TODAY A SUBCOMMITTEE of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing designed to put Republicans on the defensive. “Ghosts of Nominations Past: Setting the Record Straight,” is how the hearing is billed. By “nominations past,” the Democrats, led by subcommittee chairman Charles Schumer, mean Clinton nominees who weren’t confirmed when Republicans controlled the Senate from 1995 through 2000. Some of those nominees (“ghosts”) are scheduled to appear (they do happen to be alive) before the subcommittee.

You’ll note that today’s date is May 9, 2002. The Democrats chose today to have the hearing for a reason: It’s exactly one year since Bush announced his first judicial nominees, a total of 11, all of them to circuit courts. Just 3 have been confirmed. The remaining 8 have yet to have hearings. If you’ve followed this story, you know that committee members have been debating the circuit-judge confirmation pace. (Bush has named 30 in all, and 9 have been confirmed.) Democrats are using the anniversary to argue that the Republican-controlled Senate treated a lot of Clinton’s circuit nominees badly, most by never holding hearings. Though Democrats deny that now that they control the Senate they are behaving in a tit-for-tat manner, the hearing sure looks like an effort to establish the tat.