When President George W. Bush was stocking the federal courts with conservative ideologues, Senate Republicans threatened to change the august body’s rules if any Democrat dared to try to block his choices, even the least-competent, most-radical ones. Filibustering the president’s nominees, they said, would be an outrageous abuse of senatorial privilege.
Now that President Obama is preparing to fill vacancies on federal benches, Republican senators have fired off an intemperate letter threatening — you got it — filibusters if Mr. Obama’s nominees are not to their liking. Mr. Obama should not let the Republicans’ saber-rattling interfere with how he chooses judges.
Despite Republicans’ loud complaints, the Senate actually confirmed the vast majority of Mr. Bush’s choices. As a result, some unqualified and undeserving people are federal judges with lifetime tenure, like Jay Bybee, who signed at least two appalling legal opinions on detainees when he was head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, including one arguing that the president had the power to authorize torture.
The nation is now saddled with hard-right Republican judges who are using the courts to push an agenda of hostility to civil rights and civil liberties; reflexive deference to corporations; and shutting the courthouse door to worthy legal claims. Mr. Obama has to repair the damage, which will require technically able judges who can provide a counterbalance to the ideologues who control many appeals courts.
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