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Posted on 07/28/2005 7:16:11 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Who says President Bush isn't brilliant? His maneuver in appointing Judge John Roberts has completely throttled the Democrats in the highest-stakes game of his second term.
The key is that Bush has used the Democrats' opposition to his district and circuit-court judicial appointments against them and made it a ratification of the Roberts candidacy. Simply put, by choosing a judge whom the Democrats confirmed unanimously when he was nominated for the D.C. Circuit Court — and whom they did not filibuster — Bush has made the Democrats impotent.
The Democrats thought they were preparing for the Supreme Court battle when they hit on their strategy of filibustering Bush's judicial nominations. They saw these battles as spring training to get them in shape for the real fight that would come when Bush made his Supreme Court nomination. Instead, their strategy has backfired massively. By lending such a high profile to their opposition to Bush's lower-court appointments, the Democrats have effectively denied themselves the ability to filibuster anyone of whom they have approved in the past.
When the Democrats singled out certain of Bush's appointees to the courts for filibusters and strident opposition, they, in effect, gave their seal of approval to those whom they did not filibuster. Their silence is like the classic case in Sherlock Holmes of the dog that didn't bark.
And when the Democratic Senators agreed to a voice vote on Roberts, in effect confirming him unanimously, their seal of approval was made even more explicit. Now, having voted for Roberts and having not filibustered his nomination, the Democrats cannot come back and suddenly discover reasons to oppose him.
Obviously, if Roberts says the wrong things at his confirmation hearings or abandons the wise strategy laid out by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in refusing to spell out her likely decisions on cases that will come before the court, then all bets are off. But if Roberts handles himself well and avoids explicitly committing himself on Roe v. Wade and other issues, Bush has succeeded in putting him over and dodging the bullet that seemed to be marked for him when Sandra Day O'Connor resigned.
Has Bush fooled the left or the right? Will Roberts be the reliable pro-life vote that the Christian right hopes, or will he be the judicial conservative, respectful of precedent — including Roe — that the left hopes? We won't know until after he takes his seat and casts his vote.
But Bush has threaded his way through a minefield in selecting the most conservative judge who has already received recent Senate approval — and garnered a unanimous Democratic vote.
It is very interesting to see how Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) will vote on the Roberts nomination. Should she back him, she will be defying her core constituency — the abortion-rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America. For now, her vote for Roberts might win her points in moving to the center. But if Roberts votes against Roe, Hillary will have a very hard time explaining her support for him, especially if Sens. John Kerry (Mass.), Evan Bayh (Ind.) and Joe Biden (Del.) — her potential Democratic rivals in 2008 — vote against his confirmation.
On the other hand, if Hillary joins what is likely to be a small minority of Democrats in opposing Roberts, she is belying her supposed move to the center and showing that, when the chips are down, she will tack to the left. In posing such a dilemma for Mrs. Clinton, Bush has again shown his capacity for deft political maneuver.
Bush can just follow the Roberts playbook as future Supreme Court vacancies come up. Just appoint the most conservative available jurist whom the Democrats did not filibuster and he can escape political damage while appeasing his hard-right followers.
Bush is brilliant. There is no other way to read it.
See? Well, maybe half of it. I don't think I could abide seeing much of hillary.
Ann Coulter's point confirmed by Dick Morris.
With 55 seats in the senate and a Republican in the White House, we shouldn't have hope and guess what the nominee will do.
Huh?!? What precedent was Roe v Wade based on???
I am SO OVER Dick Morris and his position du jour.
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You are confusing, I think, what "is" versus what "should be".
You are correct that the Demoncrats fired their wad by filibustering lower court judges and now their opposition has aligned itself so as to prevent any further filibusters. I believe that this was a mistake on their part. They now have little ability to mount a filibuster against anyone appointed by Bush to the Supreme Court.
From a practical standpoint, they succeeded in keeping a couple of very good judges off the lower courts in trade for having to allow Bush virtually anyone he wants now. That would be a bad trade for Republicans if it happened to them and its a bad trade for Demoncrats now.
My point was that the Demoncrats would have been justified in distinguishing Supreme court justices from lower judges by the practical issues I mentioned but they held back none of their strength for the important battles yet to come.
To use your own analogy, the bank may have hired convicted thieves, but those in executive positions are now assuring that these thieves are frisked everyday to prevent loss. Though not an ideal "bank", the opposite case, honest underlings and corrupt executives, is a corrupt organization that cannot be saved short of replacing the executives.
The American public hasn't raised much of a fuss, actually. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is dominated by activist judges who make up their own Constitution when they make decisions. They are the most overturned court by the Supreme Court, but the higher court doesn't take all the cases they should.
My hope is that Bush gets to appoint three really good Justices that are determined to reign in the outlaw Ninth Circuit. To do this, they will need to take virtually every case which deserves review, review it quickly, and send it back until it is decided correctly.
There have been cases decided by the Ninth which have set binding precedent on lower courts that there is no individual right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment. For lack of Supreme Court attention, Kalifornia is now free to infringe to their hearts content. Their reluctance to ban firearms completely stem, I believe, only from the realization that they are wrong and that eventually they will be told so by the Supreme Court. If they build their house of cards too high, it will fall.
Until that time, Kalifornians are denied their right to keep and bear arms. Fees for background checks, registration, outlawed firearms, outlawed magazines, prohibitions against bearing arms, so-called "safety" requirements, etc. are all infringements. They are considering now a requirement to have serial numbers on all cartridges and only outlaws will have bullets without serial numbers.
I agree with your last post in it's entirety. It's your first argument suggesting that Democrats can receive a free pass to reject a man that they unamimously voted in favor of two years ago, without the public taking notice. If something "bad" happened in the last two years, or if some tidbit of impropriety comes to light about Roberts that wasn't known during his previous coronation, the Democrats can justify voting against him. Otherwise any vote flipping will be viewed by most as politically motivated which can be very dangerous for any Democrat that is not entrenched in a Deep-Blue state.
Ben Nelson of Nebraska for example cannot even remotely think of voting against Judge Roberts simply on the grounds of "I don't know enough about him, and it's Bush's fault."
Here's the major point that Dicky misses: the MSM refuses to hold the Democrats accountable for their past actions and votes. Does he honestly think that the columnists at the NYT, or the talking heads on CBSNBCABC will point out that the Dems already gave Roberts a pass? Of course they won't, they'll "report" whatever the Dems say as the gospel truth.
The Dems have a former recruiter for the Klan on their team for goodness sake! We all know that if it were a Byrd were a Republican that every time he was in the news it would read: "Senator Byrd, a former Klansman, said today..." But he's a Dem so he gets a free pass.
I missed your post #27 completely until just now. We are in more agreement than not.
Maybe, but I think it won't work that way. My reasoning is that, first the debates are not really debates. Because of that she will get softballs and no curves from the press that loves her. And no mistake about it, she much more popular with the press than her rivals. Remember the boos that were clipped from her appearance at ground zero?
I also think there is a good chance the DIMs will do the same thing they did with Kerry. Annoint her the sure thing after a couple of primaries & seal the nomination too early in the game.
Morris is wrong on something, too. A vote for Roberts may piss off NARLAL and their ilk, but they will come back to the HildaBeast if she gets the nomination. No question about that.
As far as the so called swing vote is conerned, Hillary's bounces back and forth between the left and center will not hurt her unless republicans are willing to go after her vacilations as they did Kerry. And, I'm not convinced yet that they have the stomach for doing that. The press will cover her completely in that regard.
And Morris can shove it with his little digs about Bush's "hard-right followers", as if the conservative base is a minority tail wagging the moderate majority dog of the republican party. He always manages to slip something like that in near the end.
Morris is a smart boy, but like yon Cassius, he has a lean and hungry look. I would never let him stand behind me.
Not only that, she is famous for not answering direct questions. Now she will have to, like it or not.
Hew Rush, hurry back , I miss you. LOL
Strategery all the way, baby!
I thought that might be the case. That is why I tried to elaborate a little bit more.
You seem to agree with those that claim that voting against a nominee for Supreme Court when one has already voted for that candidate for a lower post would open one to criticism. I think that such criticism is unjustified and that such an action can be explained rationally.
Thankfully, the Republicans seem to be in a position to kick the Demoncrats in the face, politically. This is similar to the situation with the "Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act". The Demoncrats completely lose their composure and are force to lie blatantly in their attempts to stop the legislation. I can't help but believe that there are Demoncrats on the fringe who view this with distaste and who, like myself years ago, can hardly wait for the Registrar's Office to open up to change their voter registration. Who would want to be associated with these vile creatures?
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