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Sunday, November 22, 2009
Ind. Courts - "Attempt to appease GOP earns slap in face"
Sylvia A. Smith, Washington reporter for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has this commentary today - here are some quotes:
WASHINGTON – When President Obama selected a Hoosier judge as his first nominee for the federal appeals court in March, it was supposed to reflect a new way of doing business in Washington.He consulted with the home-state senators, including Sen. Richard Lugar. Translation: Republicans were not shut out of the selection process.
He went to Indiana to find his first nominee. Translation: Hoosiers (and other Republican states) need not think Obama would ignore them now that he had gotten what he wanted – their voters.
He picked a jurist whose political activity was connected to a moderate Democrat (then-Gov. Evan Bayh). Translation: Senate Republicans could be reassured that Obama would choose from among the ideologically moderate pool of judges for his nominees.
David Hamilton certainly had other qualities that made him worthy of Obama’s consideration, but the outreach to Republicans was a dominant leitmotif. It was a gesture that the White House was serious about calming the partisan hostilities over judicial nominees of the past several presidencies.
That lasted about two seconds.
Hamilton was confirmed Thursday to a lifetime seat on the federal court of appeals, but not without the reappearance of the very hostilities Obama was trying to quell with his Hamilton nomination. * * *
Obama’s attempt to ratchet down the partisan hostility over judges was slapped away. Voters who don’t look beyond the final party-line (except for Lugar) vote will see Republicans in one of two ways: uber-partisan and unwilling to support any Democratic judicial nominee, or the only thing that stands between them and runaway judges.
Both impressions are wrong, and our system is not well served by politicians who encourage those false notions.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 22, 2009 11:21 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts