The Lichfield Group

This article appeared in the April 29, 2005 issue of the Washington Times.

Indecent broadcasting coarsens.

This article appeared in the April 26, 2005 issue of the Washington Times.

Senate Democrats would eagerly vote to confirm a second edition of Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. The opportunity may arise if Senate Republicans shy from ending Democrat filibusters of judicial nominees. By requiring 60 votes for confirmation, a filibuster would force President George W. Bush to compromise his pledge to appoint Justices in the image of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. (Judicial filibusters also contradict the understanding of Article II, section 2 of the Constitution, which enshrines a simple majority yardstick for judicial confirmations; the practice rests on the alarming principle that the Senate may destroy the judicial branch by refusing to vote on any nominee).

This article appeared in the April 19, 2005 issue of the Washington Times.

Liberal legal culture frowns on religion.

This article appeared in the April 18, 2005 issue of the Florida Daily Business Review

Senator Bill Nelson (D. Fla.) confronts a choice between courage and cravenness over judicial filibusters. The Constitution, political custom, and prudence clamor for the courage to oppose obstructing judicial confirmations for the sake obstruction. . Revolutionary doctrines, partisan loyalty, and recklessness beckon for a craven submission to Senate Democrat insistence on frustrating confirmation of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. During the last Congress, Senate Democrats filibustered 10 appellate nominees to prevent confirmation votes on the Senate floor. They have threatened the same wretchedness in the 109th Congress, including nominees to the Supreme Court.

This article appeared in the April 12, 2005 issue of the Washington Times.

The Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration sponsored a crackling two-day conference last week to champion the impeachments of Supreme Court Justices who anguish its adherents. Featured orators claimed conservative credentials. But their bugle cry was revolutionary: the destruction of an independent judiciary with the power to declare acts of Congress and the States unconstitutional.

This column appeared in the April 7, 2005 issue of The Washington Times.

Kirkuk is Iraq’s testing ground as a diverse and democratic nation. Many of Iraq’s problems in building a post-Saddam nation converge in that oil-rich and hotly contested northern city. Kirkuk is a microcosm of Iraq fragile unity, and as Kirkuk goes, so goes Iraq.

This column appeared in the April 5, 2005 edition of Roll Call. (subscription required)

As Paris was worth a mass for protestant King Henry IV of France, clubby relations with fellow Democrats was worth apostatizing on judicial appointments for Colorado Senator Ken Salazar.