Dole Blasts Clinton's Judicial Appointments

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 19) -- Presaging what may be a key election theme, Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) has again laid into President Bill Clinton's choices for federal judges (198K WAV sound).

"Many of the judges Mr. Clinton has appointed...are precisely the ones who are dismantling those guard rails that protect society from the predatory, the violent, the anti-social elements in our midst," the Kansan said in a speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors today.

Dole singled out four judicial appointments -- Harold Baer of New York, Rosemary Barkett of Atlanta, Lee Sarokin of Philadelphia, and Leonie Brinkema of Virginia -- and accused those judges of putting criminals before victims. They belong in "Bill Clinton's Hall of Shame," Dole declared.

Congressional Democrats responded quickly. "Virtually every one of the judges appointed by this president has had universal Republican support," Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle shot back. Some 180 judges have been appointed by Clinton; Dole opposed only Barkett and Sirokin.

Campaign aides confirmed that the president's judicial choices will be a major campaign theme for Dole, even though recently the Kansan received a bipartisan drubbing for saying Baer should be impeached for his handling of a drug case. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Attorney General Janet Reno, and four federal judges separately condemned political interference in court decisions.

Dole's strategy reflects primary-season exit polls that showed voters believed liberal judges are too lenient with criminals, and that death row inmates are granted too many stays of execution.

Dole Blasts Clinton's Judicial Appointments

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