Posted on 08/12/2005 5:24:37 AM PDT by DoraC
Blindly battling over Roberts I'M HAVING a hard time figuring out who's less rational: the liberal activists campaigning to defeat John Roberts' Supreme Court nomination, or the conservative activists campaigning to support it. Roberts, of course, is President Bush's widely hailed surprise pick to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Roberts has won praise from moderate liberal legal analysts such as Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago and my New Republic colleague Jeffrey Rosen. Roberts is widely regarded as extremely intelligent. Unlike conservative ideologues such as Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas, he prefers not to rewrite legal doctrine with sweeping new decisions. He is not the sort of nominee who you'd think should start a culture war. Unfortunately, somebody forgot to tell that to NARAL Pro-Choice America, which has launched a new television ad assailing Roberts. The ad itself is highly misleading.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Jonathan Chait must be smoking some really expensive weed. Scalia and Thomas are the only two Justices who can be relied upon to actually interpret the Constitution, rather than re-write it.
To prevent duplication, please do not alter the heading. Thanks.
These two justices, unlike most of the others, prefer to rewrite legal doctrine rather than rewrite the Constitution.
Actually, I think that a majority of Scalia's and Thomases would be a disaster. I am fine with not legislating from the bench, but they (especially Thomas) overturn every precedent they don't like and so jetisson hundreds of years of judicial wisdom.
Actually it seems the writer supports Roberts, the LA Times editorial board did not write this.
Aarg! I should have known better than to go read an LA Times article in full. They made sure to get in their insults toward conservatives, and now I feel soiled!
It wasn't his Pro Bono work. He was helping another lawyer trying to improve the quality of advocacy before the Supreme Court on which John Roberts spent 6.5 hours. He has spent about 52,000 hours as a lawyer and a judge, how could he possibly put everything he ever worked on in his questionnaire response to the Senate?
Can you find anything in his other 51,993.5 hours of legal work with which you agree?
How about a WEE BIT of perspective? Also, why would anybody trust the LA Times about anything?
Overturning precedent is not a bad thing, if the precedent is wrong. Then again, they can always bring back the Dred Scott decision, which was overturned years later...after all, we're talking about judicial wisdom of hundreds of years ago, right?
The liberals are trying to portray Roberts as a liberal so that conservatives will abandon him. They know they can't stop him any other way. That's why NARAL pulled its ad. The Dem leadership pointed out that the ad was at cross purposes with their strategy.
Have you injured your knee?
I agree with everything in your post, but most particularly this line. If the LA Slimes reports on the sky being blue today, I will automatically assume it isn't.
The "judicial wisdom" that Scalia and Thomas don't care for seems to me to have been born in the last 40 years, ala "The Great Society". I would happily trade liberal nanny state justices for more Scalias and Thomases.
The guy is *going* to be confirmed.
This is a dance where no music is being played.
There is going to be a majority.
There will not be a filibuster.
It is a waste of time. Regardless of what the media says, the guy will be confirmed.
Its just a good way to divert attention from the Valerie Plame mess for the Democrats. As it became more clear that the only people to break the law were Democrats and liberals, they had to get the stinky stuff off their shoe, or change shoes. Roberts is a different shoe.
Apparently the President agrees with you.
If the doctrine is wrong, or proven to be damaging, it is your duty to re-write it.
The real Roberts
World Net Daily
Joseph Farah
I predicted it.
I told you those expected to oppose the nomination of John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court would come around after realizing they got their wish – another Anthony Kennedy or David Souter.
It's happening.
Just check out the column earlier this week by the Washington Post's Richard Cohen.
This is the beginning.
Soon you will see some of the most partisan Democrats in the U.S. Senate coming around. Mark my words.
Cohen's commentary is not directed to Republicans in the Senate, who will support the nomination by President Bush unanimously. It is directed to those who might consider opposing him. Here's a man who is convinced, as I am, that Roberts has virtually the entire "conservative movement" bamboozled.
"John G. Roberts Jr. is out of the closet," he writes. "President Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court, on the basis of the available evidence and all we know about human behavior, is not – and I emphasize not! – a bigot. Specifically, he seems to harbor no prejudice against gay men and lesbians, who are, as we all know, anathema to social conservatives, who are anti-gay and pro-Bush, in about equal measures. Roberts, amazingly and inexplicably, seems to be a man of tolerance."
What this really means is that Roberts has no objections to creating special protections for homosexuals based on their sexual behavior.
He bases this conclusion on Roberts' role in the landmark 1996 Romer Supreme Court case. Roberts, he points out, "helped develop the winning legal strategy."
Cohen asserts that Roberts may even have endorsed the cause – rather than simply come to the aid of a colleague from his firm, as the White House suggests.
"After all, Roberts was not compelled to volunteer his time. Hogan & Hartson encourages pro bono work, but it hardly compels its lawyers to take cases that they might find morally or politically repugnant," Cohen writes.
Clearly, a lawyer who, say, agreed with the likes of the Rev. Pat Robertson or Rep. Tom DeLay (Rev., Rep., it's all the same nowadays) would not have taken the case. What's more, there's evidence to suggest that Roberts knew what he was doing. He made no mention of the case in the 83 pages he submitted to the Senate outlining his finances, pro bono work and other matters of interest. He knows the political peril of tolerance.
But as we should realize by now, Roberts faces no peril from the right – only the indignities of grilling from the left.
What a sad state of affairs.
We now have "conservative" organizations leading the fight for confirmation of a man who is certain to be a grave disappointment to them.
Ahhh, but we've been here before.
Some of those same organizations and individuals fought equally hard for the confirmations of Souter and Kennedy.
Some people never learn.
Oh, there will be a few left-wing groups that raise a ruckus about Roberts to the bitter end. Groups like NARAL and People for the American Way raise money by demonizing the nominations of Republican presidents.
But, again, watch the votes in the Senate. Watch the hard-line Democrats fall into place one by one and two by two over the coming weeks. When all is said and done, Roberts may wind up with a unanimous or near-unanimous approval.
That's my prediction.
This kind of clarity is just one of the benefits of being around long enough to see history repeat itself – tragically and ironically.
Cohen's right. Roberts is "out of the closet."
But some people – notably most "conservative" organizations – aren't going to recognize it until it's too late.
Dred Scott was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendment.
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