WHAT'S THE SPANISH FOR COOK?:

Deborah Cook Is the Typical Bush Judicial Nominee; So Watch Out (ADAM COHEN, 2/25/03, NY Times)

Ms. Cook is no Miguel Estrada, the so-called conservative "stealth nominee," who is facing a Senate filibuster. Blacks are not rallying against her, the way they are against Charles Pickering, the Trent Lott protégé who lobbied the Justice Department to go easy on a convicted cross-burner. Disabled people are not lined up against her, as they are against Jeffrey Sutton, who argued a major case that weakened the Americans With Disabilities Act.

Deborah Cook, a 51-year-old onetime corporate lawyer from Akron, Ohio, may actually be the most utterly typical of the Bush administration's judicial nominees. Which is why, based on her judicial record, we should all be very worried about the future of the federal courts.

In eight years on the Ohio Supreme Court, Justice Cook has been a steady voice against injured workers, discrimination victims and consumers. The court's most prolific dissenter, she frequently breaks with her Republican colleagues to side with big business and insurance companies. Often she reaches for a harsh legal technicality to send a hapless victim home empty-handed.

To bad she isn't Hispanic, then the Democrats would filibuster. Posted by Orrin Judd at February 25, 2003 2:55 PM