Yesterday, the NY Times reported that a group of conservative leaders is calling on Senate Republicans to filibuster Obama's supreme court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. Excerpts from the letter:
"We request that you will lead 40 or more senators to participate in a great debate that highlights all the issues that come to the fore with a Supreme Court nomination," says the letter, addressed to Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader from Kentucky.
Full Text of the letter is here (Warning: PDF)
Everyone reading this is by now well versed in the hypocrisy being shown by these same conservative "leaders" who not so long ago decried using the filibuster for judicial nominations as unconstitutional. This story is about more than hypocrisy though...
The letter was organized by Manuel Miranda, a former adviser on judicial issues to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Republican of Tennessee. Mr. Miranda now runs the Third Branch Conference, a coalition of conservatives focused on judges. NY Times
The Plum Line is now reporting that Mr. Miranda, hypocrite asshat extraordinaire, is the GOP staffer who was busted for hacking back in 2004:
Miranda, as longtime Congressional insiders will recall, was the GOP Senate staffer who was nailed in 2004 for hacking into the computers of Senate Dems and downloading thousands of documents relating to the strategies of Dem Senators on judicial nominations.
Miranda’s scheme — widely referred to as "Memogate" — was a big deal. A Senate probe found that many of the swiped files had been systematically downloaded "from folders belonging to Democratic staff," with some leaked to friendly reporters. Miranda resigned, and a Washington Post editorial denounced his "political spying operation" that indicated "how low the nominations process has sunk."
In addition to being a crook, Mr. Miranda also has either a very short memory or is the biggest fracking hypocrite on the face of this planet. From his website:
Since I left as counsel to the Senate Majority Leader in 2004, I have not been idle. In 2005, I formed the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters to press for the "constitutional option" to end extra-constitutional filibusters of judicial nominations, and then I chaired the Third Branch Conference through three Supreme Court nominations.
As The Plum Line points out, apparently some GOP senators are not especially pleased with this perceived interference by other conservatives:
Now Miranda is creating a similar rift between GOP Senators and conservatives as he reemerges as a leading public face of conservative groups locked in the judicial nomination fight of the moment. The more things change...
Oh how I love the smell of the GOP eating their own in the morning.