Yahoo! News - Bush Renominates 20 Failed Judicial Nominees
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush set up a showdown with Senate Democrats on Monday by renominating 20 failed judicial nominees, many of whom had been denounced by critics as "right-wing extremists."

The renewed battle over the nominees promises to produce plenty of fireworks as Bush begins his second term with an expanded Senate Republican majority and still-defiant Senate Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, has threatened to change the Senate's rules to prevent any more procedural hurdles known as filibusters against judicial nominees.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada has vowed Democrats are "not going to cut and run" from any such fight. Democrats have also promised to retaliate against any rule change by invoking other procedural hurdles that could bring the Senate to a standstill.

"Republicans would rue the day they changed the rules," Reid has warned.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said, "It's regrettable that the administration has resubmitted these highly controversial nominees instead of choosing persons more likely to gain a consensus."

"The president knows how to get judges confirmed -- the Senate approved over 200 of them in his first term," Kennedy said.

"But renominating activist extremists that the Senate has already refused to confirm is not the way," Kennedy said. "The president looks like he is still more interested in picking fights than picking judges."

This is the message that the GOP sends- Don't like the outcome of a contest? Change the rules! And then smear your opponent with name-calling! That's playing fair, right? That's that moral, decent thing to do! Ask Tom DeLay. He'll tell ya all about it. Or Schwarzenegger. There are probably others I've missed, but I don't really want to go searching for them. The pattern is pretty obvious.