Bush cronyism going to the federal bench

White House aid Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed as a federal appeals judge by a Senate vote of 57-36. From CNN.Com

Political cronyism is alive and well in the Bush administration. This is off CNN.Com:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- White House aide Brett Kavanaugh won Senate confirmation as an appeals judge Friday after a wait of nearly three years, yet another victory in President Bush's drive to place a more conservative stamp on the nation's courts.

Kavanaugh was confirmed on a vote of 57-36, warmly praised by Republicans but widely opposed by Democrats who said he is ill-suited to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In a statement, Bush said Kavanaugh will be "a brilliant, thoughtful and fair-minded judge."

The vote marked the latest in a string of confirmations for conservative appellate court nominees in the year since a centrist group of senators agreed on terms designed to prevent a meltdown over Bush's conservative picks.

"It's clear that he is a political pick being pushed for political reasons," said Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "This is not a court that needs another rubber stamp for this president's exertion of executive power."

Kavanaugh, the White House staff secretary, was an assistant to independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the impeachment probe of President Clinton and he worked on behalf of the Bush campaign during the election recount in 2000.

Ralph Neas, president of the liberal-oriented lobbying group People for the American Way, said that Bush and Senate Republicans "have succeeded today in putting a partisan lapdog into a powerful, lifetime position on the federal bench. Brett Kavanaugh has spent his career as a partisan operative, carrying out the will of the Bush administration and twisting legal arguments to benefit his political ideology."