Obama Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes

[sideoutshu]

Pay to play politics at its best.

Tonight, Barack Obama will host ten House Democrats who voted against the health care bill in November at the White House; he's obviously trying to persuade them to switch their votes to yes. One of the ten is Jim Matheson of Utah. The White House just sent out a press release announcing that today President Obama nominated Matheson's brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr. to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

“Scott Matheson is a distinguished candidate for the Tenth Circuit court,” President Obama said. “Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am honored to nominate this lifelong Utahn to the federal bench.”

Scott M. Matheson, Jr.: Nominee for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Scott M. Matheson currently holds the Hugh B. Brown Presidential Endowed Chair at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1985. He served as Dean of the Law School from 1998 to 2006. He also taught First Amendment Law at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government from 1989 to 1990.

While on public service leave from the University of Utah from 1993 to 1997, Matheson served as United States Attorney for the District of Utah. In 2007, he was appointed by Governor Jon Huntsman to chair the Utah Mine Safety Commission. He also worked as a Deputy County Attorney for Salt Lake County from 1988 to 1989. Prior to joining the University faculty, Matheson was an associate attorney from 1981 to 1985 at Williams & Connolly LLP in Washington, D.C.

Matheson was born and raised in Utah and is a sixth generation Utahn. He received an A.B. from Stanford University in 1975, an M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980.

So, Scott Matheson appears to have the credentials to be a judge, but was his nomination used to buy off his brother's vote?

http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/obam...lth-care-votes

[killacs]

Well when Obama was campaigning did he ever say that he was going to do change in DC for the better?

[resnor]

Bah...mere coincidence. LOL

All quiet on the liberal front...let's post about some Pub who was reportedly at a gay bar, as if that matters at all.

[Gtrght77]

You realize this is a totally made up claim from a blog site that was passed on to the reporters to use as news?

Even Hatch says it is BS.

Grasping at straws I guess? Trying hard to try to stick it to me. At least I labled mine Op-Ed.

http://www.abc4.com/content/news/slc...0c-qyW_GA.cspx

[sideoutshu]

You realize this is a totally made up claim from a blog site that was passed on to the reporters to use as news?

Even Hatch says it is BS.

Grasping at straws I guess? Trying hard to try to stick it to me. LOL

http://www.abc4.com/content/news/slc...0c-qyW_GA.cspx

More Fails by you.....it says "makes buzz"....not "makes up"

So you are saying the guy wasn't appointed?

[Gtrght77]

Here is the Liberal Salt Lake Tribune commenting on this issue.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_14514894

Without regard for the veracity of the claim, the blogosphere erupted into a fiery clatter that President Barack Obama was buying votes with judgeships that found its way into mainstream news outlets and eventually prompted a Republican congresswoman to call for an investigation.

Rep. Jim Matheson called the claim simply absurd, as did the White House, Sen. Orrin Hatch and pretty much everyone who knows the Mathesons.

"One person makes a blog entry, and it somehow filters in to where people are reporting it, but it is just absurd on its face. Anyone who knows me, I think knows that's the case," Jim Matheson said.

"It is an illustration of how people with a political agenda can very easily manipulate the media," he added. "A completely baseless statement is now being reported everywhere and I think that is unfortunate."

The Weekly Standard , without citing any evidence, first posed the question of whether it was vote buying on its blog, which led to a link from the conservative news aggregator, the Drudge Report. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., chimed in by asking for an investigation.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good blog post, quipped Rich Hanley, an assistant professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

"Blogs don't work with sober analysis and the give and take within the given subject that you would normally see, in the mainstream press," Hanley said. "An appointment like this will be interpreted as nefarious and evil because that's our discourse today."

Hatch said he knew Scott Matheson was going to be the nominee more than a month ago and disputes any idea that Obama was trying to get a vote for the nomination.

"I can assure you [of] that," Hatch said. "I don't think Jim would change because of it anyway."

Anyone got any facts other then he was appointed to counter with?

Anyone?

Thought so.

[Nevada_Ballin]

Yea, this story is loaded up like a bad diaper.


.