Liberals against Estrada bend the truth again

Michael Kinsley’s Washington Post article “Estrada’s Omerta” is a dense slab of unformed twaddle. It’s possible it was ghost-written by Chuck Schumer since it follows the Senator’s muddled rationale for blocking Miguel Estrada: he refuses to contradict the Supreme Court and he declines to give personal opinions on topics that would indicate he has a personal bias above the law. Estrada simply refuses to torpedo his own nomination – the insolence! However, this little piece of sophistry from the article is baldly misleading:

“President Bush fired the American Bar Association as official auditor of judicial nominations because the ABA gave some Republican nominees a lousy grade. Now [Judiciary Chair Senator Orrin] Hatch cites the ABA's judgment as "the gold standard" because it unofficially gave Estrada a high grade.”

Senator Hatch does no such thing: he only cites the rating because Senate Democrats have insisted that the opinion of the American Bar Association is the standard by which judicial nominees should be measured. That is, Hatch is underscoring the Democrats’ mendacity when it comes to judicial nominations. And, just for the record, the ABA officially gave Estrada the highest grade of “well-qualified” on a unanimous vote. Kinsley tries to belittle this as a “gentleman’s B” when in fact it was a hard-earned “A+”.