http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060115/NEWS/601150403/1039Democrats couldn't trump Alito and say the court is becoming out of step.
By ADAM NAGOURNEY,
RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON -- Disheartened by the administration's success with the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., Democratic leaders say that President Bush is putting an enduring conservative ideological imprint on the nation's judiciary, and that they see little hope of holding off the tide without winning back control of the Senate or the White House.
In interviews, Democrats said that the lesson of the Alito hearings was that this White House could put on the bench almost any qualified candidate, even one whom Democrats consider to be ideologically out of step with the country.
That conclusion amounts to a repudiation of a central part of a strategy Senate Democrats settled on years ago in a private retreat where they discussed how to fight a Bush White House effort to recast the judiciary: to argue against otherwise qualified candidates by saying they were taking the courts too far right. Even though Democrats thought from the beginning that they had little hope of defeating the nomination, they were dismayed that a nominee with such clearly conservative views -- in particular a written record of opposition to abortion rights -- appeared to stir little opposition.
Republicans said that Bush, in making conservative judicial choices, was doing precisely what he said he would do in both of his presidential campaigns, and indeed that his re-election, and the election of a Republican Congress, meant that the choices reflected the views of much of the American public...
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
