Back to Form

President Bush, after flopping around like a fish out of water in response to the Economic Meltdown, reverts to what he does best: bash Democrats.

CINCINNATI, Oct. 6 -- President Bush stepped gingerly into the presidential campaign on Monday, offering an implicit endorsement of Sen. John McCain's judicial philosophy and accusing Democrats of contributing to a "broken confirmation process" for federal judges.

Welcomed here by an enthusiastic crowd of conservative lawyers, Bush also mounted a vigorous defense of his own judicial appointments over the past 7 1/2 years, saying that his nominees make up more than a third of the federal bench and have been "jurists of the highest caliber, with an abiding belief in the sanctity of our constitution..."

...Bush focused heavily on the push for conservative judges during his own campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and McCain has indicated that he generally shares Bush's judicial philosophy. Yet Bush also has had an uneven relationship with conservative legal activists, in large part because of his failed bid to nominate former White House counsel Harriet E. Miers to the Supreme Court.

In defending the impact of his two appointments to the high court, Bush said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. have produced a "very different 5-4 majority" that has issued important rulings favorable to conservatives on gun rights and abortion.

Of course he stressed judicial nominations. It's the only thing John McCain can publicly agree on with Bush, and it's practically the only event that hasn't blown up in Bush's face (yet).