President Bush has made yet another ill-considered nomination to the Justice Department, this time selecting Grace Chung Becker to be assistant attorney general for the civil rights division. It is a critically important job, responsible for protecting the rights of racial and religious minorities, the disabled and other groups. The division has been improperly politicized in recent years, and it has worked to undermine the very rights it is supposed to protect.
Ms. Becker is now the acting head of this troubled office, and at her confirmation hearing last week, she failed to show that she is up to the task of setting it right.
The civil rights division has been in sorry shape for some time. At Congressional hearings last year, its former head admitted that he boasted of hiring Republicans for nonpolitical attorney positions.
The division also has repeatedly taken anti-civil-rights stands. Notoriously, it endorsed a Georgia voter ID law that was widely likened to a poll tax because it charged people for the ID they needed to vote.
The Senate should only confirm a division head who demonstrates a commitment both to fixing these problems and rooting out the damage that has been done. Ms. Becker fails on both counts.
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