Saturday, December 1, 2007

About time: Boxer remembers how the game is played

From the WaPo's "Sleuth" column:

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), through a spokeswoman, now acknowledges she is blocking former Rep. James Rogan's (R-Calif.) nomination to the federal bench because of his role in impeaching former president Bill Clinton.[…]

Her spokeswoman said Boxer is denying Rogan a hearing because of his record in Congress against abortion rights, cleaning up the environment, helping organized workers and stopping gun violence.

But it's all that, and much more. Boxer now admits: She's not about to help a man who led the impeachment crusade against Clinton, which she fervently fought on the Senate floor in 1998. Rogan, who is now a California state judge, was of one 13 House managers who tried Clinton's impeachment case (and lost) in the Senate.

Even if his cordial correspondence with Rogan over the years, some of it handwritten, means that Clinton himself is willing to forgive his impeacher, Boxer certainly isn't ready to reward Rogan with a plum lifetime judicial appointment.

"Congressman Rogan was one of the most enthusiastic backers of impeachment -- he thought President Clinton had committed high crimes and misdemeanors," says Boxer spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz. "The Senate certainly disagreed with that conclusion, as did Senator Boxer."

(Rogan's no doubt pissed at this development, but he's facing another enemy historically far worse than Boxer--himself. He has a history of biting himself in his own ass.)

This goes out to Senator Boxer, with hugs, from p3:


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