Dems Dim Debate

Dems Dim Debate

Quick! Change the topic! Someone might hear that we are using purely political motives in the fight against approving judges instead of letting the whole senate vote on the individual's merits!

FOXNews.com - Politics - Debate Swells Over Leaked Memos

Released to the Wall Street Journal in November, the memos date back to 2001 and reflect an ongoing discussion among Democratic staffers and senators regarding how they planned to stall, derail and ultimately kill the nominations of several of President Bush's judicial nominees, who were referred to in one missive as "Nazis."

The memos also suggest the intimate role special interest groups like the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (search) and People for the American Way (search) had in plotting the nominees' failure, with staffers intimating that the groups' opinions held sway with Judiciary Committee Democrats in determining hearing schedules and strategy.

Worst of all, say critics, is an April 17, 2002, memo from staff to Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., endorsing a personal request by NAACP National Defense League President Elaine Jones to stall the confirmation of conservative Judge Julia Gibbons (search) to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals until that panel ruled on the University of Michigan affirmative action case.

"Elaine [Jones] will ask that no 6th Circuit nominee be scheduled until after the Michigan case is decided," wrote a staff member — whose name was redacted — in a memo to Sen. Kennedy.

"The thinking is that the current 6th Circuit will sustain the affirmative action program, but if a new judge with conservative views is confirmed before the case is decided, that new judge will be able, under the 6th Circuit rules, to review the case and vote on it," the memo reads.

Though "concerned about the propriety of scheduling hearings based on the resolution of a particular case," the staffer nevertheless recommended that Jones be told they will indeed take up another judge's confirmation before Gibbons'.