SOUTER IN ROBERTS CLOTHING, ANN COULTER

After pretending to consider various women and minorities for the Supreme Court these past few weeks, President Bush decided to disappoint all the groups he had just ginned up and nominate a white male.

So all we know about him for sure is that he can't dance and he probably doesn't know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah...we also know he's argued cases before the supreme court. big deal; so has Larry fFynt's attorney.

But unfortunately, other than that that, we don’t know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever.

Since the announcement, court-watchers have been like the old Kremlinologists from Soviet days looking for clues as to what kind of justice Roberts will be. Will he let us vote?

Does he live in a small, rough-hewn cabin in the woods of New Hampshire and avoid "women folk"?

Does he trust democracy? Or will he make all the important decisions for us and call them “constitutional rights.”

It means absolutely nothing that NARAL and Planned Parenthood attack him: They also attacked Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Hackett Souter.

The only way a supreme court nominee could win the approval of NARAL and Planned Parenthood would be to actually perform an abortion during his confirmation hearing, live, on camera, and preferably a partial birth one.

It means nothing that Roberts wrote briefs arguing for the repeal of Roe v. Wade when he worked for Republican administrations. He was arguing on behalf of his client, the United States of America. Roberts has specifically disassociated himself from those cases, dropping a footnote to a 1994 law review article that said:

“In the interest of full disclosure, the author would like to point out that as Deputy Solicitor General for a portion of the 1992-93 Term, he was involved in many of the cases discussed below. In the interest of even fuller disclosure, he would also like to point out that his views as a commentator on those cases do not necessarily reflect his views as an advocate for his former client, the United States.”

This would have been the legal equivalent, after O.J.'s acquittal, of Johnnie Cochran saying, "hey, I never said the guy was innocent. I was just doing my job."

And it makes no difference that conservatives in the White House are assuring us Roberts can be trusted. We got the exact same assurances from officials working for the last president Bush about David Hackett Souter.

I believe their exact words were, "Read our lips; Souter's a reliable conservative."

From the theater of the absurd category, the Republican National Committee’s “talking points” on Roberts provide this little tidbit:

“In the 1995 case of Barry v. Little, Judge Roberts argued—free of charge—before the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of a class of the neediest welfare recipients, challenging a termination of benefits under the District’s Public Assistance Act of 1982.”

I'm glad to hear the man has a steady work record, but how did this make it to the top of his resume?

Bill Clinton goes around bragging that he passed welfare reform, which was, admittedly, the one public policy success of his entire administration (passed by the Republican Congress). But now apparently Republicans want to pretend the Party of welfare queens! Soon the RNC will be boasting that Republicans want to raise your taxes and surrender in the war on terrorism too.

Finally, lets ponder the fact that Roberts has gone through 50 years on this planet without ever saying anything controversial. That’s just unnatural.

By contrast, I held out for three months, tops, before dropping my first rhetorical bombshell, which I think was about Goldwater.

It’s especially unnatural for someone who is smart and there’s no question but that Roberts is smart.

If a smart and accomplished person goes this long without expressing an opinion, they'd better be pursuing the Miss America title.

Apparently, Roberts decided early on that he wanted to be on the Supreme Court and that the way to do that was not to express a personal opinion on anything to anybody ever. It’s as if he is from some space alien sleeper cell. Maybe the space aliens are trying to help us, but I wish we knew that.

If the Senate were in Democrat hands, Roberts would be perfect. But why on earth would Bush waste a nomination on a person who is a complete blank slate when we have a majority in the Senate!

We also have a majority in the House, state legislatures, state governorships, and have won five of the last seven presidential elections — seven of the last ten!

We're the Harlem Globetrotters now - why do we have to play the Washington Generals every week?

Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, we’re ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork . . . and Bush nominates a Rorschach blot.

Even as they are losing voters, Democrats don’t hesitate to nominate reliable left-wing lunatics like Ruth Bader Ginsberg to lifetime sinecures on the High Court. And the vast majority of Americans loathe her views.

As I’ve said before, if a majority of Americans agreed with liberals on abortion, gay marriage, pornography, criminals’ rights, and property rights –liberals wouldn’t need the Supreme Court to give them everything they want through invented “constitutional” rights invisible to everyone but People For the American Way. It’s always good to remind voters that Democrats are the party of abortion, sodomy, and atheism and nothing presents an opportunity to do so like a Supreme Court nomination.

During the “filibuster” fracas, one lonely voice in the woods admonished Republicans: “Of your six minutes on TV, use 30 seconds to point out the Democrats are abusing the filibuster and the other 5 1/2 minutes to ask liberals to explain why they think Bush's judicial nominees are ‘extreme.’" Republicans ignored this advice, spent the next several weeks arguing about the history of the filibuster, and lost the fight.

Now we come to find out from last Sunday’s New York Times — the enemy’s own playbook! — that the Democrats actually took polls and determined that they could not defeat Bush’s conservative judicial nominees on ideological grounds. They could win majority support only if they argued turgid procedural points.

That’s why the entire nation had to be bored to death with arguments about the filibuster earlier this year.

The Democrats’ own polls showed voters are no longer fooled by claims that the Democrats are trying to block “judges who would roll back civil rights.” Borking is over.

And Bush responds by nominating a candidate who will allow Democrats to avoid fighting on their weakest ground – substance. He has given us a Supreme Court nomination that will placate no liberals and should please no conservatives.

Maybe Roberts will contravene the sordid history of “stealth nominees” and be the Scalia or Thomas Bush promised us when he was asking for our votes. Or maybe he won’t. The Supreme Court shouldn't be a game of Russian roulette.

OK, strikes me as somewhat anticlimactic, but the moment has arrived for the final alignment summary between Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas! We end the term with 69 signed rulings of the Supreme Court.

************************

Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS and SOUTER, JJ., joined, and in which GINSBURG, J., joined as to Part II.

League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry

KENNEDY, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts II–A and III, in which STEVENS, SOUTER, GINSBURG, AND BREYER, JJ., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts I and IV, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined, an opinion with respect to Parts II–B and II–C, and an opinion withrespect to Part II–D, in which SOUTER and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BREYER, J., joined as to Parts I and II. SOUTER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. ROBERTS, C. J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part, in which ALITO, J., joined. SCALIA, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which THOMAS, J., joined, and in which ROBERTS, C. J., and ALITO, J., joined as to Part III.

Beard v. Banks

BREYER, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered anopinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY and SOUTER, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which SCALIA, J., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed a dissenting opinion. ALITO, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

STEVENS, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I through IV, VI through VI–D–iii, VI–D–v, and VII, in which KENNEDY, SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined, and an opinion with respect to Parts V and VI–D–iv, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. BREYER, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined as to Parts I and II. SCALIA, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA, J., joined, and in which ALITO, J., joined as to all but Parts I, II–C–1, and III–B–2. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SCALIA and THOMAS, JJ., joined as to Parts I through III. ROBERTS, C. J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

Clark v. Arizona

SOUTER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined, and in which BREYER, J., joined except as to Parts III–B and III–C and the ultimate disposition. BREYER, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which STEVENS and GINSBURG, JJ., joined.

************************

So! After a total of 69 signed rulings, 65 count for our purposes, with Hamdan v. Rumsfeld joining the other three already excluded due to recusals, in this case by Roberts who heard the case at the Circuit Court level. These were the discrepancies between Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas for the final four rulings:

In League of United Latin American Citizens v. Perry, Roberts filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part, and dissenting in part, while Scalia joined by Thomas filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

In Beard v. Banks, Roberts joined Breyer's majority ruling while Thomas filed an opinion concurring in the judgment that was joined by Scalia.

So, drumroll please!

Roberts/Scalia: 84.615% (agree in 55 of 65)
Roberts/Thomas: 81.538% (agree in 53 of 65)

Here are the other alignment summaries I've routinely tracked above:

Roberts/Kennedy: 80.000% (agree in 52 of 65)
Roberts/Souter: 69.231% (agree in 45 of 65)
Roberts/Alito: 87.878% (agree in 29 of 33)

Now, I will forego calculating any more alignment percentages and instead defer to this SCOTUSblog Voting Summary. Note that there's a slight deviation between my figures above and the figures at SCOTUSblog. This is because for our purposes a case was totally excluded if any of the three principal justices recused himself, whereas at SCOTUSblog for each justice pairing all cases are of course counted if the two justices participated.

Anyhow here's the SCOTUSblog calculation for Full Agreement, with a parenthetical giving the figure for agreement In Part, In Full, or In Judgment:

Roberts/Scalia: 85% (91%)
Roberts/Thomas: 83% (92%)

Roberts/Kennedy: 81% (89%)
Roberts/Souter: 75% (78%)
Roberts/Alito: 89% (95%)

Very briefly, one might protest that the second figure is more relevant, but for the purposes of our wager I gave ample opportunity to go with something less than "full agreement" and I probably wouldn't have taken that bet in any case. I would've likely declined stating that I expected "agreement in judgment" to be right around 90% for our trio, though I might've taken it if I were in a daring mood - who knows! But in actuality, my participation hinged on the very clear "full agreement" standard we agreed upon, which wasn't my idea to begin with. So, no whining!

Whatever the case, as is my custom you are released from our wager so far as I'm concerned. I make bets like this more for mental discipline than anything else.

And, that's a wrap. w00t!

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.