Bill Clinton: “while I commend my colleagues for the compromise that momentarily spared this body from the so-called nuclear option…”

“while I commend my colleagues for the compromise that momentarily spared this body from the so-called nuclear option, their agreement did nothing to change the fact that several of President Bush's judicial nominees fall well outside the mainstream and the parameters of what is an acceptable jurist. This nominee in particular, Janice Rogers Brown, has shown a disdain for the rule of law and precedent and is undeserving of lifetime tenure on the Federal bench. The administration's agenda has become evident throughout the course of the debate over judicial nominees. The President, the Republican leaders, and their supporters have turned our Federal judiciary into their own personal political battleground. To satisfy the demands of their most ardent right wing supporters, the Republicans have not chosen to appoint capable Federal jurists but rather the political activists willing to contort the law, precedent, and the Constitution in order to promote their own conservative political agenda. Our Federal courts have drifted well to the right in the past two or three decades. Today's so-called moderates would have been called conservatives in the 1970s. And while I personally think that this drift is not in the best interest of our country, I understand and accept that the President is certainly entitled to nominate conservatives to the bench.…”