Posted on 07/19/2005 4:44:48 PM PDT by freedrudge
Edited on 07/19/2005 4:52:02 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
President Bush has chosen federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. as his nominee to the Supreme Court, a senior administration official says...
interesting, i heard on the news that democrats have been praising him, calling him acceptable, even f*ckie schumer called him a "brilliant legal mind"
Re your "I think this is a really good choice."
You could be dead wrong.
Bush did NOT pick a conservative--all the FOX News panelists and other commentators are saying the same thing. Luttig would have been a conservative. Brown and others would have been a conservative. It is very possible Roberts will be another Souter--a "moderate" nomnated by a Republican president who goes on to be a flaming Marxist.
"After the tremendous fight involving President Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, then-President George Bush sought a conservative nominee who would not cause the same kind of political firestorm. This led some to denounce Souter as a "stealth" candidate. Souter's candidacy was successful in part because there was little paper trail linking him to controversial issues."
David Souter a "conservative"???????????????
Is this the type of "conservative" Roberts is?
I think we all need to be VERY cautious that Roberts is not a David Souter clone. Or, another "moderate" like O'Connor who was nominated by Reagan. Look what Ann COulter said about O'connor and think about Roberts:
[START COULTER COMMENTARY]: The fundamental goal of the next Supreme Court justice should be to create a record that would not inspire Sen. Chuck Schumer to say, as he did of Justice O'Connor last week: "We hope the president chooses someone thoughtful, mainstream, pragmatic – someone just like Sandra Day O'Connor." That's our litmus test: We will accept only judicial nominees violently opposed by Chuck Schumer.
Showing what a tough job it is to be president, when Bush announced O'Connor's resignation, he called her "a discerning and conscientious judge and a public servant of complete integrity." I assume he was reading from the script originally drafted for Justice Rehnquist's anticipated resignation, but still, he said it.
Cleverly, Bush also made a big point of noting that Reagan appointed O'Connor, reminding people that whatever mistakes Bush may have made, at least he didn't appoint O'Connor.
It's hard to say which of O'Connor's decisions was the worst. It's like asking people to name their favorite Beatle or favorite (unaborted) child.
Of course, it was often hard to say what her decision was, period. In lieu of clear rules, or what we used to call "law," O'Connor preferred conjuring up five-part balancing tests that settled nothing. That woman could never make up her mind!
In a quarter-century on the highest court in the land, O'Connor will have left no discernible mark on the law, other than littering the U.S. Reports with a lot of long-winded versions of the legal proposition: "It depends."
Some say her worst opinion was Grutter v. Bollinger, which introduced a constitutional rule with a "DO NOT USE AFTER XXXX DATE." After delivering a four-part test for when universities are allowed to discriminate on the basis of race (a culturally biased test if ever there was one), O'Connor incomprehensibly added: "The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today."
So now constitutional rules come with expiration dates, bringing to mind the image of O'Connor proffering one of her written opinions to Justice Scalia and asking, "Does this smell bad to you?" Strangely enough, she failed to specify which month and day in the year 2028 that affirmative action would no longer be justifiable under the Constitution.
Others say her worst decisions came in the area of religion. In determining the constitutionality of religious displays on public property and government aid to religion, Justice O'Connor evidently decided she preferred her own words, "entanglement" and "endorsement," to the Constitution's word "establishment."
No one could ever understand O'Connor's special two-prong entanglement/endorsement test – including Justice O'Connor. Over the years, she struggled to resuscitate her own test by continually adding more tines to the prongs.
Among the tines to the "endorsement" prong is the "outsider" test, requiring that the government not make a nonbeliever feel like an "outsider." But wait! There are spikes on those tines!
O'Connor discovered a spike off the Feelings tine of the Endorsement prong, which requires the court's evaluation of the feelings of the nonbeliever to be based on a "reasonable observer" who embodies "a community ideal of social judgment, as well as rational judgment."
It's often said that O'Connor's problem is that she is not a judge, but a legislator. On the basis of her bright idea to replace 10 blindingly clear words in the Constitution ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion") with a 40-page manual of flow charts and two-pronged, four-tined, six-spiked tests, she wouldn't have made much of legislator, either. O'Connor's real calling was as a schoolyard bully, maliciously making up rules willy-nilly as she went along.
Processing the religion cases through the meat grinder of her own multipart tests, O'Connor found it was unconstitutional for a Reform rabbi to give a nonsectarian prayer at a high school graduation. It was also unconstitutional for a courthouse in Kentucky to display a framed Ten Commandments along with other historical documents.
In the latter case, McCreary v. ACLU, O'Connor haughtily added this bit of advice to religious believers: Visionaries "held their faith 'with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar.'"
Religion may be able to get along without the government, but apparently sodomy and abortion cannot. Those, O'Connor found, were special rights protected by the Constitution.
O'Connor took sadistic glee in refusing to overturn Roe v. Wade in the face of the unending strife it has caused the nation. (And it hasn't been easy on 30 million aborted babies either.)
She co-authored the opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey which upheld Roe v. Wade, gloating: "[T]o overrule under fire in the absence of the most compelling reason ... would subvert the Court's legitimacy beyond any serious question." Yes, the court has really crowned itself in glory with those abortion decisions.
At least she would not overrule a precedent for something as trivial as a human life. Overruling a precedent would require a really, really compelling value like our right to sodomize one another.
Thus, in the recent sodomy case Lawrence v. Texas, which overruled an earlier case that had found no constitutional right to sodomy (risibly titled Bowers v. Hardwick), O'Connor specifically cited criticism of Bowers as a reason to overrule it. "[C]riticism of Bowers has been substantial and continuing," O'Connor explained in her concurrence. When "a case's foundations have sustained serious erosion, criticism from other sources is of greater significance."
Mercifully, O'Connor was concurring only in Lawrence, so there is no multipronged test for sodomy under the Constitution.
[END COULTER COMMENTARY]
Before we all leap before we look, we need to remember that past Republican Presidents (both Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush) nominated "confirmable moderates" who went on to being flaming Marxists. John Roberts looks to be "confirmable" and that should scare the hell out of us.
I know a guy like that who lives in this area. Really nice fellow. I hope he can make it long enough to do just that. FRegards....
Oh man ... I just got done having a screaming match with my one brother on the phone
I need and HUGE drink .. *L*
I like the fact that apparently Roberts is not enamored with how the "Commerce Clause" has been stretched beyond all reason to apply to just about anything a court wants to do. Love this quote from Roberts explaining why Congress cannot claim "interstate commerce" includes issues that exist entirely within one state:
'the hapless toad ... for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California,'
"Roberts joined Sentelle in questioning whether the Endangered Species Act is constitutional under Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce. The regulation in question prevented developers from building on private lands in order to protect a rare species of toad, and Roberts noted with deadpan wit that 'the hapless toad ... for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California,' and therefore could not affect interstate commerce."
About this?
Because, it's in the face of the libs!
They were expecting, at least, a woman.
Ah well. It's the Week of the Bushbots. Small price to pay for a better Supreme Court. Who knows? The black robes might even get tired of killing babies soon. FRegards....
More fun.....if they drag it out into a filibuster and the court sits on the first Monday in October with 8 justices, Rehnquist will bring up CRUCIAL issues to rule on (like those that affect terrorism), creating a 4-4 split, and leaving the rulings to stay at the lower court standing.
He'll bring up all issues that will favor conservatives.
At least that's the scenario I'm visualizing.
Local news reporting Roberts is a "shock" and a "rock solid conservative without a long paper trail to attack".
He must be good - this is Cleveland, Ohio, news.
The president was NEVER going to nominate Gonzales and only the politically naive and forever UNAPPEASEABLE thought he would. And Clement was a red herring.
You and the rest of the UNAPPEASEABLE purists are NEVER going to get it.
Oh and BTW...YOU had less than NOTHING whatsoever to do with the president's SCOTUS choice.
Reagan chose O'Connor; remember ?
Now, tell me again, just how "principled" Conservatives got President Bush to pick Roberts? ROTFLMSO
No .. Oil ..
Now please excuse me while I go smack my head up against the wall .. *L*
Roberts does seem to be pretty great for conservatives across the spectrum. Family background, Respect for Constitution, Social conservative.
Prouder of my Prez than ever. So scared he would go with Sonja SonyoWhatever.
This is the one to break the filibuster - and replace O'Connor with a constitutionalist. 2 points for the Architect.
Then look quickly for Rehnquist to announce his retirement and look for the ;diverse female" as CJ.(Follows Bush's pattern of appointments)
That nomination will sail through because and the 'rats stranglehold will be broken at that point. That's why Rehnquist is sitting tight.
Welcome to Free Republic.
Roberts advocated the overturn of Roe vs. Wade.
How does Ms. Coulter feel about abortion?
Now BusH If you seal the borders
We can have a 'sit in' in the Smokey/Cigar Backroom until he does! Good your bringing more chairs!
oh yeah baby!!!!!
Look up the Schumer cell phone conversation on FR.
It should explain everything.
You really don't get it, do you?
President Bush IS a principled conservative. He SAID he was going to nominate a justice who would follow the Constitution as it was originally intended to be followed, and he DID.
You don't really think he read FR today and changed his mind today because of your griping, do you??
Nope - Janice Brown will be appointed CJ. It's perfect.
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