How Obama Denied Conservative Judges a Vote
Conservative nominees were blocked from 4 to 6 years
February 19, 2016
Daniel Greenfield
On a hot day in June, the grandson of a bank president took to the floor of the Senate to denounce the daughter of sharecroppers. "I feel compelled to rise on this issue to express, in the strongest terms, my opposition to the nomination of
Janice Rogers Brown to the DC Circuit," Senator Obama said.
Born in segregated Alabama, Janice Rogers Brown had been a leftist like Obama before becoming conservative. When Obama rose to denounce the respected African-American jurist for her political views it had been almost a full two years since President Bush had nominated her in the summer of ’03.
Obama had arrived a few months earlier on his way to the White House and was eager to impress his left-wing backers with his political radicalism. He held forth complaining that Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who had gone to segregated schools and become the first African-American woman on the California Supreme Court, was guilty of “an unyielding belief in an unfettered free market.”
And he
filibustered Judge Brown, along with other nominee, trying to deny them a vote.
“She has equated altruism with communism. She equates even the most modest efforts to level life's playing field with somehow inhibiting our liberty,” he fumed.
Brown, who due to her family background knew far more of slavery than Obama,
had indeed warned about the dangers of a powerful government. "In the heyday of liberal democracy, all roads lead to slavery. And we no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate -- the drug of choice -- for multinational corporations and single moms, for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens.”
Obama viewed her opposition to “our very own ‘Socialist revolution’” as disqualifying. Ideology was the only judicial test that ever mattered to him. Not scholarship. Not qualification. Not ability. He plots to force another radical nominee in place of the deceased Justice Scalia whom he had said would not have been nominated despite his “intellectual brilliance” because “he and I just disagree.”
When filibustering Justice Alito, Obama rejected the idea that the Senate should approve a judge just because he might be “intellectually capable and an all-around nice guy.” The key test was “ideology.” Justice Alito was an “an intelligent man and an accomplished jurist” who had the “the training and qualifications necessary to serve,” but he was from the wrong side of the political tracks.
And Obama put party over country and radical ideology over party.
...
Obama has illegally seized drastic amounts of power as part of putting party over country. And it would be deeply damaging to the rule of law if he were allowed to place yet another radical nominee who shares his preference for party over country on a Supreme Court divided between party and country.
How Obama Denied Conservative Judges a Vote
