Temporary good news on judicial nominations. President Bush has shown a willingness to fight for conservative judges, by renominating several judges who were previously opposed by Democrats. The nominations sent to the Senate today include Haynes, Boyle, and Myers:

The Bush administration, trying to push through judicial nominations before Republicans lose control of the Senate, resubmitted six nominees deemed by Democrats too conservative for the federal bench.

Five nominees were the subject of an angry exchange in August when Democrats said their selection was a sop to the president’s conservative base.

The White House on Wednesday submitted Terrence Boyle of North Carolina and William James Haynes II of Virginia to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.; Michael Brunson Wallace of Mississippi to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans; Peter Keisler of Maryland to the District of Columbia Circuit; and William Gerry Myers III and Norman Randy Smith, both of Idaho, for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

I can’t imagine they’ll get through, but it sends the right signal. Leahy had this predictable response:

Barely a week after the President promised to change course by working in a bipartisan and cooperative way with Congress, it is disappointing that he has decided to ‘stay the course’ on judicial nominees by renominating a slate of his most controversial past choices. These are nominees who failed to win confirmation under a Republican-controlled Senate and they were returned to the President.

With these renominations, the President is choosing partisanship over progress and division over unity, at the expense of a fair and independent judiciary. This is exactly the kind of political game-playing that prompted Americans to demand change and a new direction in Washington. The signal the President is sending by renominating these controversial candidates is regrettable. But I hope the President will work with us in charting a new direction in the next congressional session, by choosing consensus nominees who unite instead of divide America.

The American people expect the federal courts to be a place where justice is dispensed without favor to the right or the left. These are the only lifetime appointments in our entire government, and I will continue to work with both Democratic and Republican Senators to advance consensus nominees to ensure the independence of our federal judiciary.

But polls show that Americans like cautious judges who hew closely to the text of the Constitution and relevant statutes, so this is one area where conservatives want Bush to “stay the course” — and the public will, for the most part, agree.

One thing is certain, though; the landscape will change once we have (oh Lord this is hard to say) Pat Leahy’s Judiciary Committee. We’ll be dealing with King Chuckie S., who has vowed to “veto the next Alito.”