Janet Brown’s 2000 Federalist Society statement was wonderful and right on the mark. The PC thought police have become so powerful that judges like Janet Brown are forced to downplay their remarks to survive politically. At least she didn’t recant the statement. This is yet another example of why George Bush has to go.

I hope Brown will stand by what she said; it is all true. Her nomination illustrates the racial and sexual double-standards that permeate the Republican establishment as much as the Democrat. Can anyone seriously imagine GW Bush nominating a white male judge who had been so outspoken? Can anyone imagine Senator Feinstein and her partisans accepting such a demurrer (which isn’t fully disowning what she said) from a white male nominee? HRS

I think I know what Carl is getting at, but I’m not sure. Why does Brown’s backpeddling of her conservative views mean that Bush has to go?

I expect Brown’s backpeddling is due to pressure from the administration and Bill Frist (who was Bush’s choice to replace the equally useless Trent Lott, after all) more than any deferrence to Senator DiFi. Bush has been in office for more than three years, and the democrats are still getting to decide who is to sit in the Federal courts. If Republicans had spines made of bone instead of jello, there would at least be a bit more balance in the judiciary. As it stands, the leftist agenda continues to advance unchecked.

If Carl’s factual assumption is correct (that Brown in backpeddling from her views is following White House prompting), then his conclusion (Bush has to go) gets further support.

How could Brown’s earlier statement be seen as objectionable? All she’d have to say by way of explanation is that, as many social critics have observed, certain kinds of government interference subsidize bad behavior and discourage good behavior, and so help create a morally inverted culture. My gosh, Bush himself has made arguments like this, hasn’t he? So the working assumption of the Administration is that even a familiar kind of conservative argument is indeed (as Feinstein’s incredulous question to Brown suggested) so extreme, so far out, that no one who thinks those things can be a federal judge.

Some may see this as smart politics. I see it as surrender.

I admit I was a little disappointed at the way Justice Brown appeared to downplay her statement noted above, as well as her previous criticism of the Incorporation Doctrine. (Her attempt to qualify the latter sounded silly.) But I’m not sure how correct it is to say she was completely backpedaling.

To me it sounded like she was drawing a distinction between her personal views versus how she would rule on cases given established law, in particular legal precedent. Thus she stated that while she had a still unsettled question as to whether the Incorporation Doctrine was properly effected, (i.e. whether the Court was merely interpreting the Constitution or as much as amending it,) the fact is that the Court has ruled, and it is settled law.

Maybe I’m being too generous? But then after the near impossibility of getting the President’s nominees through has been demonstrated — the Estrada affair, Pickering, Owen, et.al. — it is perhaps a bit understandable that there’s some hedging going on during these grill sessions.

The blame to some extent falls on President Bush, as he has typically been way too silent while his selections were being trashed. But the Senate Republicans share some blame. They need to stop pussyfooting around and get to work undercutting this cowardly filibustering.

They could invoke a ‘non-nuclear’ option whereby a few Republicans abstain from a cloture vote to force a tie, thereby allowing Vice-President Cheney to cast a tie-breaking vote. This could actually bust the filibuster straight out. http://www.gopusa.com/opinion/ah_0526.shtml

If this were somehow thwarted by Democratic snakery, then the Repubs should go nuclear — have VP Cheney initiate a parliamentary motion to change the rules altogether allowing a judicial filibuster to be crashed by a simple majority, and then vote, win, and be done with it. The Dems would howl like wolves, and that would be just a crying shame: they did it before themselves — including Senator Kennedy — in 1975. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030513-104057-4994r.htm

This would be a commensurate response to a Constitutionally dubious practice by the minority. Of course, there’ve been all sorts of gloom-n-doom predictions over the troubles this could cause down the road, but no matter. The Stupid Party is probably too tepid to act with any real boldness anyway. And where does this leave people like Justice Brown?

That’s a fine analysis of the parliamentary “nuts and bolts” that could indeed be employed by Republicans with spinal columns (do such creatues exist?). As to his parting question of where the Stupid Party’s milquetoast response to the leftists leaves Justice Brown, the answer is simple: twisting slowly in the wind just like Pickering and Estrada.