OBSCURING?:

The woman at center of the Senate's fight: Priscilla Owen's nomination to the federal bench has been scrutinized by Democrats who have balked at some of her rulings in Texas. (Warren Richey, 5/20/05, The Christian Science Monitor)

Priscilla Owen was first nominated by President Bush to a federal appeals-court post in May 2001 - four years ago.

That's enough time to earn a college degree. So it's hard to believe that there is anything that isn't already known about the Texas Supreme Court justice.

And yet, four years into her battle to win Senate confirmation, clouds of rhetoric are obscuring exactly who Ms. Owen is.

Republican senators say she is a careful and conservative jurist who adheres to the law rather than imposing her policy preferences by judicial fiat. She is an Episcopal Sunday school teacher who won 84 percent of the vote in her last Texas Supreme Court election and garnered the American Bar Association's highest rating - "well qualified."

Democrats say she is a conservative judicial activist, intent on enforcing restrictive social views on anyone who steps into her courtroom. Some allege she was handpicked in 1994 by Karl Rove, now a key adviser to Mr. Bush. Democrats say her judicial record shows she is a pro-business, antienvironment judge who takes a narrow view in civil rights cases.

In what significant way do those two views differ? Democrats just can't adjust to the fact that being anti-business and morally permissive is now the 16% side in most America.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 19, 2005 8:53 PM