The Bush Doctrine Unfolds

...Queried on all of this, Pickering has insisted that as an appellate judge he would of course adhere to what the Supreme Court has said on the issue...

...Notwithstanding that the ABA in its review of Pickering found nothing to object to in terms of ethics, committee Democrats have...

...Still, Pickering's record on the bench, taken whole, is not that of a judge who twists the law to reach decisions enforcing his own personal or political views...

...And to the old argument so often proffered by Chinese tyrants and their American apolo-gists—that China is not "ready" for democracy—well, Bush had an answer for that, too...

...President Bush grasped that our response to the attacks must go beyond simply destroying some terrorist groups, important as that is...

...Democrats have forced Pickering to voice regrets for some things he said and did decades ago that lent support to or failed to oppose the status quo of segregation...

...Under the pretext of explaining to the Chinese people how the American system of government really works, Bush articulated a devastating critique of the Beijing dictatorship and called on the Chinese people to demand change...

...In another, he elaborated his views on federal pension law...

...Thus the committee vote is crucial...

...There's really nothing more that Pickering can say in his own behalf on that or anything else...

...Russell Feingold worries whether this does not raise an "appearance" problem, and a legal ethics expert, consulted by Legal Times, has said the solicitation might amount to "unintentional coercion...

...Beijing's leaders ought to be convinced now that he means it...

...This week Bush made plain that the implications of his doctrine go beyond North Korea, Iran, and Iraq, the "axis of evil...

...As for Pickering himself, the effort to portray him as "insensitive" on race (racist, if you know how to read these things) is unfair...

...George W. Bush is now a man with a mission...

...Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit...

...The most important part of Bush's Asia trip, however —the part that may best be remembered by future generations of both Americans and Chinese—came in his speech to students at Tsinghua University, which was televised live in China...

...But on close inspection, the allegation falls apart...

...But Pickering's confirmation chances will improve if the president stands up for him...

...Pickering, who has never had to rule on an abortion case, disagrees with the Supreme Court's abortion jurisprudence...

...Judges of all jurisprudential stripes have been known so to digress, and it's not a practice we'd hold up as ideal...

...By defeating Pickering—the first of four judges Bush has nominated to the Fifth Circuit, a court of 17 members when at full strength—Democrats aim to tell Bush that he must cease and desist from nominating judicial conservatives to appellate courts and instead pick "mainstream" judges...

...The nomination thus has allowed Democrats to strut their presumed moral superiority—notwithstanding the fact that Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan, while Pickering prosecuted it and testified against one of its imperial wizards...

...Unmoved by the international rehabilitation of the newly smiling Kim Jong Il, Bush spoke with Reaganesque simplicity: "I will not change my opinion on Kim Jong Il until he frees his people...

...With Pickering, the Democrats are pursuing what might be called a strategy of prevention...

...Lott, as in Trent Lott, a close friend of Pickering...

...Another "ethics issue": During the sentencing phase of a cross-burning case in 1995, Pickering, frustrated with the Justice Department's handling of the case, had a phone conversation with the then head of the Civil Division, a friend from Mississippi, who had no line authority over the prosecutors involved and in any case took no action...

...Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who hold a 10-to-9 edge, have been digging in their heels against Pickering...

...The imperative of regime change was the core message of Bush's State of the Union address...

...From the first days of the Bush presidency, Lott pushed Bush to nominate Pickering...

...In case you're new to the story, Charles Pickering is a federal trial judge, a 1990 appointee of George Bush...

...is limited and temporary, and only given by a free vote of the people...

...That's a progressiveness that we need to see more of in this state...

...None of this amounts to much when the man is seen in full, for Pickering also stood against the Klan in Mississippi when that took courage and, over the past two decades, has led racial reconciliation efforts in the state...

...Last fall, Pickering asked lawyers who had appeared in his court to write letters in support of his nomination...

...Pickering has repeatedly tried to assure committee Democrats that as an appeals court judge he would read the law as it is, not rewrite it to suit his views...

...Robert Kagan and William Kristol A Nomination Worth Fighting For Among the announcements White House press secretary Ari Fleischer made in his daily briefing on February 15 was this: "The president believes in and will fight for the nomination of [Charles] Pickering...

...Everyone heard his message: that the tyranny under which they suffer must be changed or brought down...

...After all, a Democrat-controlled Senate unanimously confirmed Pickering to his district judgeship in 1990...

...You wouldn't have heard this kind of talk from the first Bush administration, and, in truth, you might not have heard it from this administration, either, before September 11...

...Now in the majority themselves, they can exact some revenge by opposing Pickering...

...Ethics authorities disagree...

...Because the Supreme Court takes so few cases, the nation's 13 appellate courts effectively function as mini-supreme courts...

...But Democrats see that Pickering is a conservative and that he is a judge, and they seem determined to believe that he would be a results-oriented judge...

...As a judge, Pickering has at times gone off point, as it were, to offer his views about the law at hand or some public controversy...

...Democrats believe the Fifth Circuit is too conservative already, and that Pickering would add to the imbalance...

...A substantial majority of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Judiciary has now rated him "well qualified," and the ABA, not a conservative body, is an organization Senate Democrats, if not this Republican White House, routinely salute...

...His appointees could shift the balance of power in a conservative direction on more of these courts—unless the Senate says no...

...In deciding to target Pickering first among Bush nominees, committee Democrats would seem to have made a peculiar choice...

...Long before becoming a judge, he supported a constitutional amendment that would have overturned Roe v. Wade...

...And, for that matter, "mainstream" Supreme Court justices, should vacancies on the high court occur...

...Those who fear freedom sometimes argue it could lead to chaos, but it does not, because freedom means more than every man for himself...

...Bush settled on Pickering the same week in May that James Jeffords left the GOP Senate Democrats didn't exactly admire Lott when he was majority leader...

...He's unlikely to serve long enough to make a substantial jurisprudential difference, even assuming he's the sort of lawyer apt to make that kind of difference, which administration officials in whispered asides say he's not...

...With the Senate returning this week and a Judiciary Committee vote looming, "will fight" must become "is fighting...

...To find a historical precedent, one must go back to Ronald Reagan's 1988 speech at Moscow State University...

...Earlier in Japan, Bush went out of his way to declare his solidarity with and commitment to the democratic people of Taiwan, a stance he then forcefully reiterated in Beijing...

...As it happens, it is America's historic mission...

...A black councilman offered this: "So many people are angry about the past...

...He also understood the underlying truth that there's no substitute for American leadership— a leadership that is willing not just to use our military strength, but also to defend and advance liberal democratic principles...

...and support as a state senator in the 1970s for an open primary bill that the Justice Department blocked on account of its negative impact on black voters...

...Every Chinese citizen who heard Bush's words understood the invidious comparison he was drawing between American freedom and Chinese tyranny...

...His nomination—the first judicial confirmation battle of the Bush presidency—is in trouble and may fail even with Bush's engagement...

...In the United States, "All political power...

...Democrats have seized on this and that—a law review article on Mississippi's anti-miscegenation statute that he wrote in 1959 as a law student...

...But September 11 really did change everything...

...The necessity for the Democrats is to challenge nominees they see as beatable at low political cost, which they think Pickering is...

...Blacks in Pickering's hometown of Laurel support him even as they wonder what the fuss in Washington is all about...

...This is petty, yes, but this is the Senate...

...Pickering also affords Democrats a chance to raise a topic on which Republicans are easily put on the defensive— race...

...Instead, they say he's "Lott's guy...

...It is hard to recall a more forceful statement of American democratic principles on Chinese soil, or a more pointed rebuke to the Beijing dictatorship...

...In South Korea, the president did not back down an inch from his characterization of the Pyongyang government as "evil...

...Last year George W. Bush designated Pickering for elevation to the U.S...

...John Edwards has seized on this phone call to charge Pickering with an "ex parte" communication in violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct...

...This is a battle for the president to fight, for if Pickering loses, it will be the president's defeat...

...Absent the president's engagement in the battle, they are right...

...Let there be no mistake: Pickering is Bush's nominee, not Trent Lott's...

...EDITORIAL The Bush Doctrine Unfolds The full sweep of the new Bush Doctrine was on display this past week, as President Bush traveled through North Asia delivering a consistent and powerful message: American security and global security require a determined assault not just on terrorists but on the three-headed hydra of tyranny, terror, and weapons of mass destruction...

...Rather than kowtow in the fashion of Clinton, who used his visit to China as an opportunity to distance America from Taiwanese democracy, Bush told the Chinese government plainly that he intended to abide by the Taiwan Relations Act...

...Last spring, Bush promised to "do what it takes" to defend Taiwan...

...Bush wants to appoint judicial conservatives...

...actions strike us as unwise, but not unethical...

...Larry Thomas, owner of a pharmacy in Laurel, told the New York Times: "Over the years I've seen him work with black leaders and really try to make an effort to understand and help the community...

...If Pickering were to be voted out of committee, he might be confirmed, since two Democrats— Zell Miller of Georgia and Fritz Hollings of South Carolina— have indicated their support...

...Needed in these circumstances is an energetic executive, a president willing to argue publicly for his nomi-nee—in the present case, to challenge the inaccurate and unfair portrayals of Pickering and to expose the Democratic effort for what it is, an attempt to force the president to choose judges more to the liking of Al Gore...

...There's little a judicial nominee can do in his own behalf when the Judiciary Committee is preparing to vote no...

...Abortion, as you might expect, is a huge Democratic concern...

...trivial contact in the early 1970s with the pro-segregationist Mississippi state Sovereignty Commission...

...Which of course is his problem, just as it was Robert Bork's problem...

...And, of course, Bush's call for freedom and regime change in China marks a striking shift away from the "realist," commer-cialist orthodoxy that has dominated the Republican foreign policy establishment for more than a decade...

...But if the judge has moved beyond his past, I think we should all try to do the same...

...Pickering's There's really nothing more that Pickering can say in his own behalf...

...In a 1993 voting rights case, for example, he criticized the Supreme Court's "one man, one vote" principle...

...In the United States, Bush said, "You can support the policies of our government, or you are free to openly disagree with them...

...Which of course is his problem, just as it was Robert Bork's problem 15 years ago...

...Terry Eastland, for the Editors...

...But the president can argue publicly for him...

...No other Bush nominee so qualifies as an anti-Lott target...

...Just as the Reagan Doctrine— primarily aimed at overthrowing Communist regimes— ended up toppling right-wing dictatorships in the Philippines and South Korea, so, too, the Bush Doctrine could help undo dictatorships not only in Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, but also in, for example, China and Saudi Arabia...

...Pickering certainly could use the president's help...

...Consider, too, that Pickering is 64—old as appellate court nominees go...

...In the United States, he said, "No one is above the law . . . everyone stands equal...