A couple of the nominees are Democrats, and the group is racially diverse. But the presence of a few bedrock conservatives on the list -- and the bitter controversy over what degree of power Democratic senators will wield in the selection and confirmation of nominees -- is a larger issue than even Bush's savvy image brigade can solve with one successful Benetton ad of a photo op.

Senate Democrats remember the considerable power GOP senators wielded in blocking nominations under President Clinton -- through a senatorial prerogative that Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has been trying to alter now that a Republican is in the White House. Angered, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee walked out of a committee hearing last Thursday, refusing to move ahead on Bush's nominations for deputy attorney general and solicitor general, and threatening no action on any of Bush's judicial nominees until the blocking prerogative was resolved to their satisfaction.

Bush, now realizing the power 50 senators can wield in an evenly divided Senate, offered the balanced, diverse slate Wednesday as evidence of his good faith and asked that "good faith will also be extended by the United States Senate." Decrying the political battles of past confirmation fights, Bush asked "senators of both parties to rise above the bitterness of the past," and for a "return of civility and dignity to the confirmation process."

Fat chance. The stakes are too high. The president's judicial selections determine the composition of the federal courts -- 822 federal judges total -- where decisions on hot-button social issues like abortion, school vouchers and affirmative action will be made for the next quarter-century. And since 1997, Democrats and liberal court watchers have been complaining that Senate Republicans were given unprecedented veto power by Hatch, allowing them to hold up confirmation of Clinton's judicial nominees not because they weren't qualified but because they didn't like their politics, which is not supposed to be a factor in the selection process (the Democrats' flogging of Judge Robert Bork notwithstanding).

Senate Republicans did use myriad bureaucratic tools to block a staggering and unprecedented 167 of Clinton's judicial nominees -- tools that Hatch is now trying to throw into the incinerator. In particular, he wants to nix an agreement that allows senators to block a nomination of a judicial candidate from their home state. Senate Democrats worried that Hatch was trying to pave the way for the Bush team to push as many hard-right conservatives onto the bench as possible, with little regard for moderation or bipartisanship.

But the Judiciary Committee must vote to move Bush's nominees to the full Senate, and no vote can take place if all of the committee's Democrats unite to block it -- which they are promising to do if they are not afforded the same home-state senatorial prerogative. Some observers say that the committee is roiled by more partisan rancor and dissent than at any time since the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings. After Wednesday's ceremony, Sen. Pat Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, was asked to describe the mood on the panel. "It's such sweetness and light that it's almost impossible to bear," Leahy joked.

"Right now we're staring at each other, and I don't think our side intends to blink," says Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts.

"I think [for the Democrats] it's 'get even' time," counters Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also a member of the subcommittee.

The hot controversy clearly figured into the equation when Bush and his staff selected the list of 11 nominees. Two controversial conservative candidates many expected to be picked were absent from the list. And though some conservative nominees were included, they were -- with one exception -- from states with two Republican senators. The White House fact sheet on the nominees shamelessly heralded that "a majority of the slate of nominees (6 of 11) are women or minorities." One of the nominees, Judge Roger Gregory of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was first picked by President Clinton for a temporary promotion to that court. If Gregory is confirmed, he will be the first African-American to ever permanently serve on that court.

"Had I not been encouraged" by the nominees, "I would not have been here today," Leahy told reporters in the White House driveway. "Sometimes this looks like a very polarized thing, and it does not necessarily have to be. It becomes polarized only if we try to lurch the federal judiciary one way or the other."

But Gregory's selection by Bush underscores why there's so much partisan rancor on the judicial selection issue. Gregory, a Virginian, was introduced in the waning days of Clinton's presidency only after three other Clinton judicial nominees were blocked by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., as the former president tried in vain to name an African-American North Carolinian to the 4th Circuit Court. (Helms said that the court had enough judges.)

Bush's selection of Gregory was clearly an olive branch. ("This is an unprecedented act of bipartisanship," the White House fact sheet humbly proclaimed of the nomination. "The White House is aware of no instance in which a president of one political party resubmitted the nomination of a circuit court candidate originally nominated by a predecessor from the other party.") But Senate Democrats, for now pugnacious and cohesive on the issue of judicial nominations, sneered at what they saw as a blatant attempt to avoid the larger issues at play.

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