This weekend I was watching Fox News and caught an interview being conducted with a man named Leo Terrell. Mr. Terrell is a leftist, black attorney who is at odds with many on his end of the political spectrum and is in a fight with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
It seems that Mr. Terrell has done the unthinkable: he has dared to support one of President Bush's circuit court nominees.
The nominee in question is California judge Carolyn Kuhl whom President Bush nominated to the 9th Circuit and Senate Democrats plan to filibuster when they return in September. Her nomination has gained the ire of liberals like California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein who see Kuhl has entirely too conservative to be able to dole out fair, impartial justice. Those same opponents fail to mention the extreme liberalism for which 9th Circuit is well-known and that such liberalism ought to receive at least as much scrutiny as Kuhl's conservatism.
It is the Left's utter disdain for Carolyn Kuhl that is the source of Mr. Terrell's anger. The liberal NAACP adamantly opposes the Kuhl nomination, but Terrell, a long-time NAACP member who has acted as a lawyer for them over the last 13 years, ardently supports her. According to Mr. Terrell, he received a call from the NAACP attempting to "bully" him over his support for Kuhl. In response to the NAACP's call, Mr. Terrell promptly quit the organization and decided to make public the NAACP's actions and his views on their politics.
One of Terrell's arguments is that the NAACP claims to be a non-partisan group, but, in reality, it is beholden to the Democratic Party. As an example, he notes that the Democrats declared that Carolyn Kuhl should not be confirmed, so the NAACP acquiesced to their commands. The Washington Times reported that Terrell said the NAACP "is as political as the Democratic Senatorial Committee" and that "they're in the back pocket of the Democratic Party on this issue."
Mr. Terrell's support for the Kuhl nomination is based not on politics, but on experience. Of Judge Kuhl, before whom he has tried a case, Mr. Terrell said that "she's fair, she's impartial" and that "that's all I ever want from a judge."
Imagine that - a liberal deciding to abandon a powerful leftist organization because he wants to focus on facts rather than propaganda.
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