Tuesday, February 26, 2008
What did the ABA say about those other Fourth Circuit nominees?
It says here that the ABA gave the well-qualified rating to Fourth Circuit nominees Robert Conrad and Rod Rosenstein, but Steve Matthews got the dreaded "Q/NQ," as in there was a split vote, and the minority thought the rating should be "not qualified."
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Editorial
Senators, start new beginning now
The Baltimore Examiner Newspaper
2008-06-13 07:00:00.0
Current rank: # 241 of 8,165
BALTIMORE -
Sens. Barbara Mikulski and Benjamin Cardin right now have power to shape the future of our nation. They can set the new direction and attitude. They can prove to America that Democratic cries for a new beginning are not just hollow party rhetoric.
And while they are at it, they can serve justice, relieve the beleaguered U.S. 4th District
Court of Appeals and put an excellent choice for judge on the bench.
They readily admit Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein would be a good judge. In fact, they say the main reason they are blocking his nomination is he does such a great job here in Maryland. The other reasons they give are patently specious.
Politics, they say, has nothing to do with keeping off the most shorthanded appeals court in the nation this Republican who clerked for Reagan Supreme Court nominee Judge Douglas Ginsburg before being hired and promoted by the Clinton Justice Department. IQ is not the issue. He graduated summa cum laude from Wharton, cum laude from Harvard and was a Law Review editor.
Now that Virginia’s senators joined hands across party lines to expedite one appointment, four vacant seats remain, still more than twice as many as any other circuit court of appeals. The partisan bickering over filling this influential bench has denied citizens of five states our full share of justice through the terms of three presidents and surely will into a fourth.
That is an outrage. If Mikulski and Cardin are playing mere politics with Maryland’s unofficial seat, they betray the people of our state. If they are waiting out the presidential election in hopes of inflicting an ideologue on the court and replacing Rosenstein with one as U.S. attorney, they should turn Democrats’ eight years of allegations against the Bush administration upon themselves.
For one thing, the 2008 election is a long way from decided. For another, even if their party’s nominee wins, he has called for a new beginning. Barack Obama asks all Americans “to believe not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington. I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
Really? How can anybody believe in his or our ability to effect change if two of the smartest, most effective members of the Senate refuse to change?
Senators, we want change today, not seven months from now. The first thing we want you to change is putting party politics before the greater good of the people. Stop it.
Show the way. You still have time. The Senate filled the last seat only 65 days after President Bush’s nomination.
Use Rosenstein’s appointment to light a beacon on Capitol Hill that those who call for change can change themselves.
http://www.examiner.com/a-1439259~Senators__start_new_beginning_now.html
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