The Judicial Confirmation Network is running this ad today in Roll Call:

NRO is on the case:

Nominated in July 2007, Conrad is a model candidate who has twice been confirmed by the Senate to other positions. A longtime federal prosecutor in North Carolina, Conrad served as U.S. Attorney from 2001 to 2004. He became a federal district judge in North Carolina in 2005 and is now chief judge of his court.

By the very standards that Senate Democrats have expounded, Conrad ought to have been readily confirmed. He has the strong support of both North Carolina senators — Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr — and the ABA unanimously gave him its highest “well qualified” rating. The Judicial Conference of the United States has declared the vacancy to which he has been nominated a “judicial emergency.” …

Despite all this, nearly a year after his nomination, Conrad has still not received a hearing from the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Democrats use the Supreme Court as a permanent Constitutional Convention, so why are we surprised that they use obstruction to change the Third Branch?

There are obvious reasons that conservatives have hated McCain in the past. Not just immigration, campaign finance, but also the Gang of 14. And it’s true that McCain would spout off against conservatives like we were the enemy.

But Quin Hilyer has an excellent article in the American Spectator telling conservatives that while another Reagan isn’t in the offering, McCain is very much like the next Goldwater. In other words, Hilyer says, He’s One of Us:

No major party nominee since Goldwater, Reagan included, has been as consistently and bravely dedicated to fiscal discipline as has McCain. Last week he both made a superb campaign speech and penned a hard-hitting column for the Chicago Tribune blasting the bloated, irresponsible Farm Bill for which 80 percent of his colleagues were cravenly voting.

Hilyer also points out the great initiatives that McCain has offered on the hot-button issues that voters care about:

McCain has proposed the most free-market-oriented health care reforms imaginable from a national party nominee during a contentious campaign. And on taxes, the fact remains that McCain has never, not once, supported an income-tax rate hike. He calls for corporate tax deductions and seems genuinely committed to fighting, really fighting, to make most of President Bush’s tax cuts permanent.

Hilyer admits the disagreements about McCain and picking federal judges, but he notes quite truthfully that the decision on this is a no-brainer:

I, for one, do not believe that he cares enough about textualist judges to make appointing them a priority. But even here the choice is clear: With McCain, if we are unlucky, we will get appeals court and Supreme Court judges and justices of the Sandra Day O’Connor/Anthony Kennedy variety, or maybe like uber-moderate Lewis Powell; better still, we may get lucky and get an occasional Sam Alito through the Senate gauntlet. With Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, though, the best we’ll ever get is another Stephen Breyer — and that’s only if Obama/Clinton makes a mistake. Most likely, we’ll get William Brennans and Ruth Bader Ginsburgs aplenty. I’ll take an O’Connor any day over a crafty, heavily politicized Brennan.

For conservatives, staying home is not an option. The choice is clear, from judges to taxes to health care to the Right to Life: Support John McCain for President.

Rather than having her as a runningmate, National Journal’s Jennifer Skalka suggests Obama consider appointing Hillary Clinton to the Supreme Court instead.

Justice Hillary Clinton?

Another reason lukewarm conservatives should get out and vote in November for John McCain.

Judging from the excerpts, Sen. McCain delivered an excellent speech today on his approach to the judiciary. Not surprisingly, he also drew some sharp distinctions between his approach to selecting judges, and that of Sen. Obama.

Ed Whelan over at NRO has posted some excellent excerpts.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air also has a nice summary.

For the values voter still sitting on the fence, the case for McCain just became much stronger.

UPDATE: the full speech is now posted on the McCain website here

John McCain in North Carolina today giving a talk of the importance of picking solid jurists to the federal bench. He like judges in the mold of John Roberts and Sam Alito.

And he ripped on Barack Obama for not voting to confirm John Roberts. Obama, he said, “went right along with the partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote against this highly qualified nominee.”

This is good stuff, McCain. More, please!

The Committee for Justice has a nice summary of Republican Senate Judiciary Committee member statements from yesterday on the obstruction of judicial nominees.  Sen. Coburn, as usual, was excellent:

“If Senators can find time to attend fundraisers, process thousands of earmark requests and be guests on talk shows they can find time to do the job they were elected to do, and are required to do under our Constitution.”

One of Bush’s judicial nominees was critical of a nun who trashed a Catholic prison chaplain. That makes Conrad anti-Catholic? Read about the latest charge that Democrats are using to obstruct appointments to the federal judiciary.