Shouldn’t Republican senators trust how Republican judges exercise sentencing discretion?

This graphic (which enlarges if you click on it), along with this New York Times article, highlights that Republican presidents have appointed more than 55% of sitting federal judges.  The article is focused particularly on the idea that, with Judge Alito’s likely confirmation, President Bush “appears on the verge of achieving what he had set as a primary goal of his presidency: a fundamental reshaping of the federal judiciary along more conservative lines.” 

Though the NYT article does not provide a complete breakdown of judges at all levels, it confirms my speculation that Republicans in Congress generally should be pleased by the make-up of the current federal judiciary that now wields new sentencing power in the wake of Booker.  I first discussed the composition of the federal judicial in this post back in February.  My main point then and now is that a distrust of judges often expressed by Republicans in Congress (such as Representatives James Sensenbrenner and Tom Feeney) seems especially curious given the make-up of the current federal judiciary: one would think that Republicans would generally trust the exercise of sentencing discretion by a judiciary comprised of judges appointed mostly by their own party.