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To: MarcusTulliusCicero
[ She hasn't attacked him. She has, however, rightly pointed out that he has very little actual judicial record to analyze. ]

In Her last column she enviserated, filet'ed, and smoked him(Roberts).. and didn't do a bad job implying the one that selected him was an Alfred E. Nuemann look alike and likely the same sort of fellow, a RINO... Correct on all points..

23 posted on 08/11/2005 6:33:17 PM PDT by hosepipe (This Propaganda has been edited to include not a small amount of Hyperbole..)
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To: hosepipe

No, not really. She was making the same point as in her two previous columns. Judge Roberts does not have an extensive record. He authored in the neighborhood of 40 opinions on the Court of Appeals, i.e. he spoke for the Court. In only 2 cases did someone dissent with those opinions. He himself authored only 3 dissents. In one of those widely quoted as proof that he rules conservatively from the bench, Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, he stated that the Endangered Species Act was not Constitutional based on the Commerce Clause. However, if you read further, he urged the Court to take the case for review because he felt that the Act could be found Constitutional on other grounds.

A reading of his record shows him to be not so much an originalist as a judicial minimalist. He is enamored of precedent. A law professor who has analyzed his written opinions concurs, saying "Judge Roberts's opinions thus far are careful, lawyerly, and narrow. They avoid broad pronouncements. They do not try to reorient the law." An originalist would not be wary of overturning a previous decision simply because it is precedential. If the previous judgement conflicts with what the Constitution says and what is was understood to mean by the people at the time of its ratification, then the precedent must be overturned. To date, we have only other people's word that he in fact would do that. Nothing Judge Roberts has done is indicative of that, and indeed, he seems to take great pains to distance himself from any judicial philosophy, seeming to prefer a more "I know what's unConstitutional and I'll know it when I see it."

Ms. Coulter's other point has been that, we didn't have to have a nominee about whom we just have to cross our fingers and hope that he's an originalist. There were many candidates with actual records demonstrating them to be originalists that could have been appointed. This appointment seems more of a recognition of the uselessness of the current Senate majority. They are unable to aid in moving forward a conservative agenda. But that doesn't seem likely to change at any point in the forseeable future. Just look at the adulation that Pirro is receiving. On issues she's no better than another Arlen Specter. Yet people are fainting at the prospect of her running against Hillary. We are told it's the best we can do, since we all know real conservatives just can't win in New York. We scoffed at Christie Todd Whitman's book claiming it had no validity, but you hear the same claims being put forward about the New York race simply out of panic at Hillary running for President. In our panic over Hillary, we keep forgetting that the way to beat her is to expose her for the Socialist she is. Socialists don't win national elections.


29 posted on 08/11/2005 7:00:50 PM PDT by MarcusTulliusCicero
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To: hosepipe

TOnight she said Roberts was not a Thomas or Scalia, if we were lucky he might be a Kennedy, could turn out as bad as a Souter.


33 posted on 08/11/2005 7:26:37 PM PDT by RobFromGa (This tagline is on August recess...)
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