{"id":7524,"date":"2006-05-26T13:03:42","date_gmt":"2006-05-26T17:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7524"},"modified":"2006-05-26T13:03:42","modified_gmt":"2006-05-26T17:03:42","slug":"senate-confirms-kavanaugh-dem-opposition-barely-a-speed-bump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/senate-confirms-kavanaugh-dem-opposition-barely-a-speed-bump\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate confirms Kavanaugh; Dem opposition barely a speed bump"},"content":{"rendered":"

This<\/a> is most<\/i> disappointing.<\/p>\n

White House aide [tag]Brett Kavanaugh[\/tag] won [tag]Senate[\/tag] confirmation as an appeals judge Friday after a wait of nearly three years, yet another victory in President [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s drive to place a more conservative stamp on the nation’s [tag]courts[\/tag].<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh was confirmed on a vote of 57-36, warmly praised by Republicans but widely opposed by Democrats who said he is ill-suited to sit on the U.S. [tag]Court of Appeals[\/tag] for the District of Columbia. […]<\/p>\n

Ralph Neas, president of the liberal-oriented lobbying group People for the American Way, said that Bush and Senate Republicans “have succeeded today in putting a partisan lapdog into a powerful, lifetime position on the federal bench. Brett [tag]Kavanaugh[\/tag] has spent his career as a partisan operative, carrying out the will of the Bush administration and twisting legal arguments to benefit his political ideology.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This was supposed<\/i> to be a big fight. Senate Dems were, just a few weeks ago, prepared to filibuster<\/a> Kavanaugh — and with good reason.<\/p>\n

Kavanaugh was a key member of [tag]Ken Starr[\/tag]’s impeachment team and helped lead the investigation of [tag]Vince Foster[\/tag]’s suicide. Indeed, Kavanaugh personally wrote the portion of the Starr report that outlined Starr’s reasons for Congress to impeach Clinton in 1998. As Roll Call reported<\/a> way back in April 2004: “From Starr to Monica [tag]Lewinsky[\/tag] to Manuel [tag]Miranda[\/tag] — the former GOP staffer at the center of the improperly accessed Democratic memos — Kavanaugh has connections directly or indirectly to a host of scandal figures who have irked Democrats in recent years.”<\/p>\n

For that matter, Kavanaugh has no judicial experience, received a sub-par rating from the American Bar Association, has a limited legal background outside partisan political work (his trial work is practically non-existent<\/a>), and is now one of the youngest judges in the history of the [tag]DC Circuit[\/tag]. He’s also spent the last few years helping pick Bush’s other far-right judicial nominees.<\/p>\n

Apparently, at some point in recent weeks, Dems decided that a fight over Kavanaugh would ultimately fail. Instead of trying, Dems concerns were rolled over like speed bumps.<\/p>\n

The final vote was 57 to 36<\/a>, with four Dems (Byrd, Carper, Landrieu, and Ben Nelson) voting for confirmation and five Dems not voting. It sends a dangerous signal — Dems are hesitant to block efforts from Bush and [tag]Frist[\/tag] to stack the courts with ideologues this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is most disappointing. White House aide [tag]Brett Kavanaugh[\/tag] won [tag]Senate[\/tag] confirmation as an appeals judge Friday after a wait of nearly three years, yet another victory in President [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s drive to place a more conservative stamp on the nation’s [tag]courts[\/tag]. Kavanaugh was confirmed on a vote of 57-36, warmly praised by Republicans but widely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}