If one thing is for sure, it is that the paramount issue for the Right over the last several years has been gaining control over the federal judiciary and especially the Supreme Court. This has been the one unifying theme of their efforts to rally behind John McCain and one McCain himself has been citing at every opportunity.
So it was to be expected that this sort of article from CNSNews would emerge sooner or later, in which just about every right-wing judicial activist is given an opportunity to attack Joe Biden as the man single-handedly responsible for everything that is wrong, from their perspective, with the judicial nomination process:
[C]onservatives say that for 27 years, Biden has served as a liberal front man for attacking conservative judicial nominees and principles – notably during the confirmation hearings of Judges Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
…
“Liberal special interest groups worked hand-in-hand with the liberal members of the Judiciary committee to sink Bork, and Biden was in charge of it all,” [Focus on the Family’s Bruce] Hausknecht said.
[Federalist Society Founder Stephen] Calabresi said that even though it was Biden’s liberal compatriot on the committee, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) who was the most visible in leading the attack on Bork, Biden was hardly a mere bystander.
“It’s important to remember that Sen. Biden was the chairman of the committee during the Bork nomination and the Thomas confirmation fights,” Calabresi reiterated.
“He very much planned the hearings, organized them, orchestrated them and caused them to take the form that they did. I think it is fair to say that he was the Grand Inquisitor in the Inquisition. He was the person, really, orchestrating the whole show.”
…
Calabresi, meanwhile, said that Biden has played a role in the efforts by Senate Democrats over the last seven years to block President Bush’s judicial nominations.
“He’s been a pretty adamant filibusterer, and has been very much a party to the filibustering of judicial nominees,” Calabresi said. “I think that filibustering and failing to give people an up-or-down vote, has been very much a continuation of what started with the Bork hearings and the Thomas hearings.
[Manuel] Miranda, who is a former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Biden not only tried to “bork” Alito’s and Roberts’ Supreme Court nominations, he has taken part in efforts – and votes – to bottle up the appeals court nominations of Miguel Estrada, Caroline Kuhl and Priscilla Owen.
Wow, Biden was personally responsible for everything from the defeat of Robert Bork to the filibusters against Estrada, Kuhl, and Owen? That’s pretty impressive – and probably something of an added plus for liberal voters who care about the future, balance, and independence of the nation’s judicial system.
