"These highly-qualified candidates reflect the President’s deeply-held conviction that the federal bench should reflect the full diversity of the American people – both in background and in professional experience..."

Says "President Biden Announces Intent to Nominate 11 Judicial Candidates" (White House press release). 

Quote attributed to Biden:

"This trailblazing slate of nominees draws from the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession. Each is deeply qualified and prepared to deliver justice faithfully under our Constitution and impartially to the American people — and together they represent the broad diversity of background, experience, and perspective that makes our nation strong."

Who writes this stuff? You've got the "best and brightest" cliché (puffed up with "very"). You've got the silly mixed metaphor, "trailblazing slate." You've got the syrupy ideology  — "broad diversity... makes our nation strong."

Looking at the list, I see that 9 of the 11 are female.

Here's the NYT article: "Biden Names Diverse Nominees for the Federal Bench/The president’s first choices for district and appeals court openings reflected his campaign promise to choose judges from outside of traditional backgrounds."

Mr. Biden is not the first Democratic president to try to reshape the federal bench. When Mr. Obama was elected, his lawyers also considered appointing judges who did not have the traditional pedigrees of litigating experience at major law firms, graduating from top colleges, selection to elite clerkships and service as federal prosecutors.

But when Mr. Obama’s counsel’s office sent the names of public defenders or sole practitioners to the American Bar Association for the standard review before nomination, the group frequently objected. One person familiar with the effort said the Obama White House ran into what he called “endless difficulties” with the bar association, which would indicate privately that it intended to rate such candidates poorly. 

Late last year, during his transition, Mr. Biden agreed with advisers to end the tradition of Democratic presidents of submitting names to the bar association before nominating them. The association will be free to issue judgments on those nominees, but only after the president has already made his selections public. 

That could help Mr. Biden fill judicial vacancies more quickly, said several people familiar with the process. The president and his lawyers are keenly aware that Democratic control of the Senate may not last past the midterm elections in 2022, giving him a short window in which to make his mark on the judiciary....

ADDED: In my American experience, the phrase "The Best and The Brightest" has a dark, sarcastic edge.

"The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider reinstating the death sentence for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev..."

The justices agreed to hear an appeal filed by the Trump administration, which carried out executions of 13 federal inmates in its final six months in office, including three in the last week of President Donald Trump’s term. The case won’t be heard until the fall, and it’s unclear how the new administration will approach Tsarnaev’s case. The initial prosecution and decision to seek a death sentence was made by the Obama administration.... Biden has pledged to seek an end to the federal death penalty, but he has said nothing about how he plans to do so.... In late July, the federal appeals court in Boston threw out Tsarnaev’s sentence because, it said, the judge at his trial did not do enough to ensure the jury would not be biased against him. The Justice Department had moved quickly to appeal, asking the justices to hear and decide the case by the end of the court’s current term, in early summer. Then-Attorney General William Barr said last year, 'We will do whatever’s necessary.'"

AP reports.

"Since the end of World War II, 27 of the 38 Congresses have featured a change in the party composition of the Senate during a session."

"The probability that such a shift may occur during this particular Congress may well be even higher than that. At the moment, no fewer than six Democratic senators over the age of 70 represent states where a Republican governor would be free to replace them with a Republican, should a vacancy occur. Five other Democratic senators represent states for which a vacancy would go unfilled for months, until a special election to fill the seat was held — which would hand the G.O.P. control of the Senate at least until that election and likely for the rest of the current Congress if a Republican wins that contest. (In the case of Wisconsin, such a vacancy might not be filled until 2023.) All things considered, the odds that Democrats will lose control of the Senate in the next 22 months are probably close to a coin flip."

From "Justice Breyer Should Retire Right Now/If he doesn’t, Democrats run the very real risk that they would be unable to replace him" by lawprof Paul Campos (NYT).