Chuckie Schumer Doesn't Care Much For the Constitution

Chuckie Schumer has decided that the president no longer has a right to expect the confirmation of his high court appointees. It's now totally up to Chuckie:

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

Schumer’s assertion comes as Democrats and liberal advocacy groups are increasingly complaining that the Supreme Court with Bush’s nominees – Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito – has moved quicker than expected to overturn legal precedents.

Senators were too quick to accept the nominees’ word that they would respect legal precedents, and “too easily impressed with the charm of Roberts and the erudition of Alito,” Schumer said.

“There is no doubt that we were hoodwinked,” said Schumer, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

A White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said Schumer's comments show "a tremendous disrespect for the Constitution" by suggesting that the Senate not confirm nominees.

"This is the kind of blind obstruction that people have come to expect from Sen. Schumer," Perino said. "He has an alarming habit of attacking people whose character and position make them unwilling or unable to respond. That is the sign of a bully. If the past is any indication, I would bet that we would see a Democratic senatorial fundraising appeal in the next few days."

There's better than an even chance that Bush will get another nominee, given that a couple of the current members of the court are either quite old or not in great health. And chances are, the nominee will be replacing a liberal. There will be an epic battle, but if the nomination occurs by the end of 2007, it would be hard for Dems to prevent a confirmation without giving the Republicans lots of fodder for the election.

That line that "no doubt we were hoodwinked" is just precious. Does Chuckie mean to tell us that he didn't know that Roberts and Alito were conservatives? If not, he was the only one. After all, why were conservatives like me so adamant about getting both of them confirmed.

By the way, Chuckie, the "dangerously out of balance" court has been handing down a string of 5-4 decisions. It doesn't get much more balanced than that. It just that the balance has been tipped away from the lefties, and in Chuckie's America, that can't happen.