The Wrong Judge?

I like Charles Pickering. Powerline has amply documented the attempted slander of the man. The Democrats can't admit that they don't want a center-right judge on the federal bench, so they accuse the man of racism. In the end, the debate's about the Supreme Court. Starve the district courts of conservatives of those favoring judicial restraint, and it'll make conservative high court nominees a harder sell, and liberals ones an easier sell, if only by virtue of tenure and experience.

By using a recess appointment to put Judge Pickering on the bench, though, President Bush may have picked the wrong judge. Pickering has been waiting the longest, so I suppose it's most fair to him, but this is also about winning the political contest, too. The NAACP and the race-baiting groups are going to turn Judge Pickering into the poster child for right-wing extremist judges. It would have been a lot harder to do that with Justice Brown from California.