RADIO TIDBITS

JANET PARSHALL:

She whined about the apparent consultation Bush is doing with senators, claiming that it wasn't necessary and infringed on the the President's constitutional right to nominate judges. She also claimed that Clinton did not do this when he nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg but that directly contradicts what Orrin Hatch wrote (Via MediaMatters) :

Hatch wrote in his autobiography, Square Peg: Confessions of a Citizen Senator (Basic Books, 2002), that Clinton nominated Ginsburg at Hatch's suggestion. Hatch wrote that he had discouraged Clinton in 1993 from nominating then-Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt to the Supreme Court, arguing that "confirmation would not be easy." Hatch then suggested a few possible nominees:

Our conversation moved to other potential candidates. I asked whether he had considered Judge Stephen Breyer of the First Circuit Court of Appeals or Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. President Clinton indicated he had heard Breyer's name but had not thought about Judge Ginsberg.
I indicated I thought they would be confirmed easily. I knew them both and believed that, while liberal, they were highly honest and capable jurists and their confirmation would not embarrass the President. From my perspective, they were far better than the other likely candidates from a liberal Democrat administration.
In the end, the President did not select Secretary Babbitt. Instead, he nominated Judge Ginsburg and Judge Breyer a year later, when Harry Blackmun retired from the Court. Both were confirmed with relative ease.