DOJ Nominees

• Ken Starr says that President Obama should be prepared for an "uphill battle over his Supreme Court nominees because as a senator he opposed two of President George W. Bush's Supreme Court picks."
• Some group called Conservatives Students Activists and Policy Makers is having a joint conference during the upcoming CPAC that will reportedly feature Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, Mike Huckabee, and Joe the Plumber. I have never even heard of them.
• Richard Land continues to insist that pursuing stem-cell research makes us modern day cannibals.
• Among the things that will probably not endear John McCain to the Religious Right is the fact that his daughter and former campaign manager are scheduled to speak at the Log Cabin Republican's convention in April.
• The ACLJ claims that more than 200,000 people have signed onto its anti-Fairness Doctrine efforts and that it is preparing a legal strategy to fight it if it makes a comeback.
• The Alliance Defense Fund has sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging it to reject the nominations of David Ogden, Elena Kagan, Dawn Johnsen, and Thomas Perrelli:

"We strongly urge the Senate Judiciary Committee to refrain from appointing David Ogden, Elena Kagan, Dawn Johnsen, and Thomas Perrelli to the Department of Justice, as they have each demonstrated throughout their careers a flawed understanding of the Constitution," said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. "Their legal philosophies depart from mainstream views, their professional careers reflect a far-left ideology, and their involvement in the DOJ could jeopardize the proper enforcement of federal law and the development of constitutional doctrines."

Last week I wrote a post about the Right’s opposition to a handful of President Obama nominees to serve in the Justice Department and speculated that this was partially an effort to test their strength under the new administration, but also an effort to start laying the groundwork for their full-blown opposition to his judicial nominees.

The more I see them write about this issue, the more convinced I become that this is actually the case ... and that what they are really preparing for is a Supreme Court battle.  For instance, here is Ken Blackwell writing today about these nominees and why they must be stopped:

Three people in particular are getting close scrutiny this week because their names are before the U.S. Senate. Mr. Obama has nominated David Ogden, Elena Kagan and Dawn Johnsen to be deputy attorney general, solicitor general, and the assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), respectively. These positions, in addition to being three of the highest-ranking posts at the Justice Department, are also common stepping stones to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The deputy attorney general is the number two at Justice. The solicitor general is the lawyer who argues for the government in the Supreme Court when the United States is a party to a suit. And OLC issues official legal positions for the federal government.

Each of them - Mr. Ogden, Ms. Kagan and Ms. Johnsen - are committed liberals whose views on a whole range of issues are on the far left. Each of them could argue anti-gun views in our federal courts, and if any of them end up on the bench, could enshrine those views in the law books.

Right-wing pundits and activists are piling on in their opposition to these nominees, primarily David Ogden, and frequently tying the issue to the future of the judiciary and the Supreme Court.

And now the Judicial Confirmation Network has taken out an ad in Roll Call, blasting Sen. Patrick Leahy for moving too quickly and demanding that he slow the confirmation process down. While the JCN's ad doesn't mention the judiciary specifically, considering that the organization's central focus in on the issue of judicial confirmations, it is not too difficult to piece together the obvious connection:

Senator Leahy is trying to ram through the Senate confirmation process the nominations of David Ogden for Deputy Attorney General, Elena Kagan for Solicitor General, and Thomas Perelli for Associate Attorney General. Leahy's abuse of the process makes a mockery of the Senate as the "world's greatest deliberative body." The American people have a right to know about the nominees who have been chosen for the most important legal positions in the executive branch. The Senate has been entrusted with this constitutional responsibility. So why is Senator Leahy forcing a rush to judgment on Department of Justice nominees especially when the vetting process for top jobs in the Obama administration has been so lacking? What is it the Senate needs to know about these nominees that Senator Leahy prefers to brush past? What do you have to say, Senator Leahy?

Below is a copy of a full page ad that we ran in today's copy of Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper. We hope you will join us in asking Senator Leahy . . . why the rush to judgment on these crucial nominations?

What will you have to say, Senator Leahy?

Senator Leahy is trying to ram through the Senate con­firmation process the nominations of David Ogden for Deputy Attorney General, Elena Kagan for Solicitor General, and Thomas Perelli for Associate Attorney General. Leahy's abuse of the process makes a mockery of the Senate as the "world's greatest deliberative body." The American people have a right to know about the nominees who have been chosen for the most important legal positions in the executive branch. The Senate has been entrusted with this constitutional responsibility. So why is Senator Leahy forcing a rush to judgment on Department of Justice nominees – especially when the vetting process for top jobs in the Obama administration has been so lacking? What is it the Senate needs to know about these nominees that Senator Leahy prefers to brush past?

What do you have to say, Senator Leahy?

Until recently, the JCN’s mission was limited to supporting “the confirmation of highly qualified individuals to the Supreme Court of the United States [and working] to ensure that the confirmation process for all judicial nominees is fair and that every nominee sent to the full Senate receives an up or down vote.” 

But now that President Bush is no longer in office, that mission has apparently broadened and now includes weighing in on Executive Branch nominees as it seeks to position itself to lead the opposition once President Obama starts putting forth judicial nominees.

As we’ve noted before, perhaps the Judicial Confirmation Network should just go ahead and change its name, as the “confirmation” part no longer seems to apply.

Earlier this week, we noted how, after eight years of claiming that the Senate's role was to rubber stamp the President's nominees, a gaggle of Religious Right activists had suddenly discovered the importance of checks and balances and the chance to provide an opportunity for "serious deliberation" on potential appointees ... mainly because they didn't like some of President Obama's choices to serve in the Justice Department.

A lot of this initial opposition was driven by the right-wing Catholic group Fidelis, which has been targeting David Ogden with press releases and reports and the Family Research Council, which has been targeting him as a man who "has built a career on representing views and companies that most Americans find repulsive."

And now it looks like the fight against Ogden, Dawn Johnsen, whom the Right hates because she worked at NARAL, and Thomas Perrelli, whom they hate for representing Terry Schiavo's husband, has become the first full-fledged test of the Religious Right's influence under the new president:

Christian conservatives are challenging President Barack Obama's picks for top Justice Department positions, charging that past clients like Playboy taint their resumes.

The criticism comes ahead of a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing Thursday for David Ogden, Obama's pick for deputy attorney general, the No. 2 position at the Justice Department.

...

The challenge to Obama's Justice picks come as conservative evangelicals seek to limit the power of the new Democratic administration and maintain their own within the Republican Party.

Some Republicans believe a tight embrace of social conservative values turns off independents and moderates, but many Christian right leaders resist compromise and contend that, if anything, the GOP has strayed too far from its principles.

For it's part, the Right is throwing all of its standard accusations at the nominees: 

"Ogden has been an activist in the support of a right to pornography, a right of abortion and the rights of homosexuals," said Patrick Trueman, a former Justice Department official during the first Bush presidency who is now in private practice.

"It isn't so much that he's represented pornographers or that he's been a porn attorney, but it's his world view, and his world view reflects President Obama's world view," said Trueman, echoing criticism from conservative activist groups like the American Family Association and Focus on the Family.

...

Tom Minnery, a vice president at Focus on the Family, charges that through the nominations, the new Democratic administration is not depoliticizing, but re-politicizing the Justice Department.

"They take our breath away the more we learn about these people," said Minnery. "This is left-wing politicization of the Justice Department. This is not a Justice Department that looks like America."

As a side note, Focus on the Family has an article up opposing these nominees on its CitizenLink website that carries this title: "Obama's Judicial Nominees Stand on Anti-Family Principles"

Memo to Focus: people nominated to work in the Justice Department are not "judicial nominees" - people nominated to be judges are.