Byron York, Kevin Aylward and Captain Ed all note the impropriety of Harry Reid smearing Sixth Circuit nominee Henry Saad by saying that the Democrats are holding up his nomination because:
“Henry Saad would have been filibustered anyway,” Reid said. “He’s one of those nominees. All you need to do is have a member go upstairs and look at his confidential report from the FBI, and I think we would all agree there is a problem there.”
Now, look: if there’s something really nasty in Saad’s record, Bush should pull the nomination. And I am, in fact, uncomfortable with the idea of keeping genuinely material information from the public. But given the nature of FBI files – which tend to be loaded with unverifiable hearsay and gossip – that’s unavoidable.
Either way, given the confidential status of a nominee’s FBI file, the Democrats just should not go smearing the guy with dark hints about his secret files. There’s also an elephant in the living room that York and the others ignore: the uniquely explosive nature, in the current climate, of dropping hints about the classified FBI file of an Arab-American (I believe Saad, if confirmed, would be the first Arab-American to sit on a federal court of appeals, but I could be wrong about that). If that’s not McCarthyism, I don’t know what would be. As far as playing to crude stereoytpes, that’s like calling a black judge stupid (whoops, Reid’s already done that). Where’s CAIR and James Zogby on this one?
Reid’s office is saying he’s never seen the actual report. It’s hearsay and innuendo about hearsay and innuendo!