That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post, which begins:
Over the course of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, the Fourth Circuit transformed from being perhaps the most conservative court of appeals in the country to being among the most liberal. Each seat that Bush failed to fill with a conservative judge has its own story.
We’ve already addressed Senator George Allen’s terrible blunder in pushing Bush to give a lifetime appointment to Bill Clinton’s recess appointee Roger L. Gregory. We’ve also seen how Bush, through his unsuccessful nominations of Terrence Boyle and Robert Conrad, was unable to fill a Fourth Circuit vacancy in North Carolina that he inherited.
Let’s take a look at what happened to the putative Maryland seat that opened up when Fourth Circuit judge Francis Murnaghan died in August 2000.