They're prisoners of the idiotic doctrine that appointments to the SC are more about competence than politics. Clearly Alito, unlike Miers, is highly qualified in the credential sense, so short of a scandal, they can't oppose him on the ground that his social philosophy is straight out of the Middle Ages. Doug <<<<<>>>>>
folks were much more forthright about above earlier in the republic, about 20% of prez nominees have been rejected by senate, most of them in 19th century, most of those for politically partisan reasons...
re. qualifications, unlike legislature and executive, framers set no minimums whatsoever for serving, nor did initial congress when it created federal lower courts in 1789 judiciary act, given that judges were to be appointed by prez with advice and consent of senate (as check against political favoritism by executive), maybe framers assumed that judges would be bit "aged", appointed on merit, and that they would be *men* of 'virtue'...
washington set partisan tone by appointing federalists to all six original supreme court seats, he had made it known, beforehand, that folks interested in appointment should contact him, he made list of those who took him up, then he discussed options with friends...
needless to say, washington was prepared, on day that he signed judicary act, he also sent all six s.c. appointments for which act provided, federalist controlled senate confirmed each of them two days later, without debate...
most presidents have shared washington's desire to appoint folks with kindred political/policy views (mostly from their own party), not very hard to understand why that's so...
sheldon goldman, in his book _picking federal judges_, ranks *3 p's* of nominations this way - political partisanship, policy preferences, personal relations...
perhaps *original intent* of wise and august framers/founders should be adhered to/respected here, after all, art. 2. sec. 2 does state that prez nominating power exists in tandem with senate *advice* and consent...
on other hand, appt. process involves senate that slants in favor of small states given constitutional framework, so what the hell... michael hoover
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