THE OWENS NOMINATION DIED FOR YOUR SINS :

Litmus test spells doom for nominee (Jim Wooten, 9/8/02, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution0

A tragic reality has settled over the U.S. Senate. [Judge Priscilla] Owen was not rejected for her lack of credentials. She failed an ideological litmus test imposed by liberal interest groups, who use smear language to characterize real or imagined views with which they disagree. [...]

Two dynamics are in play here. One is that the left simply refuses to acknowledge the validity of the last presidential election -- and therefore Bush's right to fill vacancies on the federal bench with judges who share his philosophical views. [...]

The second dynamic is more ominous. In the last half century, a gradual power shift has occurred. The left, recognizing that the nation is essentially conservative, has concluded that the legislative arena is an obstruction. Its policy-making agenda, thus, is largely moved to the bureaucracy and to the courts.

Narrow-agenda zealots who have little chance of persuading a full body of legislators to implement their agenda recognize that greater power comes by boring into a bureaucracy and nesting. Thus when Congress or state legislatures pass vague laws on the environment, education or business, for example, the business of writing the interpreting regulations falls to the moles. [...]

Distrustful of legislative bodies, the left has targeted the courts and the bureaucracy to advance agendas, while Congress either falls into stalemate or into incrementalism.

If you want to worry about the "attack on our civil liberties" look to this creeping coup, rather than to the plight of Zacarias Moussaoui. Posted by Orrin Judd at September 7, 2002 9:19 AM