The ABA criteria require a judicial nominee to generally have twelve years of legal experience, which Talley obviously doesn't. If that's all the media said about Talley, that would be fine. But the criticisms go far beyond that, misrepresent the strength of the rest of his background, and veer off into ignorant assertions about "trying cases."

Judges have lifetime tenure so maybe requiring a lengthy resume isn’t such a bad idea. This strikes me as nominating a young conservative who will serve for a long time when Republicans stonewalled Obama’s very qualified nominees.

That’s different than suggesting, as the poster above did, that someone like Talley wouldn’t be able to reach a “reasoned interpretation of the law.”

And that’s the same as ignoring the point that I made.

Senate confirmation is a political vote, one of “advice and consent”. There are no rules. Justice Thomas was not held to a “reasoned interpretation of the law” standard. Judge Garland was not rejected on a “reasoned interpretation of the law” standard. If a political hack like Talley can’t muster 51 votes in a Republican Senate, you should wonder about him.

I think you're talking past him. He's not saying that there aren't legitimate criticisms of the Talley nomination; he's saying that one particularly popular one happens not to be legitimate.

Conversely, if a hack like Talley can muster 51 votes, I'll wonder about the Republican senators.

The ones who are mostly kind of demurring about the pedophile?

To his credit, Grassley has signaled to Trump not to proceed with the Talley nomination.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/12/politics/trump-judicial-picks/...

I'm not sure I'm willing to credit him with more than a Thank You, Captain Obvious, award.

The other nominee, Jeff Mateer, is an obscene choice by either incompetents or malicious people. Mateer has said transgender children are part of "Satan's plan." This psychotic religious nonsense injected into government should not be socially acceptable behavior in a thinking society. Someone should be fired.

But because Trump claims he hires all of the best people, we have to take the selection seriously as intentional. And since the buck stops with the president, you have to accept that he's the one whose incompetent if he isn't neither hiring good people, nor firing them when they fail this spectacularly.