by Patrick J. Buchanan – January 13, 2003

“Mr. Bush the Wedge Driver,” railed the Washington Post, as it bemoaned what it calls the president’s “first attack in an ill-timed and partisan war.”

What exactly did Bush do to provoke the war? He kept his word to an electorate that gave him a thumping victory in November by renominating to the 5th Circuit, U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering Sr. of Mississippi. Last year, Pickering had been smeared and rejected by an obstructionist Senate Judiciary Committee on a straight party-line vote.