Bush's picks

Bush refused Democrat's offer to consult on potential SCOTUS judge nominees. He rejected this as the white house officials claimed "it would be highly inappropriate for a president to dilute his constitutional responsibility to choose Supreme Court nominees." Never mind that Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, reportedly suggested both Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer to President Bill Clinton, both of whom Clinton selected to the high court. Bush is too good to listen to Dem's lowly and ignorant suggestion, I guess.

Bush nominated Claude A. Allen to U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. Allen was Jesse Helm's press secretary and is on record as referring to gays derisively as "queers".

Bush nominated Pricilla Owen to the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals but her anti-women's reproductive rights stance were so controversial that the nomination died in Congress.

He nominated Charles Pickering to the same said Court. Pickering, as a law student, wrote an article suggesting ways to strengthen the state's anti-miscegenation laws. His former law partner J. Carroll Gartin, is a devoted segregationalist. After his death, Gartins papers, memos, etc, proved to show that  Pickering became a Republican in 1964 to protest the Democratic Party's support for civil rights and it's attack on segregation. Bush nominated Pickering twice and couldn't get him in until he appointed him Jan 2004 while the Senate was in recess. He would have held the office until the next session in Jan 2005 , but he withdrew his name in Dec 2004 and said he was retiring from the federal bench.

I don't have a lot of confidence in his ability to appoint or nominate respectable people.