Senator Schumer calls on Bush to demand restraint in rhetoric on judicial nominees

California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Sen. Charles Schumer, a leading Democrat in the fight over judicial nominees, urged President Bush to intervene and rein in the strongest conservative critics of Democratic opposition to some candidates:

Schumer, D-N.Y., delivered his party’s weekly radio address Saturday, in which he decried “a whiff of extremism in the air the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades.”

Without naming any, Schumer criticized “small groups … trying to undermine the age-old checks and balances that the Founding Fathers placed at the center of the Constitution.”

Democrats have blocked 10 of Bush’s appellate court choices with the threat of filibusters, which means those nominees would need 60 votes to be confirmed. Republicans are considering using their majority to change rules to require a simple majority vote for confirmation…

Hugh Hewitt has the hypocrisy of Schumer here:

A day after Senator Uriah Reid (D-Nev) brands the president a “loser” and then apologizes, a week after Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo) labels Focus on the Family as the anti-Christ and then apologizes, and a month after Senator Robert Byrd (D-WVA) brands the Senate GOP as Hitler’s heirs, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) appeals to President Bush to bring moderation to the Republican side of the debate on the filibusters. Now that is rich. Wildly amusing and ineffective, but rich.

Especially when you consider this account of Senator Reid’s appearance before high school students yesterday:

“Reid took students through a primer of the five most-disputed judicial nominees, arguing some were opposed to the 1973 Roe v. Wade case legalizing abortion. He charged others with trying to dismantle government programs like Social Security.

‘I don’t want them. I think they’re bad people,’ Reid said of the nominees

He described California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, one of the Bush nominees Republicans will probably float first for approval, as an African-American opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus.

‘She is a woman who wants to take us back to the Civil War days,’ Reid said.”

On the appaling scale, accusing a distinguished African-American jurist of wanting a return to the era of slavery is simply reprehensible. Perhaps Senator Schumer would like to issue a statement on Senator Reid’s disgusting attack on Justice Brown and the other nominees?

Indeed!