The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> NO FIGHT LEFT br> Senator Orrin Hatch has asked the Bush administration to withdraw the nomination of Judge Charles Pickering to a federal appeals court. Pickering had to endure several days of blistering attacks by liberal Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, including a now-infamous interrogation by presidential hopeful Sen. John Edwards . A vote on Pickering was scheduled for last week and was delayed at Hatch's request. "Pickering won't make it out, it's probably 10-9 to defeat," says a Hatch aide. "We'd rather have the White House pull him or have Pickering withdraw himself." /p>

Pickering is a long-time friend of Republican leader Trent Lott. It was Lott who pressed the White House to nominate Pickering, and it is Lott, according to one member of his staff, who is pressing the White House to fight harder for Pickering's job.

"They could have done a better job of setting him up to win," says the Lott aide. "They've hung Judge Pickering out to dry and he deserved better."

Yet according to the Hatch aide and several Republican Judiciary Committee staff members, Lott did little to prep his side of the aisle for Pickering's nomination fight. This, even though the NAACP had listed Pickering as its No. 1 target in the first round of judicial nominations made by Bush.

"This whole thing was a clusterf--k from the get-go," says another Republican Judiciary staffer. "I feel sorry for Pickering, but his friends didn't do him any great shakes in this fight."

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