Demagogue

The Committee for Justice's Sean Rushton sure does like to point out Democrats' inaccurate statements regarding judges.

Yesterday he wrote

I’m sure it is well known, but listening to Sen. Schumer (D, NY) drone on about President Bush getting “95 percent” of his judicial nominees confirmed requires a restatement of the truth.

The fight over President Bush’s judges has been confined to the important Circuit Courts of Appeal. Since the filibuster strategy’s inauguration in 2003, Senate Democrats have filibustered 10 of 34 appellate nominees, almost 1/3, and stopped another six in committee. In his first term President Bush had the lowest four year appellate confirmation rate of any modern president, 67 percent, according to AEI scholar John R. Lott Jr. He got 35 of 52 appellate judges confirmed.

Now regarding the "95%" quote, Rushton is right. The Senate has not confirmed 95% of Bush's judicial nominees; rather they have confirmed only 95% of those nominees that have made it to the floor for a vote.

But then Rushton goes on to claim that "Democrats have filibustered 10 of 34 appellate nominees, almost 1/3" and that is just simply untrue. They have filibustered 10 of 52 appellate nominees, which is less than 1/5th. If Rushton doesn't know this, he should. But I suspect that he does and is simply lying.

In fact, I know he is lying because he then goes on to say that Bush had the lowest four year appellate confirmation rate of any modern president at 67%. Now, if Democrats had indeed filibustered 10 of 34 nominees, that would have meant that Bush had 24 of 34 confirmed for a confirmation rate of 70%. But Rushton claims that the rate is 67%, and that figure comes from dividing the 35 confirmations by the 52 nominations. So his first lie was actually contradicted by his second one ... and the idea that Bush's 67% confirmation rate is the lowest four year appellate confirmation rate of any moder president. It is not, because during his last term when Republicans controlled the Senate, Clinton had 58 appellate court nominees and only 35 confirmed – for a confirmation rate of only 60%.

If Rushton wants to take Democrats to task for using misleading rhetoric, he is fully entitled to do so. But he should try to refrain from offering "restatements of the truth" that are built entirely on lies.