DEAL BREAKER:

After Owen: Do Republicans Have a Battle Plan?: The party searches for a way to fight back. (Byron York, September 6, 2002, National Review)

Privately, some in the GOP say they would like to see the White House scrap its judicial-selection deal with California Democratic senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. Early in the administration, the president entered into a cooperative arrangement with the two senators in which they and the White House would have near-equal voices in the selection of federal district-court judges in California. The process has been cordial but has irritated both conservatives and defenders of presidential prerogatives, who argued it gave the senators too much say in the process.

Now look at what has happened. The president went out of his way, Republicans say, to give Feinstein a voice in judicial selection, and what did he get in return? He got Feinstein killing one of the White House's top judicial appointments. And it didn't help that Feinstein tried to soften the blow by telling everyone it was a very hard decision for her. "I've never voted against a female nominee," Feinstein told the committee Thursday. "I've met Priscilla Owen, I've talked to her, and I like her very much." Nevertheless, Feinstein pulled the trigger, and some Republicans in Congress believe it is time for the White House to quit accommodating her on judicial selection matters.

The Brothers' grandfather, who would have been 96 this week, was a Republican appointed to the Federal bench by LBJ, but not without some chicanery. As we heard the story, New York's two Senators, Jacob Javits and Bobby Kennedy, had worked out a private deal that allowed Javits to offer up a Republican periodically in exchange for not objecting to RFK's Democrat picks. But when Bobby was assassinated, Johnson tried backing out of the deal and naming a Democrat to the bench instead. Senator Javits went to Ted Kennedy and told him what was going on, that the White House was bailing on a promise his brother had made. That got Mr. Kennedy into the act and soon enough the nomination was confirmed.
Posted by Orrin Judd at September 8, 2002 11:48 PM