Many candidates aren’t qualified

In his July 5 letter, Bill Melcer Sr. blames the Democrats for court vacancies (“Democrats had better wake up soon”). Perhaps he forgot the last election was the most closely contested ever. The incoming Bush administration promised then not to further divide our nation by advancing an extreme agenda, but rather to compromise as a gesture to heal the divisiveness. This is the reason the Democrats in the Senate won’t rubber stamp Bush’s choices: many of these new judges have an agenda and are not qualified mainstream jurists.

As far as the American people being fed up, it’s not with bad judges failing to be approved. Maybe it’s with the criminal corporate heads who have bankrolled President Bush’s political career as well the rest of his cronies, like Vice President Dick Cheney, while selling the American economy down the drain. Or maybe Bush’s complete lack of foreign policy knowledge and sophistication shown by his repeated blunders in the Middle East. Or maybe it’s the profound failings of our intelligence community.

Mr. Melcer is right: party leadership ought to wake up. But it’s the inept, bumbling Republicans who are in for a shock.

Snohomish