"Not Liberal" equals "Extremist?"

So I made it back to the US with no trouble whatsoever. Hats off to British Airways - everything was on time, they gave me the good bulkhead aisle seat, and they didn't involve me in any traffic accidents on the tarmac (see that, KLM?)

Now I am back and enthralled by the recent political maneuvering in the US Senate. President Bush has nominated several judges for appointments to various federal courts. Now the way I understand the appointment process, from my high school civics class, is that once an nomination is made, the senate should vote on the nominee. If a majority of senators approve the nominnee, the appointment stands, right? I also undertand the role of the fillibuster in the senate to protect the rights of the minority. The question is, exactly whose rights are potentially being trampled by the nomination of conservative judges?

This morning on CNN, Senator Ted Kennedy was talking about the "extremist" judges who were so far out of the judicial mainstream that they were unacceptable. But if these people are so far out of the mainstream, why is there even a possibility that they would be approved? If a majority of senators approve that person, are the senators also extremists? If an extremist view is held by a majority of people, can it really be called extremist, or is that view, by definition, the mainstream? The thing about liberals is that they win arguments by coloring the issues with labels: non-liberals are "extremists," pro-life is "anti-choice," and Christians (a term which itself is becoming derogatory) are "the religious right" or "radical fundamentalists."

One of the common traits among several of the present nominees is their opposition to abortion. One nominee, Priscilla Owen, is criticized in a CNN.com story for seeking to limit the ability of minors to get an abortion without parental consent. "Not everything said about her has always been flattering," CNN tells readers, in its paragraph about her opposition to teenage abortion. How is that unflattering? But this is how liberals operate. Rather than engage in a legitimate discussion of an issue, they resort to name calling and labelling. Rather than explain why children should be allowed to have abortions without notifying parents, and thus why Judge Owen's view is unflattering, they just assert that this is so. And this is the typical means of persuasion used by the left. Conservatives are portrayed as mean, selfish, biggoted fascists, while they present themselves as kind, compassionate voices of the oppressed (unless the oppressed are unborn - then screw 'em).

Take for example recent television ads from MoveOn.org, which portrays Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist as the evil Star Wars Emperor. They claim that the "radical right" is trying to "sieze absolute power." The only way to prevent this is for the minority to fillibuster. What MoveOn PAC fails to explain in the ad is why a fair hearing for the judicial nominees should be denied. We are just left to wonder how such an extremist president got elected (twice) and how the majority of the senate came to be populated with such radical right-wing men and women. Could it be because a moajority of Americans put them there? Perish the thought....