BCT Editorial – 4/11/05

This page was last updated on April 16, 2005.

Salutes & Boots; Editorial; Beaver County Times; April 11, 2005.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Boot: To congressional Republicans who are making a big stink about Democrats obstructing President Bush’s judicial nominations. There are many things wrong about their complaint, but one aspect of their smear campaign that cannot and must not be overlooked is their hypocrisy. As the editors of the newsweekly The Economist noted, the ‘Democrats’ obstructionism is hardly unprecedented: they are rejecting Mr. Bush’s judges at roughly the same rate that the Republicans turned back Mr. Clinton’s choices.’ And we need to note that every candidate nominated by Pennsylvania’s two Republican senators has been confirmed. The bottom line is that it might just be the nominee and not politics that is at the bottom of this.”

[RWC] If the Times is worried about a “smear campaign,” why didn’t the Boot mention that Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee referred to Bush judicial nominees as Nazis and Neanderthals. In nearly every case, the “Nazis and Neanderthals” were sitting judges at the state level or had been a state judge. Some of them sat on state supreme courts.

The Boot opines, “it might just be the nominee and not politics that is at the bottom of this.” If that’s the case, perhaps the author can explain why all of the “filibustered” nominees received “well-qualified” or “qualified” ratings from the American Bar Association.

Finally, it’s not clear the Democrats were critical of judges they referred to as Nazis. You see, the Nazis were liberals. Nazi is shorthand for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party). Yes, Hitler and his Nazi cronies were socialists (liberals/progressives).