Friday, March 8, 2002 | 9:12 a.m.
Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.
THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE has postponed a vote on the president's nominee, Charles W. Pickering Sr., for elevation to a federal court of appeals post. Pickering at this time is a federal trial judge in Mississippi and, if approved, would take a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
So who is Judge Pickering?
President George W. Bush says that he is a good, honorable citizen who should be approved for promotion to another lifetime position.
Columnist Bob Herbert concludes that "Some things never change. Pickering's nomination is an affront to black people from coast to coast. But in a Bush White House, when civil rights come up against the Republican right, it's not even a close call.
"Pickering's racist past, his problematic present and his apparent difficulties with the truth have not been enough to persuade the president to reel in this nomination."
James Charles Evers, the brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, wrote in the Wall Street Journal as follows:
"As someone who has spent all my adult life fighting for equal treatment of African Americans, I can tell you with certainty that Charles Pickering has an admirable record on civil rights issues. He has taken tough stands at tough times in the past and the treatment he and his record are receiving at the hands of certain interest groups is shameful."
The remarks of Evers immediately drew fire from columnist Clarence Page who opposes the nomination of Pickering. Page, after deriding Pickering, then turned his guns on Evers in a personal, but weak, attack.
Columnist Thomas Oliphant accuses Pickering of "taking his political activism into the judiciary in a manner that is incompatible with his current job and dangerous in a potential appellate judge ..."
Many of Pickering's critics reach back as far as 43 years when law student Pickering wrote a law review article discussing how Mississippi's ban on interracial cohabitation could be enforced. The Los Angeles Times calls him a throwback to those days and the New York Times calls him an unworthy nominee.
A Washington Post editorial doesn't believe Pickering should be portrayed as a Neanderthal as some of his critics have done. Post editors wrote: "His unattractive moments as a politician -- voting for unconstitutional voting schemes, for example -- hardly distinguish him from other white politicians from his region and of his age. What does distinguish Judge Pickering is that he testified publicly against the Ku Klux Klan in the 1960's and that, as a young prosecutor, he aided the FBI's efforts against the Klan. He has worked since in racial reconciliation efforts."
Maybe next week we will know if Pickering will pass muster before the Senate Judiciary Committee. I've done hours of research on him and can only conclude that whatever happens, the final hearing shouldn't be dominated by anger and personal attacks. He deserves better.
How would I vote? I don't know because more may be learned in the postponed hearing. For now, however, I believe his nomination should be forwarded to the full Senate for consideration.
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