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Bush's Sotomayor nom. - the rest of the story

Sandhusker

Well-known member
In his announcement of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his first Supreme Court nominee, President Barack Obama emphasized that she was first placed on the federal bench by a Republican, President George H.W. Bush.

“It’s a measure of her qualities and her qualifications that Judge Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court by a Republican president, George H.W. Bush, and promoted to the Federal Court of Appeals by a Democrat, Bill Clinton,” the president said.

Why did the first President Bush nominate Sotomayor to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York? Veterans of the first Bush administration say the answer is politics, with a generous helping of horse-trading thrown in.

Appellate courts and the Supreme Court are often the stage for ideologically based confirmation fights. The lower district courts are, in the words of one former Bush official, “darn near patronage jobs.”

Senators, even those in the opposing party from the White House, wield great power over who is nominated to the district court seats in their states. And in 1991, when Sotomayor was nominated, the Senate was controlled by Democrats, and the two senators from New York were Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Republican Alphonse D’Amato.

By a number of accounts, Moynihan and D’Amato had a long-standing arrangement from the Reagan years. “It was a special deal whereby D’Amato agreed to defer to the pick of Moynihan for one out of every four district court seats,” another former Bush official told me. “That was a deal that preceded [President George H.W. Bush], so basically Moynihan was picking one of four district court nominees.”

In 1991, it was Moynihan’s turn to choose, and his choice was Sotomayor. There is no evidence that anyone in the Bush I White House or Justice Department thought Sotomayor was a conservative, or even a moderate, but no one wanted a fight with Moynihan.

“She was not our first choice,” recalled a third official from the administration of the first President Bush.
 
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Anonymous

Guest
Sad how them Dems can kick them poor weak little Repubbies around and make them do things they don't want to do....

Lets see if I got this right-- GHW didn't have the gonads to make his own Judge appointment- GW let Barney and Dodd run over him and the entire majority Repub Congress and had no control on the US economy while he was President...

Kind of a wasted vote for a Republican if they have no backbone or no power to do anything but cow to the Dems wish's -EH :???: :wink: :p :p :lol:
 

Sandhusker

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Sad how them Dems can kick them poor weak little Repubbies around and make them do things they don't want to do....

Lets see if I got this right-- GHW didn't have the gonads to make his own Judge appointment- GW let Barney and Dodd run over him and the entire majority Repub Congress and had no control on the US economy while he was President...

Kind of a wasted vote for a Republican if they have no backbone or no power to do anything but cow to the Dems wish's -EH :???: :wink: :p :p :lol:

Why do the jackasses, er... Dems, want 60 seats in the Senate so bad, OT?
 

Steve

Well-known member
Oldtimer said:
Sad how them Dems can kick them poor weak little Repubbies around and make them do things they don't want to do....

Lets see if I got this right-- GHW didn't have the gonads to make his own Judge appointment- GW let Barney and Dodd run over him and the entire majority Repub Congress and had no control on the US economy while he was President...

Kind of a wasted vote for a Republican if they have no backbone or no power to do anything but cow to the Dems wish's -EH :???: :wink: :p :p :lol:

maybe that's why so many voted for the other guy,, Ross, something or another...
 

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
The Dem's are becoming a little insecure. Why apologize, if no harm was done?

Some Democrats and political analysts are urging the White House to shift course and concede that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor made an error when she suggested in 2001 that Hispanic women would make better judges than white men.

“She misspoke,” said Lanny Davis, a White House lawyer and spokesman for President Bill Clinton. “Every day that goes by that they don’t say she misspoke and she used the wrong words ... they just feed it and give it life and give Rush [Limbaugh] and [Sean] Hannity more airtime unnecessarily.”

Said Democratic strategist Chris Lehane: “In this day and age, six or seven or eight weeks is a long time to go without addressing an issue that can potentially take on a life of its own and evolve and grow.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/23053.html#ixzz0GrCCcFXP&B


Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/23053.html#ixzz0Gr9WbQTW&B
 
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