The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is not known as a bastian of progressive jurisprudence. Expect it to become even more mired in the regressive thinking of the Dixiecrats turned Republicans that control the U.S. government today.

In yesterday's Houston Chronicle, Cragg Hines takes a look at Bush's most recent nominee

Some highlights: Wallace, as an aide to then-House Republican Whip Trent Lott, D-Miss., in the early 1980s fought to protect the tax-exempt status of even the most notoriously segregationist institutions. That included Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where interracial dating was banned until 2000 — and even then required written consent of parents. Also with Lott, Wallace worked to require discriminatory intent — not effect — be proved in voting rights cases.

Later in the 1980s, as a member of the board of the Legal Services Corp., Wallace attempted to gut the agency. He voted to hire outside attorneys to lobby Congress to reduce its appropriation, an action prohibited by the law creating the LSC, as a bipartisan group of lawmakers pointed out.

As an attorney for the Mississippi Republican Party, Wallace fought so strongly for a white-friendly redistricting plan that a U.S. district court accused him of going beyond spirited representation to "needless multiplication of proceedings at great waste of both the court's and the parties' time and resources."

Adding insult to injury, Bush announced the nomination the day after he attended Corretta Scott King's funeral. All class, that one. Of course, Wallace will replace Pickering, so there probably won't mean much of a change on the court.

This is something that probably won't get much attention, but it should. It's another example of Bush's desire to put fringe elements of his party over the best interests of the American people.