Part of being a qualified judicial nominee is an ability to show some judicial temperament and restraint. Janice Rogers Brown, clearly one of Bush’s worst would-be judges, obviously doesn’t understand that.
Just days after a bitterly divided Senate committee voted along party lines to approve her nomination as a federal appellate court judge, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown told an audience Sunday that people of faith were embroiled in a “war” against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots, according to a newspaper account of the speech.
Brown’s remarks come as a partisan battle over judges has evolved into a national debate over the proper mix of God and government and as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) ponders changing the chamber’s rules to prevent Democrats from using procedural moves to block confirmation of conservative jurists such as Brown.
Her comments to a gathering of Roman Catholic legal professionals in Darien, Conn., came on the same day as “Justice Sunday: Stop the Filibuster Against People of Faith,” a program produced by evangelical leaders and simulcast on the Internet and in homes and churches around the country. It was designed to paint opponents of Bush’s judicial nominees as intolerant of believers.
Apparently, Judge Brown was on quite a roll. She described these as “perilous times for people of faith” in the United States; she insisted the “idea of human freedom” is undermined when we move away from the nation’s alleged religious underpinnings; and she condemned atheists for rejecting the “idea of freedom.”
So, let’s put this in context. Bush has nominated a person to serve on the second highest court in the nation that believes FDR was a socialist, that minimum-wage regulations should be outlawed, that the New Deal was a “socialist revolution,” and that Social Security should be equated with “cannibalism.”
Then, to top things off during the fight over her nomination, she describes herself as a combatant in a religious war against non-believers.
Brown is Phyllis Schlafly in a judicial robe. Her nomination sounds more like some kind of bizarre joke than a serious move to fill an appellate court vacancy.
If the Republican Party still had any sense of decency left, Dems wouldn’t have to filibuster Brown’s nomination — GOP senators would have the sense to vote against her.