Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Nominated

It may be summer, but Senate Democrats haven't taken a break from their judicial grandstanding. After six months, the new majority in the Senate has confirmed just three of the President's nominees to the appellate court bench. As The Wall Street Journal notes, this animosity is unprecedented even in modern politics. Despite facing Congresses run by the opposite party, both Presidents Reagan and Clinton confirmed 16 and 15 judges, respectively, in their last two years in office. In 2000 during the last year of the Clinton presidency, Patrick Leahy grumbled about the slow pace of confirmations, saying that approving one judge per month was "not acceptable." How times have changed! He now appears completely content to leave parts of the country flailing in judicial emergencies, where circuits are overwhelmed and important cases languish. The backlog is partially to blame on the liberals' concerted effort to obstruct nominee Leslie Southwick, who, in 2006, they considered thoroughly uncontroversial when he was confirmed for the federal district court. Now that groups like People for the American Way have started pulling the strings on the new majority, Southwick, a veteran of the Iraq war with 11 years of judicial experience, is being judged unacceptable.