here come da judges!

i haven't really been paying attention to the whole filibuster brouhaha, but i think it is a bit ironic that the conservatives were the ones who wanted to kill the filibuster. the filibuster is used to stall progress, and stalling progress is more of a conservative tool than one used by, well... "progressives." win the battle; lose the war. but now it's a moot point, since the senate brokered a deal on the judicial nominees.

so this priscilla owen character from texas becomes a federal circuit judge. what is she all about? what is the fuss? why the fuss?

In the 2000 Texas Supreme Court case regarding the state's parental notification law, Owen sided with a court minority that wanted to make it more difficult for minors to win judicial approval for an abortion without notifying their parents. She wrote that the majority had "manufactured reasons to justify its action" and "acted irresponsibly."

[yes, i know... yadda yadda. blah blah, we've heard it all before... but wait! check this out...]

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who also was on the Texas court then, criticized the dissenters for trying to insert personal ideologies and take the law beyond what was written by the state legislature.

"To construe the Parental Notification Act so narrowly as to eliminate bypasses, or to create hurdles that simply are not to be found in the words of the statute, would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism," Gonzales wrote in the 2000 opinion.

Gonzales has said since that he wasn't criticizing Owen, but Democrats continue to cite what he wrote five years ago in arguing their case against her.

lemme get this straight... democrats CITE ALBERTO GONZALES in arguing their case against priscilla owen?! that's like saying, "hey, this couey character could have just let the kid go! he should have been like michael jackson! michael jackson didn't KILL the kids he molested!" i sense a disturbance in the force.