Editorial: Bush Nominees

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, February, 2008

President Bush is complaining again about the Senate's failure to approve his federal nominees, but he's ignoring an obvious solution: Nominate moderate candidates. More than 180 of Bush's nominations are being held up by the Senate, including 28 judicial nominees. Last year, only 56 percent of Bush's nominees were confirmed, one of the lowest rates of approval since 1989.

No doubt many Democrats are now content to run out the clock on a lame-duck president, rather than approve yet another conservative ideologue for a lifetime job. But Senate Democrats are hardly the whole story. Bush is still behaving as if the voters didn't put Democrats in charge of Congress in 2006. He is still sending over right-wing nominees and stomping his feet when he doesn't get his way. A...