The White House has announced President Bush intends to re-nominate 20 candidates to federal judgeships even though they all failed to win Senate approval during his first term. One of the candidates is William Haynes II. As general counsel of the Pentagon, he helped set the legal groundwork for military interrogators to torture detainees in Iraq and elsewhere by arguing the president may not be bound by anti-torture laws. Another one of the candidates, Priscilla Owen, has been widely criticized for her right-wing judicial advocacy, even from fellow conservatives. The attorney general-select Alberto Gonzales once accused her of “unconscionable judicial activism.” The editors of the New York Times described her like this: “Owen reflexively favors manufacturers over consumers, employers over workers and insurers over sick people. In abortion cases Justice Owen has been resourceful about finding reasons that… women should be denied the right to choose.” Incoming Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid criticized Bush for resubmitting such “extremist judicial nominees.”