Congressional Quarterly (subscription required) reported yesterday that "the conflict over President Bush's most contentious appellate court nominations in the 109th Congress has been all but abandoned." CQ noted that Republicans now have "too little appetite" for a full fledged showdown over judges, and have in fact left "unheeded" arguments from conservative activists who continue insisting that a fight on the Senate floor over judges -- even a losing fight -- is just what Republicans need to gin up their base for the November mid-terms.
It is, of course, not hard to see why the Republican leadership has lost its "appetite" for this kind of thing. As CQ explains, the nominees over whom the activists want to pick a fight are not exactly the most appealing: Terrence W. Boyle, a federal trial judge "opposed by an array of police organizations" and "dogged by conflict-of-interest allegations"; William "Jim" Haynes, II, the DoD general counsel who played a "role in formulating administration policies on the handling of detainees held by the U.S. military in Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan"; William G. Myers, III, whom environmentalists and Native Americans have long seen as "too hostile to environmental protection laws"; and Michael Wallace, whom "the American Bar Association rated ... as 'not qualified.'"
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