination within its first 15 days. Had they tried to do so (even before the ABA completed its evaluation of Estrada), Democrats never would have permitted it.

To put this timing in context: During the Bush 43 administration, the average time from nomination to hearing for federal appellate nominees was 166 days overall, and 197 days while Leahy was chairman. No federal appellate nominee other than Clinton renominee Helene White (the beneficiary of a special deal) received a hearing in less than 30 days. And of President Bush’s first batch of nominees, the first to receive a hearing waited 62 days.

3. Leahy finally gave Estrada a hearing on September 26, 2002—more than 16 months after his nomination—but it was clear that Democrats would not vote Estrada out of committee. Once the Republicans regained control of the Senate in 2003, the Judiciary Committee promptly voted Estrada out of committee on a party-line vote (Republicans in favor, Democrats opposed). Democrats then filibustered his nomination on the Senate floor, defeating a record seven cloture votes.

4. It is outrageous of Leahy to give his grossly misleading account of the Estrada nomination in a context that vilely insinuates that Republican opposition to Sotomayor is based on her Hispanic ethnicity.

Sotomayor, a political pick?

... On May 3, 2009, responding to an ABC analysis that Obama's pick to replace Souter would not be based on politics, I wrote in part:

Obama's pick to replace Souter may be a woman... may be a Latino... may be an African-American, or any combination of the three. But one thing is absolutely bedrock sure: the most left-wing senator of the last four years who is now the President will definitely pick a nominee every bit to the left as he is. This is the predominant criteria under consideration. If there is anything that should have been learned over the course of Obama's first 100 days, it is that he will take our nation as far to the left politically, socially, economically, and judicially as he can.


Here is Ramesh Ponnuru (of National Review and The Washington Post) summarizing his take on Obama's pick of Judge Sotomayer to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court:

--Judge Sotomayor believes that the courts are "where policy is made."

--She has Democratic colleagues who wonder if she has the intellect to be on the high court.

--She was picked by a president who has announced that he has a pro-abortion litmus test and that he wants judges who will rule with empathy, at least for some groups.

--She has a high reversal rate. In one case, the Supreme Court has voted unanimously to reverse her.

We will doubtless learn more about Sotomayor, both good and bad, in the days to come. But based on the early signs it appears that President Obama has made the crassest of political picks.


And over at NRO's Bench Memos:

Sotomayor for the Court [Wendy Long]

Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one's sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

She reads racial preferences and quotas into the Constitution, even to the point of dishonoring those who preserve our public safety (link added). On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America's firefighters in protecting our citizens. They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation. But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas. The Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision.

She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.


Is anyone really surprised?