Last week we noted how, right out of the gate, one of the Right’s primary talking points in justifying its immediate opposition top President Obama’s first judicial nominee, was that he was a fundraiser for ACORN and that his nomination was “payback” to the organization.
Of course, as it turned out, Hamilton’s “ties” to ACORN consisted entirely of a one-month stint as a canvasser for the organization thirty years ago.
But that hasn’t stopped Hamilton’s supposed ties to ACORN from becoming a central focus on the Right’s mounting opposition, as it is working its way into Fox News’ coverage of his nomination and continues to be cited, with Robert Stacy McCain predicting that it is only a matter of time before the ACORN-obsessed Michelle Malkin learns about it, saying we’re in “gasket-blowing countdown mode [before] Mt. Malkin erupts.”
To her credit, Malkin has yet to take that bait, as far as we can tell, but the same cannot be said for Ed Messe, Tony Perkins, David McIntosh, TK Cribb, and Alfred Regnery, who issued a joint statement opposing Hamilton’s nomination which placed his “ties” to ACORN at top of their list of objections:
Judge Hamilton is committed to an extreme political agenda.
Hamilton is a former ACLU leader who lent his legal skills to the far-left special interest group.
He was a fundraiser for the liberal activist group ACORN, the sponsor of the most comprehensive criminal voter fraud campaign in American history.
It seems pretty clear that Hamilton’s short-lived, age-old ties are going to remain a centerpiece of the Right’s opposition to his nomination – opposition that is becoming nearly universal among right-wing groups who work on the issue, judging by this article on Focus on the Family’s website:
Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, called that a bad sign.
“If this was just one extreme liberal among a bunch of moderate picks that would be OK,” he said. “The problem is that the administration is touting this as an example of how moderate their picks will be. If this is what the Obama administration considers ‘moderate’ then I think the nation is in trouble.”
Wendy Long, counsel for the Judicial Confirmation Network, agreed Hamilton is no moderate.
“Hamilton appears, from our initial study, to have made rulings that show his willingness to bend the law to reach outcomes that would be favored by the ACLU, which are inconsistent with the proper role of a judge,” she said. “If this is an example of what the White House thinks is a ‘moderate judge,’ I would shudder to think of what they think a ‘liberal’ judge looks like.
“If (Obama) continues in this vein, I think there will be a political price to pay in 2010.”
Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said that people need to understand Obama’s agenda.
“It’s a radical agenda that would dramatically restrict American citizens’ power to self government,” he said. “What people need to do is wake up … because if not the courts are going to be transformed in the direction of liberal judicial activism, and the courts will be governing everything in this country.”
Hamilton has the support of both of his home-state senators, including Republican Richard Lugar, as well as the support of the president of the local chapter of the Federalist Society, but that apparently doesn’t matter as right-wing judicial activists are committed to waging a battle over judicial nominations, beginning with the very first nominee.
