Politics: Man-Dog Love Association Chairman Screws Bar Association

Apparently, three federal judicial nominees were asked to meet with the Allegheny County Bar Association (Allegheny is Pittsburgh's home county) for a routine interview so the association could potentially recommend these candidates. Two are nominated for district court seats, and one is the nomination of Pennsylvania Attorney General (and vanquished gubernatorial candidate) Mike Fisher to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

All three were advised not to appear by Senator Rick Santorum, who seems to think that the recommendation of one county is meaningless, though this editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette points out that Santorum didn't feel that way when he was citing the County Bar Association's recommendation for D. Brooks Smith, who was confirmed last year. The final graf of the editorial sums it up:

It is simply arrogant for Sen. Santorum to deny his colleagues the additional perspective that would come from a complete evaluation process by the lawyers who know these nominees best.

The story was broken in Sunday's P-G. The closing paragraphs merit quoting to demonstrate how much of an ass Santorum really is:

But Santorum is adamant that local bar associations should not have a role in rating federal judicial nominees.

"These judges are scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed in the [U.S. Senate] Judiciary Committee process. How many reviews do we have to do?" he said.

He added: "There's enough politicization in the judicial nomination process as it is right now. Look at how these outside organizations have politicized the judicial process beyond anybody's wildest dreams. I'm just drawing the line. I don't care who you are. The process is going to stay internal to the Senate."