Posted on 09/12/2005 10:55:28 PM PDT by TheDon
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Senator Leahy and members of the committee.
Let me begin by thank Senators Lugar and Warner and Bayh for their warm and generous introductions. And let me reiterate my thanks to the president for nominating me.
I'm humbled by his confidence and, if confirmed, I will do everything I can to be worthy of the high trust he has placed in me.
Let me also thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the committee for the many courtesies you've extended to me and my family over the past eight weeks.
I'm particularly grateful that members have been so accommodating in meeting with me personally. I have found those meetings very useful in better understanding the concerns of the committee as the committee undertakes its constitutional responsibility of advice and consent.
I know that I would not be here today were it not for the sacrifices and help over the years of my family, who you met earlier today, friends, mentors, teachers and colleagues - many of whom are here today.
Last week one of those mentors and friends, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, was laid to rest. I talked last week with the nurses who helped care for him over the past year, and I was glad to hear from them that he was not a particularly good patient. He chafed at the limitations they tried to impose.
His dedication to duty over the past year was an inspiration to me and, I know, to many others.
I will miss him.
My personal appreciation that I owe a great debt to others reinforces my view that a certain humility should characterize the judicial role.
Judges and justices are servants of the law, not the other way around. Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them.
The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules.
But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ball game to see the umpire.
Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.
And judges have to have the modesty to be open in the decisional process to the considered views of their colleagues on the bench.
Mr. Chairman, when I worked in the Department of Justice, in the office of the solicitor general, it was my job to argue cases for the United States before the Supreme court.
I always found it very moving to stand before the justices and say, ``I speak for my country.''
But it was after I left the department and began arguing cases against the United States that I fully appreciated the importance of the Supreme Court and our constitutional system.
Here was the United States, the most powerful entity in the world, aligned against my client. And yet, all I had to do was convince the court that I was right on the law and the government was wrong and all that power and might would recede in deference to the rule of law.
That is a remarkable thing.
It is what we mean when we say that we are a government of laws and not of men. It is that rule of law that protects the rights and liberties of all Americans. It is the envy of the world. Because without the rule of law, any rights are meaningless.
President Ronald Reagan used to speak of the Soviet constitution, and he noted that it purported to grant wonderful rights of all sorts to people. But those rights were empty promises, because that system did not have an independent judiciary to uphold the rule of law and enforce those rights. We do, because of the wisdom of our founders and the sacrifices of our heroes over the generations to make their vision a reality.
Mr. Chairman, I come before the committee with no agenda. I have no platform. Judges are not politicians who can promise to do certain things in exchange for votes.
I have no agenda, but I do have a commitment. If I am confirmed, I will confront every case with an open mind. I will fully and fairly analyze the legal arguments that are presented. I will be open to the considered views of my colleagues on the bench. And I will decide every case based on the record, according to the rule of law, without fear or favor, to the best of my ability. And I will remember that it's my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.
Senators Lugar and Bayh talked of my boyhood back home in Indiana. I think all of us retain, from the days of our youth, certain enduring images. For me those images are of the endless fields of Indiana, stretching to the horizon, punctuated only by an isolated silo or a barn. And as I grew older, those endless fields came to represent for me the limitless possibilities of our great land.
Growing up, I never imagined that I would be here, in this historic room, nominated to be the chief justice. But now that I am here, I recall those endless fields with their promise of infinite possibilities, and that memory inspires in me a very profound commitment.
If I am confirmed, I will be vigilant to protect the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court, and I will work to ensure that it upholds the rule of law and safeguards those liberties that make this land one of endless possibilities for all Americans.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, members of the committee.
I look forward to your questions.
---I look forward to your questions.----
So do we.
That's a very true statement which puts the judicial's role in its proper perspective.
I think as this hearing unfolds; we will see the Demrats literally melting down under the light of simple wisdom couched as it is; in the laser-like intelligence of John Roberts..
If Roberts thinks that the lack of an independent judiciary is the only reason why the Soviet "bill of rights" never amounted to a hill of beans, then that's a serious warning sign against him. The real problem with the Soviet BOR was not the lack of a proper implementing mechanism. It's that the bill itself was heretical. As Reagan noted, the problem is that it purported to "grant" rights to citizens. Ours instead limits government, and underscores that point by making it clear that we have pre-existing rights beyond what's listed, that government is bound to respect.
If Roberts can't understand that distinction, then he's unfit to sit on the court.
You are sooooo smart! (sarcasm)
His comment did not address that question, but rather he was addressing the need for an independent judiciary.
"But those rights were empty promises, because that system did not have an independent judiciary to uphold the rule of law and enforce those rights."
That is false. The lack of an independent judiciary was not the reason why those rights were empty promises.
So if the US did not have an independent judiciary, our rights would not be empty promises?
Do you think he was speaking more towards a balance of power?
By the way, nothing in our Constitution says that only the courts can defend our rights. The foudners would have utterly rejected at such a notion, and so do I.
Like I said at #8, it's still a false statement. Whatever point he was trying to make, he was supporting with something erroneous.
I guessing Ronnie screwed the pooch on that one.
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