Anticipated moderation

According to the Times the other day,

Moderate Is Said to Be Pick for Court

[...]

The administration official said part of the reason for making the Hamilton nomination the administration’s first public entry into the often contentious field of judicial selection was to serve “as a kind of signal” about the kind of nominees Mr. Obama will select. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the nomination had not been officially made.

The White House is planning to announce a handful of other candidates over the next few weeks to fill some of the 17 vacancies on the appeals courts, which are just below the level of the Supreme Court. On most of the 12 regional appeals courts, including on the Seventh Circuit for which Judge Hamilton has been nominated, a majority of the sitting judges were appointed by Republican presidents.

Mr. Obama’s selections will be closely watched to see what role he tries to play in shaping the ideology of the federal courts, which have influence over some of the nation’s most intensely felt social issues. The administration official said the White House was hoping to reduce the partisan contentiousness of judicial confirmation battles of recent years.

“We would like to put the history of the confirmation wars behind us,” the official said.

A reasonable pick, so one would expect a reasonable response from the thoughtful Right.

It apparently started with a National Review item from Wendy Long, who wrote on Tuesday, "Hamilton was a fundraiser for ACORN (nice ACORN payback, Mr. President)."

And from there, the race was on to see who could be the most ridiculous.

Hamilton's purported ties to ACORN immediately worked its way into right-wing commentary on the nomination, being highlighted by Newbusters, Powerline, Curt Levey of the Committee for Justice, and the Family Research Council ... twice, which complained that ACORN was getting it very own judge.

The idea that President Obama's nomination of Hamilton was "payback" to ACORN quickly became the right-wing talking point of the day, with people claiming that he was "a big shot at ACORN" and leading to posts like this one written by Matthew Vadum at "The American Spectator" entitled "ACORN's Federal Judge":

"Giving the term judicial activism new meaning, President Obama has nominated an ACORN loyalist to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the Chicago Tribune reports ... The Judicial Confirmation Network notes that Hamilton previously worked as a fundraiser for ACORN, the radical direct-action group that not only resurrects the dead and gets them to the polls every election but also shakes down banks and pressures them to make home loans to people who can't afford to pay them back."

Ready for the punch-line? Judge Hamilton was a canvasser for ACORN -- in 1979. He spent a grand total of one month helping the group raise money the same year he graduated from college. He was 22 at the time.

Never underestimate their spittle flecked foolishness.