The Senate Judiciary Committee next week will return to the job of getting President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed. First up will be Brett Kavanaugh, a well-qualified candidate who has become a Democrat target because A) he works for Bush and B) worked for independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the Whitewater investigation that led to President Bill Clinton's impeachment.

You can check out a couple of background posts on Kavanaugh here and here.

Democrats have threatened a filibuster, but as yesterday's Wall Street Journal points out, such a move would energize the GOP base and ensure the "nuclear option" would be unavailable to Democrats during the last two years of Bush's term.

Kavanaugh will be confirmed, largely along party lines. It's really sad that Democrats have hyper-politicized this process in recent years and I think they'll regret it 50 years from now when next there's a Democrat president in the White House.

On the other hand there's the nomination of U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. Allegations have been raised that Boyle broke a conflict of interest law.

The allegations against Boyle were first reported last weekend by Salon.com and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The report said that since May 2001, Boyle has ruled in nine cases involving five corporations in which he reported stock holdings. Among the companies involved were General Electric, America Online and Midway Airlines. In all the cases, Boyle's stock holdings were less than $15,000, and many were substantially less, the report said.

Andy Whiteman of Hartzell & Whiteman in Raleigh, who had a client in one of the cases cited in the report, told The News & Observer on Monday that Boyle was not unfair to his client in his handling of the disability case against GE. Whiteman also said that he would not have asked Boyle to step aside in the case if he had known of his small investment in the company.

I'm not sure whether this is disqualifying. However, it certainly is troubling. Having said that -- why are Democrats merely trying to torpedo Boyle's promotion? They should be trying to get him impeached. Why is it somehow acceptable for someone who has violated ethics laws to continue their job? Judges have lifetime appointments as long as they maintain "good behavior." If accurate, this wouldn't be.