Posted on 09/14/2005 5:38:44 PM PDT by gobucks
It was a battle of the sound bites yesterday at the Senate Supreme Court nomination hearings. The score? Judge John G. Roberts 1, Democrats 0.
Each of the senators got first licks yesterday in a round of ceremonial speeches, but last up was Roberts himself, and he hit the ball out of the park: In his opening statement, Roberts made his role crystal clear by a homey analogy. "Judges are like umpires. Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them. ... Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire." Then he promised, "And I will remember that it's my job to calls balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat."
Good thing, too, the senators must be saying, after watching Roberts go to bat for himself.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., meanwhile, set sail in a sea of lofty rhetoric, noting the chief justice's future responsibilities were "awesome" -- not "in the way my teenage daughter would use the word," but in the biblical sense, like "angels trembling in the presence of God."
Like, wow, man. Just when you were wondering how high Schumer might soar (especially while sailing), suddenly the good senator beached himself in a big, wet mess of metaphor: "(The American people) need to know -- above all -- that if you take stewardship of the high court, you will not steer it so far out of the mainstream that it founders in the shallow waters of extremist ideology. As far as your own views go, however, we have only scratched the surface. In a sense, we have seen maybe 10 percent of you -- just the visible tip of the iceberg, not the 90 percent that is still submerged. And we all know that it is the ice beneath the surface that can sink the ship."
While Schumer was scratching his surface looking for the rest of Roberts, in order to sink him, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., movingly reminded us that She Is A Woman -- A Woman A Lot Older Than You: "As a college student at Stanford, I watched the passing of the plate to collect money so a young woman could go to Tijuana for a back-alley abortion." (Just watched, senator?) Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., digressed into something about "the price of gasoline and the safety of prescription drugs." (Now there's a guy who knows how to use 15 minutes on national TV.) Republican senators mostly used their time to hand Roberts free passes, as in Do Not Answer Question, Judge, Do Pass Go, Collect Supreme Court Seat.
I noticed only one new development: an attempt by left-leaning senators to borrow the right-wing judicial tyranny rhetoric and apply it to decisions by the Supreme Court striking down laws liberals favored. A successful new "framing"? I doubt it. This rhetoric no longer works for conservatives, because the game of politics has become so visibly nasty, partisan and uncivil that few Americans feel very good about the democratic branches of government.
Senators will no doubt continue to speak of themselves in the third person plural, as the voice of We the People. Meanwhile, public approval of the Senate, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), R-S.C., himself pointed out, hovers in the 30s.
Americans want some public spaces that "rise above" partisan politics. They want an institution that they can be proud of, and if Congress won't or can't comply, the Supreme Court will do.
Prediction: This is bad news in the long run for America, and for conservatives who have been on the receiving end of the Supreme Court's gradual expansion of its own institutional power and authority. The good news for conservatives is that this same trend will gently buoy Judge Roberts above the iceberg of Chuck Schumer's animosity and onto the placid sea of a seat on the Supreme Court.
Ya got me there, gobucks.
They're not worried because they expect to get a 5 to 4 majority when all is said and done. The next appointment will be all fireworks till Bush appoints a moderate.
I guess I feel more comfortable with Roberts because I practice law in federal court, including constitional law, and pick up on the key phrases the reflect the philosopy of a conservative jurist. He's the real McCoy.
I wonder if the Dims realize that they can't get away with the same things in the past, since now there are alternative news outlets and the internet to challenge their coordinated attacks. Thus, they can't waste too much many watts here.
I think that they are holding out for the other nominee. But if the next one is as articulate and quick on their feet as John Roberts, they aren't going to convince John Q. Public that the second nominee isn't qualified either. Then again, John Q. Public doesn't get to vote on Supreme Court justices.
The Supreme Court is the big one - this will steer the country for the next 20 years. It is imperative that the leftist tilt be eliminated, but the leftists see it a bit differently - they want to hold that last gasp of power that they still retain in the judicial branch. It is the only way that their socialism can be expanded. The people would never stand for it at the legislative end.
I do not know about Roberts...meaning, I do not know...
His stand on the 10th Amendment - States Rights
The senators are vehement about protecting their power to legislate under the "commerce clause", meaning appropriate and spend.
Where is Roberts on the 10th Amendment?
And, (I forget, the 14th or 16th), illegal aliens having children in this country do not automatically become citizens. No country on Earth (O'Conner, Kennedy and Ginsburg ought to love this) allows children born of illegals automatic citzenship!
Where does Roberts stand?
The right to "keep and bear (wear, concealed or otherwise) shall not be infringed".
Where does Roberts stand?
Separation of Church vs. State, yet Congress has a Chaplin since day 1!
Where does Roberts stand. If Congress has had a Chaplin thoughout its history, how can god be denied as unconstitional?
(Note: I am not a religionist. But see this link:)
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap041025.html
They're just keeping their powder dry as they gear up for the next nominee. That's where is is going to get down right UGLY!"
That's the point. They are trying, but Roberts is too good - I found the exchanges quite funny, when Kennedy pulled out a 23 year old memo and Roberts, verbatim and without notes, corrected his interpretation and blew him out of the water.
Kennedy was trying to make Roberts out to be an enemy of voting rights, and Roberts just handed it back to Kennedy.
As hatch said, only a die-hard hater of republicans would vote against ... so there will be like a 70-30 in favor vote.
We Conservatives just have to cross our fingers that his platitudes about being an umpire are really Rehnquist-ian judicial restraint.
game set match --- Roberts will be confirmed.
I know what happened here in Ohio in the 2004 election.
It was REGISTERED DEMOCRATS VOTING FOR PRESIDENT BUSH on the Supreme court and Gay rights issues that gave BUSH OHIO.
Bush and Rove knew it before the election. And after election day Kerry knew it. Afer election day even DEAN knew it. That is why Democrats started talking family values. Kerry knew on election night that in Ohio a quarter million more Democrats voted than Republican. It took them until midmorning the next day to figure out those Quarter million Democrats voted for Bush.
It is very similar situation to Clinton in 1996 when Dick Morris told Clinton that if he came out against Welfare reform, he would get to congratulate President Dole. So what did Clinton do? He adopted Welfare reform and claimed credit for its adoption. Kerry stayed with the Democratic tradition and it cost him the presidency.
Democrats know very well that if they kill a Bush appointee on Abortion, afirmative action, and Gay rights issues, they will make permanent Republicans out of 10 or 12 million Democrats. They can't aford to do that.
There are a number of Democrats and leaders in the Democratic party who know the question is.. do I want to prevent Bush from taking the court conservative or do I want to get re-elected to the senate? Why should we be surprised that their choice is to be re-elected.
.... sure that mess wasn't a big wet pile in his pants.
I would love another Scalia, but another Rehnquist is tolerable.
I hope that the O'Connor replacement will be someone like Garza or Brown. The only right winger I would NOT like to see appointed would be an inbred fool like Roy Moore.
FYI...she usually writes about family matters and is a giant anti-abortion/pro-life writer; however, she does write about other things as well.
What about us pro-gun, non-religious, anarcho-capitalists?
Antoninus,I am hearing the same from the inside.Put up or shut up.
To liberals the right of privacy embraces not only the right to abortion but to be secure in the right to engage in any form of sexual behavior. however deviant from the norm. Of course, the secret in defining deviancy down. If a woman has the right to kill her own progency, then any other form of sexual behavior looks tame in comparison.
As Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes a smart good man is just a smart good man.
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