Did you hear the one about appointing a well-known bigot and conservative right champion as a judge? Pickering gets to be a lame duck of sorts, unfortunately this story is totally lame. Let's just hope he somehow is deterred before he has a chance to rule on anything of consequence.

From the NYTimes today, here is an excerpt of the story:

Bypassing Congress, Bush Installs Judge on Federal Appeals Court
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In an election-year slap at filibustering Democrats, President Bush sidestepped Congress on Friday and installed Mississippi judge Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court after a two-year battle filled with racial, religious and regional argument.

Bush elevated Pickering by recess appointment, simply putting him in office while Congress was out of session. Such appointments, bypassing confirmation, are valid until the next Congress takes office, in this case in January 2005.

Bush's action will re-ignite the battle between Republicans and Democrats over the direction of the federal courts, a fight already sure to be intense this year because of the presidential election.

If not confirmed by the Senate before the end of the year, Pickering would probably retire, supporters suggested.

Pickering, a 66-year-old federal trial judge whom Bush nominated for a seat on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, has been waiting for two years for confirmation. But Democrats have repeatedly blocked Republican efforts to bring the nomination to a vote in the Senate.

``I'm grateful to the president for his continued confidence and support,'' Pickering told The Associated Press from his home in Mississippi. ``I look forward to serving on the 5th Circuit.''

He was being sworn in in Jackson, Miss., Friday night.

Democrats have accused Pickering of supporting segregation as a young man, and promoting anti-abortion and anti-voting rights views as a state lawmaker.

The Democrats can be expected to use the appointment to try and paint Bush as insensitive to minorities during the election campaign.

``The president's recess appointment of this anti-civil rights judge the day after laying a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King is an insult to Dr. King, an insult to every African-American, and an insult to all Americans who share Dr. King's great goals,'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. ``It serves only to emphasize again this administration's shameful opposition to civil rights.''

And then there is the idiotic plan to promote marriage for the low, low price of $1.5 Billion, and the plans to revamp the US citizenship test. The "Guest Workers" policies are changing, and the environmentalists are gagging on the rapid-fire destruction of protections for health, land, animals, safety. This is just snowballing in an unbelievable avalanche of Conservative political ill will.