resident Bush has put forth a plan for speeding up confirmation of his judicial nominees that misstates the problem and proposes to solve it by placing the burden on Congress and the judiciary. The administration should turn its attention to the real roadblock — its own overly ideological, and often slow-moving, method of selecting nominees.

In a speech that appears to have been timed for the upcoming elections, President Bush attacked the Senate this week for having a "lousy record" of confirming his judicial nominees. The facts do not bear this out. The Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed 80 judges in its first 15 months in power — more than the Republican-led Senate confirmed in its final 30 months in control, from 1999 through the summer of 2001.

President Bush has proposed a rule that the Senate vote on judges within 180 days of their nominations. It is an odd suggestion, given that the White House has itself taken more than 180 days — in some cases more than 500 days — to select more than 70 of its own judicial nominees.

Another suggestion, that judges give one year's notice of their retirement, is likewise an attempt to put blame where it does not belong. There are federal judgeships around the country that have been vacant for as long as five years for which the White House has not selected a nominee. The administration should not ask federal judges, who are guaranteed lifetime tenure by the Constitution, to predict when they intend to step down.

A major factor in the slow pace of confirmations is the nominees themselves. Under pressure from the right wing of the Republican Party, the administration has been selecting people with terrible records on civil rights, who reflexively favor big business over average Americans, and who are opposed to abortion rights. In a number of cases, these nominees also have significant ethical lapses in their records. The White House has diminished the role of the American Bar Association in the vetting process. The Senate would be failing in its constitutional duty if it did not take the time it needs to obtain the Bush nominees' full records and to scrutinize them closely. If the president really wants to speed up the process he should stop scapegoating the Senate and start choosing more worthy and less controversial nominees.