The Week

■ Bill Clinton is vigorously denying Administration charges that he’s a liberal, which means he is. The question is why the Bush Administration only opposes liberals at four-year intervals.

■ One unilateral move the White House ought to consider would be to name as “recess appointments” the 75 or so judicial nominees now gathering dust before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under the Constitution, the President may make such appointments during certain recesses of the Senate, and they are effective until the end of the following session of Congress (January 3, 1994). As late as Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency “recess appointments” were common. The benefits of such a strategy would be a) to expose the dilatory tactics of the Committee; b) to emphasize the issue of judicial selection in the presidential campaign; and c) to draw more closely the connection between Bill Clinton and an unpopular Democratic Congress.

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Bill Clinton

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Presidential Election

■ Bill Clinton is vigorously denying Administration charges that he’s a liberal, which means he is. The question is why the Bush Administration only opposes liberals at four-year intervals.

■ One unilateral move the White House ought to consider would be to name as “recess appointments” the 75 or so judicial nominees now gathering dust before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under the Constitution, the President may make such appointments during certain recesses of the Senate, and they are effective until the end of the following session of Congress (January 3, 1994). As late as Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency “recess appointments” were common. The benefits of such a strategy would be a) to expose the dilatory tactics of the Committee; b) to emphasize the issue of judicial selection in the presidential campaign; and c) to draw more closely the connection between Bill Clinton and an unpopular Democratic Congress.