And the nominee is John Roberts:
President Bush is nominating John G. Roberts Jr., a conservative federal appellate judge from Washington, D.C., to the first vacancy on the Supreme Court in 11 years.
President Bush announced the selection of Judge Roberts, who sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on television at 9 p.m. But news of the selection leaked out in advance of the White House ceremony.
News of Judge Roberts’s selection came at the end of a day of whirlwind speculation that, for several hours, had put Judge Edith Brown Clement of the federal appeals court in New Orleans, then Judge J. Michael Luttig of the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., at or near the top of the list of candidates.
Judge Roberts, 50, once clerked for Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist when the chief was an associate justice and is viewed as one of the more accomplished lawyers to argue before the Supreme Court, having won more than two dozen cases before becoming a judge.
The judge has been on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit since May 2003. That court has often been a springboard for the Supreme Court; indeed, three current members of the high court, Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, were once on the D.C. Circuit.
Let the games begin
*** Update ***
LOL. Line of the day from Red State:
UPDATE: Harry Reid said earlier today that John Roberts had “suitable legal credentials,” but I don’t see why we ought to hold that against Roberts.
The snark war begins.
Oh, good grief:
The more I read and the more I hear about Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, the more this guy sounds like a partisan hack.
Americablog rises to the occasion.
KC
Well, the President chose his man. Now it’s time for the Senate to look him over, run him through the loops, then give him a vote.
Doug
Appears to have solid Republican credentials but ambiguous social conservative credentials. My biggest knock on him is that he has only 2 years of judicial experience.
That’s probably a benefit in the confirmation process, but not really a great thing for promotion to the highest court in the land.
Otto Man
I don’t agree with much of Roberts’ track record, but I think he’s qualified and he’ll sail through the confirmation process.
He does have a thin record as a judge, but that’s probably going to be the norm from here on out. We can probably look forward to a confirmation hearing like the one for Clarence Thomas. He claimed to have never formed an opinion on anything, not even cases decided while he was in law school like a little thing called Roe v. Wade.
Getting on the Supreme Court is like getting on a jury. You have to claim to be a blank slate.
Al Maviva
The Senate isn’t really fulfilling their Advice & Consent role, until Ted Kennedy’s slanderous attacks make Roberts’ wife cry in the gallery during the nomination hearings, as happened to Ed Meese during his AG confirmation hearings. Now that’s the kind of patrician leadership I expect from the Senate. The Atri-ites and Kossacks oughtta stock up on vaseline now, as the political bile will be more exciting for them than a whole truckload of Tracy Lords bootleg tapes, and we wouldn’t want them to wind up in the ER and off the keyboards with severe friction burns.
I can’t wait to hear PFAW and NARAL skewer Roberts as a ghastly, creaking be-fanged conservative beast… it will be interesting to try to square their rhetoric with the rep of an attorney known in the D.C. legal community as one of the top legal minds alive and possibly the nicest person in the entire town.
space
Congratulations on the site redesign.
I too predict that Roberts will sail through the confirmation process.
There will be gnashing of teeth from plenty of camps but, at the end of the day, the Democratic Senators smartly won’t put up a fight.
I’m sure that 99% of his rulings will be fine. But if there is another Bush v. Gore, Roberts, no doubt, can be counted to toss the law out the window in favor of partisanship. For the Democrats, that possibility isn’t enough to mount a filibuster.
Sojourner
“The Senate isn’t really fulfilling their Advice & Consent role, until Ted Kennedy’s slanderous attacks make Roberts’ wife cry in the gallery during the nomination hearings, as happened to Ed Meese during his AG confirmation hearings. Now that’s the kind of patrician leadership I expect from the Senate.”
Too bad Bush didn’t follow Clinton’s lead and pick someone the Senate could unite behind. Then we wouldn’t have to listen to right-wing hysteria over the Senate’s obligation to assess the credentials of the nominee during the hearing.
Matt
Where’s the outrage from the far right?
I’m a mod dem and I’m happy with the pick..happy probably isn’t the correct word, but I’m content with it. Even the partisans like Kos and company seem more or less satisfied, at least considering the other options.
Wasn’t there supposed to be shit storm raised by the fundies if Bush picked a moderate? What happened?
norbizness
This guy has enough inside-the-beltway cred from both parties to get through rather easily, thereby not providing the large distraction from other White House matters that could have been generated by Edith Jones or Janice Rogers Brown.
matt
Where’s the outrage from the far right?
I’m a mod dem and I’m happy with the pick..happy probably isn’t the correct word, but I’m content with it. Even the partisans like Kos and company seem more or less satisfied, at least considering the other options.
Wasn’t there supposed to be sh*t storm raised by the fundies if Bush picked a moderate? What happened?
ppGaz
Roberts looks like an almost certain confirmation, unless there is something about him we don’t know.
What it means will be learned in the fullness of time.
I’m a person who tends to form strong first impressions of people. Voice, face, that sort of thing. My first impression of Roberts is that he is a likeable and intelligent man.
I doubt that I’ll have another strong impression until the hearings.
As for the gamesmanship on both sides, pardon me while I tune out. I haven’t much stomach for it.
Arggie
Methinks Roberts is W’s version of a moderate in anticipation of Rehnquist’s retirement, probably prearranged with Rehnquist. That second vacancy will be the opportunity to name a real self-loathing, radical, anti-constitution zealot of the kind that sends the sectarian fascists of the Bush base into spasms of ecstacy.
Katinula
So far, I don’t see anything to mount a serious opposition to. As I said over at my blog a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have a problem if someone was pro-choice, only if their rulings consistently placed road blocks to getting a legal abortion. Since he’s only been a judge for two years, that is unlikely. However, I’m a bit concerned that he filed a discretionary amicus brief on behalf of those who block access to abortion clinics. That isn’t a job he took, thats a discretion he undertook. Also, he filed a brief that schools could sponsor prayer at graduation ceremonies because students who didn’t agree could skip that graduation ceremony, as it is essentially voluntary. Those things worry me, but not enough to say I’m against the nomination.
So far, I’m ok with it, but I’d like to learn a bit more as all.
HH
Note Schumer’s bizarre claim (appears to be a lie) about voting against a judge who got unanimous consent.
ppGaz
HH: Full of shit. Warning: Another poster without a clue.
Schumer voted NAY in Judiciary Committee proceeding, nomination of Roberts to US Circuit Court.
Took me exactly 4 minutes and 7 seconds to find it:
Vote Summary
Lee
ppgaz…yikes… i’m waiting on moonbats like you to start attacking roberts like teddy k. did you hear schumer? hh has a point. just cause you have your nose up the the dims (talking points) butt doesn’t mean others see it your way.
roberts will fly through, and far left wingers will look the looney part….
Sojourner
“roberts will fly through, and far left wingers will look the looney part….”
Let’s see. The Repubs lied about a war and outed a CIA operative and the right-wing still loves them. Talk about looney!
lee
“The Repubs lied about a war and outed a CIA operative”
No war for oil! uh…. bush lied people died…. uh buck fush….
please with the pr crap. unless someone just crawled out from a rock no one believes that stuff.
ppGaz
Uh, no. HH had no “point.” He made a hasty post that was dead wong on the facts. He managed to be wrong twice about the same fact, in just one sentence, because he was so eager to blurt something out he didn’t take the time to check.
Much like you did, Lee. So far, I’ve never uttered a word about any actual or proposed court nominee, pro or con.
But, you guys keep it up, by all means.
Jay
ACLU joins the moonbat Choir
KC
With the exception of some of the discussions over at Dkos, I’m not seeing too much outright Roberts animonsity on the Left. In fact, over at TPMCafe, it seems like everyone’s pretty resigned to giving the guy his seat. While most people seem to say he’s going to be pretty rightward, everyone seems to agree that he’s a smart guy and intellectually honest. I have a funny feeling we’re not going to see much a judicial war over this nominee.
ppGaz
MSNBC on Roberts
If this summary is in the ballpark, I agree with you, KC.
For once, it appears that Bush was true to his word. Roberts looks relatively mainstream, for these times, and qualified.
I don’t know what my liberal friends were hoping for — Thurgood Marshall?
Pan is a non....
It’s been said that democrats will brand Bush’s nominee a dangerous and unacceptable extremist regardless of the nominees merits.
I think it’s equally true that conservatives will accuse democrats of branding Bush’s nominee a dangerous and unacceptable extremist, regardless of whether or not they atually do so.
KC
Pan is a non, I agree somewhat. As I noted above, from what I see mostly, people on the left are taking a wait and see attitude about Roberts. But as Talkleft makes clear, there are some on the left who are already gunning for this guy, feeding the perception that liberals will attack Bush’s nominee no matter what. However, from what I’ve read so far, Roberts is an intellectually honest guy with a solid record as an attorney–not someone easy to attack.
In my opinion, those on the left that are in attack mode need to back off on this one. Like any nominee, he needs to answer Senators’ questions and go through the grilling. At the end of the day though, if he is responsive and forthright, his record is upstanding, he deserves a vote. Bush is president and he’s going to appoint a conservative no matter what anybody does. If groups on the left start lobbing grenades at Roberts before he has had a fair hearing, a chance to answer for himself, I’ll be the first to denounce them.
rilkefan
KC: “If groups on the left start lobbing grenades … I’ll be the first to denounce them.”
You don’t think those lefties would go so far as to exercise their 1st Amendment right to, uhh…
eileen from OH
WHAT? There was a Supreme Court nominee???? I sure hope that it wasn’t a CIA agent, who got outed and then disappeared for awhile in Aruba following a visit to Neverland. And I really hope that it isn’t a Gitmo Nazi, who was brain dead and on a feeding tube after being attacked by sharks during a hurricane. What did Scott Peterson think of the choice?
I must stop watching cable. I must stop watching cable. I must stop watching cable. . .
Seriously (or as serious as I get) I’m of the wait-and-see school. Never expected anything other than a conservative, except in one of my one-beer-over-the-line-Sweet-Jesus dreams, but if it’s someone that doesn’t wear a big Pope-style hat with a crucifix on top, I’ll withhold judgment.
eileen from OH
Demdude
Pan is a non…. Says:
It’s been said that democrats will brand Bush’s nominee a dangerous and unacceptable extremist regardless of the nominees merits.
I think it’s equally true that conservatives will accuse democrats of branding Bush’s nominee a dangerous and unacceptable extremist, regardless of whether or not they atually do so.
Don’t forget that both sides will create a campaign to fill their bank accounts and then move on to the next issue.
I feel like the rest of my Dem Friends and say let’s see what comes out of the process.
JoshA
I’m a Democrat, and I’m not particularly worked up about Roberts. My hope was Prado, but I didn’t expect him. Roberts is clearly intelligent. The shot he took at the Endangered Species Act concerned me a little bit, but it seems like his concern was that the animal was in a single state and thus Congress shouldn’t be to regulate that under the Interstate Commerce Clause, a position I take as well.
His judicial resume is a little thin. Someone up-thread commented that this was probably the way from now on. I slighly disagree, Ginsburg and Breyer were not examples of that. Of course, Hatch suggested both Ginsburg and Breyer for Clinton (confirmed by both Hatch and Clinton on numerous occasions), which may be why Clinton knew he could get them confirmed without a fight.
p.lukasiak
Its tough to find someone with better partisan hack creds than this guy — he was involved in the Florida debacle in 2000, and demonstrated his complete lack of legal ethics by working for uber-partisan prosecutor Ken Starr. He consistently gives to GOP causes and candidates (which, according to right-wing theory with regard to Joe Wilson, means he’s a partisan hack) and he is married to a radical right-wing anti-choice activist.
On the upside, he is more qualified for the court that Clarence Thonas was — but then again, most plankton is more qualified than Clarence Thomas was…
space
Who’s playing games, John?
I’ve already stated upthread that Roberts is undoubtedly qualified on paper and will likely be swiftly confirmed (possibly unanimously), but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t a “partisan hack”. Indeed, my concerns about him have far less to do with ideology than with rank partisanship. That is, I’m less concerned that he is too “concervative” than he is pro-GOP.
As Paul Lukasiak basically points out, this guy is clearly in the inner circle of conniving, Federalist Society legal thugs (and I don’t mean to tar every member of the Federalist Society, but the core activist movement). If he isn’t a “partisan hack”, I don’t know who is (maybe David Sentelle or — ick! — Ann Coulter?). You’re denying it doesn’t put you “above the fray and gamesmanship”, no matter how much you may wish it would.
Despite all that, I don’t recommend that Democrats apply term “partisan hack” to label Roberts. Even though it may very well be true, most Americans aren’t knowledgable enough about the D.C./legal insider baseball to see the term as anything but a generic attack on a facially qualified jurist.
Democrats should understand that THIS IS WHY THE 2004 ELECTION MATTERED. We knew going in that if Bush won, he’d stick it to the country on judges. Democrats should suck it up and take their medicine. Frankly, I’m just pleased that it isn’t an UNQUALIFIED partisan hack like Owen.
Aziz
I can’t hear the name Roberts without thinking of a certain movie.
Agreed, Roberts deserves the courtesy of not being slimed and vilified. He should get his hearing and a fair process of evaluation. But neither should the President expect a rubber stamp. Thats to both conservatives’ and liberas’ interest – one side doesn’t want a Souter, the other doesn’t want a Scalia.
Sojourner
“please with the pr crap. unless someone just crawled out from a rock no one believes that stuff.”
Looks like you’re the one who just crawled out from under a rock. Check the polls.
Jeff
I’m sure his confirmation will still get ugly.
The reason that right after the fact most on the left were saying “duh, he seems qualified” or just said dumb stuff like “partisan hack” is because Democrats are so completely inept as an opposition party, they only had their talking points ready for Edith Bunker. Once Bush gave the headfake, they were caught on their heels.
It’s amazing how that ex-coke snortin’, Jack Daniels swillin’, AWOL Chimpy McCokespoon of a President never stops make you guys look like blithering fucking idiots.
It is nice to see, though, that the guy at Americablog has found something other than Jeff Gannon’s cock to be fascninated with.
Sojourner
“It’s amazing how that ex-coke snortin’, Jack Daniels swillin’, AWOL Chimpy McCokespoon of a President never stops make you guys look like blithering fucking idiots.”
I agree, the Dems aren’t particularly strong these days but I think you go overboard here. Even with an inept MSM, the American public are finally realizing what a liar this guy is.
AL Maviva
conniving, Federalist Society legal thugs
Space – you mean like Eugene Volokh, and Justice Anthony Kennedy? They are two leading members.
That’s a spectacularly ill-informed comment. Just brutally stupid. So dumb, it makes my eyes hurt just to read it.
The Fed Soc’s one advocacy position, is that it favors a method of interpretation of the law based on the text. If you don’t like the result the text gives you, lobby, run for office, vote, and get the text changed.
The alternative, is results-oriented legal interpretation, sometimes called judicial activism.
If you would prefer that the people and their elected representatives are responsible for the law and should have the final say in most matters, then you are with the Fed Soc and its one core message. The implication of restricting the role of the judiciary to interpretation, and not ‘makin’ s*** up”, is that the people have a say, and their representatives must answer to them. Because of this implication, there is a small but substantial subset of liberal Fed Soc members, who have flocked to the group because they believe this is the proper way to interpret the law, and to preserve democracy. Judge Higginbotham was one of the most prominent examples of the species.
On the other hand, if you prefer that society’s important decisions be decided by the judiciary – which is mostly comprised by the children of elite members of society, who go to the top five or six law schools, who practice at big law firms, who don’t know any normal people except for their gardener, their nanny, and the secretary at their law firm – if you feel that political power should be in the hands of a couple hundred judges, then keep rooting for judicial activists who rule “based on their conscience” rather than on what the plain language of the law says.
The only reason the Fed Soc is vilified by liberal activists, is because the liberal majority does not have the votes to get its way in Congress, and must therefore resort to the courts to get its philosophy implemented.
Vlad
I don’t think the Dems actually had many talking points ready for Clement, mostly because she wasn’t an utterly terrible choice like some of the others being discussed. There just wasn’t much there to want to oppose.
Roberts was a good bit further down on my list than yesterday’s other two rumored choices, Clement and Luttig. I’m willing to give him a fair look in confirmation, since he’s reportedly pretty sharp and well-educated, but I’m viscerally pretty repulsed by his strong positions on abortion and his association with Operation Rescue. Clement was pretty unimpeachable beyond the experience thing, and while I disagree with Luttig on some points, his independence and his positions in rulings on the detainees are both to his credit.
p.lukasiak
Gee Al, why don’t you just come out and endorse “Separate but Equal” and get it over with, because if there is a single case of glaring judicial activism in the court’s history, it was Brown v. Board of Education.
At least Roe v. Wade had a constitutional basis — including the 9th and 10th amendments.
Sojourner
“The alternative, is results-oriented legal interpretation, sometimes called judicial activism.”
I agree. It’s shameful when Scalia changes his positions to satisfy his partisan positions. I just don’t understand why he gets accolades for his judicial philosophy when his philosophy is so arbitrary.
space
Space – you mean like Eugene Volokh, and Justice Anthony Kennedy? They are two leading members.
Maybe you should have read my parenthetical, before you started hurling ill-founded insults.
Frankly, I have no beef with the Federalist Society’s stated philosophy. I do have two problems with SOME of the members.
The first problem is with the social/fraternal/partisan actions of an activist subsect of Federalist Society that cloak their personal goals with the sheen of an ideological purity. If you think my objections to Ken Starr have to do with his philosophy of Constitutional or statutory interpretation you are on some serious drugs.
My second problem is this false dichotomy between textualism and “judicial activism”. BTW, I actuallly agree with Scalia’s views on statutory interpretation. I highly recommend his book on the subject to any lay person interested in the topic.
However, your post is so filled with B.S. GOP-talking points that it is not worth a substantive response. Suffice it to say that I could go on all day explaining how (a) the current court has been the most activist in the history of the United States (in terms of “unelected judges” striking down Congressional statutes as unconstitutional) and (b) the falsely-pure jurisprudential philosophy of partisan Republicans is largely born of interweaving “texualism” with “originalism”; if it’s in the text, they go with that, if it’s not, they claim that’s what the Founders “intended.”
In other words, they are just as willing to toss consistency out the window for a desired outcome.
ppGaz
Yes, there’s nothing this country needs more than a president who gives good headfake.
Christie S.
“In other words, they are just as willing to toss consistency out the window for a desired outcome.”
Yep. It’s only judicial activism if you don’t like the result.
Al Maviva
P, why don’t you just call me a lynch mob leader or a Klan member and be done with it? Clearly in your mind, implying that I’m a racist wins your argument for you.
As if you’ll listen to the merits at this point,
1. Brown isn’t the problem, Plessy v. Ferguson (and other ratifications of separate but equal from 1875 – 1950), which was wrongly decided by an activist Supreme Court, is the problem. Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy was the correct originalist / textualist reading of the 14th Amendment, and would have provided a road map for the Brown Court to reach the same result, in a principled manner.
2. Brown was decided wrongly, but reached the right result. Any court determines only two things, law and facts. In an unprincipled effort to appear legally non-controversial, the Brown court based its holding on facts, so-called – in this case non-peer reviewed social science claims that were later thoroughly discredited. This was a shameless effort to avoid controversy, and to avoid admitting that the Court had blown it several times over the years, first in the Civil Rights Cases, then in their progeny, including Plessy. The Court is conscious that its authority is based on its high perch, and not on its “troops” (since it doesn’t have any) so it is always worried about preserving its influence. In an older day, it could get away with enormities without apology, and that’s what it did in Brown, saying that the law remained the same, but the facts on the ground had somehow changed. It couches other power grabs, such as its evolving death penalty jurisprudence, in similar terms.
3. A legally principled method of reaching the same result was to do what Justice Harlan did – to hold that as a matter of law, earlier cases ratifying separate but equal were incorrect constructions of the 14th Amendment. That would have required the Brown Court to do what Justice Harlan did – to openly admit the Court was wrong in earlier cases. Justice Harlan – a racist, but a racist faithful to the law – made two relevant statements. First, he noted that the purpose of the separate but equal rule was to create a subject race, which is impermissible under the 14th Amendment, since the races are to be treated equally before the law. Second, he stated:
That’s an originalist view of the 14th Amendment – prohibiting intentional discrimination generally, and largely per se prohibiting any facial distinctions on the basis of race. Justice Scalia publicly espouses this viewpoint, BTW.
4. Finally, Brown is not your garlic to the legal conservative vampire. You start from a very shaky premise, that all of conservatism is somehow monolithic, uncreative, and somewhere in its black, shriveled heart, preoccupied with keepin’ the brothas down. It isn’t so, and one of the reasons the left keeps losing elections, is that it hasn’t grasped that this isn’t the case. There is simply no way that Republicans should be able to compete on an even footing with Democrats; Dems have all the nice sound bites about standing up for the little guy, fighting the power, and all that. That Republicans seem to win a lot, that it’s even close, is because of the Dems lack of serious engagement with the policy arguments being floated by the Dems. That you raise Brown like some talisman that will ward off evil originalists, is kind of funny. But it’s sad too, because the Republicans in the national legislature are running amok with spending, wasting their time on stupid causes (Schiavo, anybody?) and generally acting undisciplined. Y’all on the left had better come up with some better substantial arguments than waving Brown and shouting “extremist,” because the lack of an effective opposition party is doing some real damage to the country. Here, I’ll spoon feed you a good argument: “our ineffectual legislative branch, which can’t seem to seriously address the policy problems of the day, needs help. The judiciary must step up because the legislature simply isn’t capable of doing the work to fix these problems, and because the legislature micromanages the Executive Branch, the President’s troops aren’t able to fix the problems either.” There, does that help?
On the other hand, it’s probably more emotionally satisfying to just call me a racist and walk away thinking you’ve won the argument.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Good style, but you forgot to add:
Cordially…
ppGaz
Steve
It’s ridiculous to call Roberts a partisan hack. He’s a brilliant lawyer and possibly the best appellate advocate of his day. Partisan? Absolutely. But he’s way too sharp to be called a hack.
What’s amusing is that 55 Republican Senators have already made up their minds to vote for this guy (I defy anyone to contend otherwise) and yet it will be the Democrats who are accused of partisanship and kneejerk response.
Rick
I may have to reconsider my support for this ostensibly fine SCOTUS nominee: my dominatrix is opposed to this Federalist thug.
Cordially…
Sojourner
“Here, I’ll spoon feed you a good argument: ‘our ineffectual legislative branch, which can’t seem to seriously address the policy problems of the day, needs help. The judiciary must step up because the legislature simply isn’t capable of doing the work to fix these problems, and because the legislature micromanages the Executive Branch, the President’s troops aren’t able to fix the problems either.’”
Did you have a problem with the SC stepping in in 2000 rather than letting the election issue work its way through the legislation in a constitutional fashion?
Tim F
I’m feeling pretty sanguine about this announcement, but couldn’t put my finger on why.
A prominent Kos diarist has the reason.
Christie S.
“Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, we’re ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork . . . and Bush nominates a Rorschach blot. ”
Heh heh…Rick, that was my favorite line. LOLOL..
space
P, why don’t you just call me a lynch mob leader or a Klan member and be done with it? Clearly in your mind, implying that I’m a racist wins your argument for you.
Could you be more of a whiny, snivelling victim? Lukasiak never implied you were a racist. He pointed out (correctly) that conservatives never seem to have the courage of their convictions to attack the “judicial activism” of cases that are overwhelingly popular. [BTW, if “right outcome, wrong reasoning” is suddenly a defense to judicial activism, then any attack on Roe v. Wade is pointless, as it would be fairly simple to craft an opinion that would effectively make it impossible for states to outlaw abortion while relying on a plain reading of the Constitution.]
space
It’s ridiculous to call Roberts a partisan hack. He’s a brilliant lawyer and possibly the best appellate advocate of his day. Partisan? Absolutely. But he’s way too sharp to be called a hack.
Too sharp to be a hack? Since when is brains a disqualifier for hackdom?
Ted Olsen? Brilliant lawyer. Partisan hack.
Ken Starr? Brilliant lawyer. Partisan hack.
“Tony” Scalia? Brilliant jurist. Partisan hack.
Actually, I want to back off comments that I made upthread. I meant to suggest that Roberts, by virtue of the circles that he appears to run in, unquestionably appears to be a candidate for hackdom. However, I admit that I have no objective evidence for it (as opposed to those mentioned above). Indeed, I remain optimistic that he will be a thoughtful moderate in the vein of Souter (my personal favorite on the Court).
Rick
A prominent Kos diarist has the reason.
I think that’s called “whistling past the graveyard.”
A prominent Kos diarist? Is that like “one of Uruguay’s leading curlers,” only less serious?
Cordially…
ppGaz
I don’t know of any reason why a person can’t be both a partisan, and a good judge. The first thing you want any judge to do is to leave partisanship at the courthouse door when he goes to work. I’d imagine very few judges came to their jobs without some partisan qualities. The question is, are they good judges despite their partisan views?
It is de rigeuer to examine a judge’s history and label those decisions one doesn’t like as “partisan.” But that’s just part and parcel of partisanship and partisan characterization. Unless one drills into the texts of the actual decisions, and sees those without a partisan lens, the complaints are useless AFAIC.
I’m not defending Roberts here. I’m defending critical thinking.
Tulie
Considering that Kos has about 50,000 registered users and averages about 620,000 hits a day and climbing, not so much. Prominent Kos diarists have a pretty loud voice, in internet terms.
Steve
I guess a “partisan hack” simply means a partisan who works for the other guys.
Rick
Prominent Kos diarists have a pretty loud voice, in internet terms.
Thanks; like I said, “only less serious.”
Cordially…
Blue Neponset
My reaction to anything the Bush Administration does is a lot like my reaction to buying a car…I always feel like I got screwed.
I will never trust Bush and his cronies again.
Having said that, I don’t think Roberts is the worst case scenario for the SCOTUS. From what I have read he seems to be more of a Renquist type than a Scalia type. Scalia types would always be unacceptable to me and a lot of other Dems.
On a positive note, I think nominating Roberts may be a sign of weakness from the Bushies. Dubya and his crowd have nothing but contempt for me and my fellow Democrats and they will stick it to us every chance they get. I can think of two reasons why the WH didn’t try to ram a Scalia clone down our throats:
1) Roberts is a Scalia clone but a very stealty one.
2) Bush doesn’t believe he has the ability to ram such a nominee through the Senate at this time.
Christie S.
Steve Says:
I guess a “partisan hack” simply means a partisan who works for the other guys.
Yep. Pretty much.
Tim F
Tulie,
Relax. If “Rick” didn’t toss out hostile non-sequiturs he’d stop being Rick.
space
A partisan hack is someone who puts personally political or party interests above their own jurisprudential philosophy.
Many people disagreed with Scalia’s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas because they have a different set of values than Scalia does. But they didn’t call him a partisan hack.
However, Scalia’s role in Bush v. Gore was the epitome of hackdom because Scalia contradicted his own jurisprudence on federalism and the Equal Protection Clause, and ignored the plain words of the U.S. Constitution, which clearly provides that it is the role of the House of Representatives to sort out disputes over electors. When push came to shove, it was more important that Bush win than Scalia be consistent and fair.
ppGaz
It’s a subtle form of trolling. But he needs some new material.
Slartibartfast
I consider anyone who uses “partisan hack” with any amount of earnestness to be a partisan hack.
And yes, I know.
Steve
Ok, that’s why Scalia is a partisan hack. Why is Roberts a partisan hack? Because he was a lawyer for Republicans?
p.lukasiak
1. Brown isn’t the problem, Plessy v. Ferguson (and other ratifications of separate but equal from 1875 – 1950), which was wrongly decided by an activist Supreme Court, is the problem. Justice Harlan’s dissent in Plessy was the correct originalist / textualist reading of the 14th Amendment, and would have provided a road map for the Brown Court to reach the same result, in a principled manner.
Sorry, but that is completely inconsistent with the whole Federalist Theory of constitutional law. Plessy v. Ferguson did not mandate “separate but equal”, it permitted it, under the “equal protection” clause. The wording is not “equal access”, but “equal protection”, and under a “non-activist” reading of that amendment, “separate but equal” is a perfectly acceptable means of achieving equality.
Only an “activist” court would decide that “separate” was inherently “unequal” when it came to “protection under the law.” A “non-activist” court would simply have demanded that the “protections” of the law be truly equal, rather than the “separate and unequal” educational systems being provided in Kansas at that time.
The Federalists are rather ridiculous, because the same kind of twisted logic that allows the US government to maintain a standing army (which they don’t object to) is used to justify all sorts of things that they do object to. They will object to finding that women have the right to control their own bodies in the constitution because it isn’t specified (even though the 9th and 10th amendments make it clear that the failure to enumerate such basic rights does not mean they don’t exist), yet find all sorts of rights for corporations to be free of government interference even though corporate rights are not mentioned in the constitution at all.
The Federalists are little more than a bunch of ideologues who, like the “strict constructionists” and the “original intent” advocates, try to superimpose their ideological biases on the Constitution, and legitimize it by giving it a fancy name.
Rick
The Federalists are little more than a bunch of ideologues who, like the “strict constructionists” and the “original intent” advocates, try to superimpose their ideological biases on the Constitution, and legitimize it by giving it a fancy name.
AWOL,
Sort of like the doppelgangers of “living Constitution” liberals, huh?
Cordially…
Sojourner
“Sort of like the doppelgangers of “living Constitution” liberals, huh?”
Practically speaking, nobody interprets the Constitution strictly just as nobody interprets the Bible strictly. Those who claim they do are selective literalists.
Did anybody catch Jeff Sessions on C-Span? A caller asked him specifically about the 9th Amendment and its implications for so-called judicial activists. Needless to say, he couldn’t answer the question.
Rick
It’s a subtle form of trolling. But he needs some new material.
ppgaz,
How about something like this for classy, sophisticated new trolling material:
I was in the Navy, and I know some of those words. I could work them into macro for you.
Cordially…
Al Maviva
P, Go read Plessy, willya, if reading isn’t beyond your abilities.
In Plessy, the majority of the Court defined equal as anything but equal, ratifying the Southern states’ separate but equal argument.
In Plessy, Harlan was the dissenter in the case.
The DISSENTER, you non-reading dunce.
Harlan took the originalist view that equal had to actually mean equal, both in intent, and on its face. In other words, the word “equal” in equal protection meant actual, substantively equal treatment. To boil down his argument into essentials, he opposed a two prong test for equal protection based on the principles of non-discrimination and equality – state action must be (1) non-discriminatory in motive, and (2) non-discriminatory on its face. Because separate but equal was designed to discriminate against blacks (intent) and was discriminatory on its face, it failed his test, and he condemned it.
This was the principled originalist approach to the question. It is also the same test that underlies most modern equal protection doctrine, and most statutory anti-discrimination law doctrine (except for disparate impact arguments). The premise of the majority in Plessy, is that the state should be able to separate the races and single some out for special benefits, others for special burdens. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s kinda like race based affirmative action.
I guess I’m just an ideological, partisan hack for saying awful, unthinkable things about Plessy. But at least I can read.
HH
“partisan hack”
They’ve really driven that term into the ground and now it’s officially a dead horse they’re beating at this point.
Hokie
Al:
I fail to see how anything you said addressed p’s points. Additionally, I’d like to see the evidence that “separate but equal” violated either original intent or original understanding, particularly since the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment had a clear distinction between civil, social, and political equality in mind (civil equality being what they intended the Fourteenth for, hence the terms “equal protection of the laws” and “privileges and immunities”, which is why Bush v. Gore fails on its face to be an originalist decision).
If you think, coming from an originalist viewpoint, that the Fourteenth Amendment was meant to apply to the other spheres, then the Fifteenth Amendment must be amazingly redundant. It was included for a reason: voting, along with other sociopolitical rights, simply wasn’t covered by Equal Protection to its framers. They meant the ability to form contracts, to sue and be sued, own property, etc. It definitely didn’t mean miscegenation (in fact, Congress specifically rejected a general rule on the grounds that it would have led to racemixing).
Now, let’s look at Plessy, which states that the Fourteenth Amendment “could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based on color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political, equality…”
Now, I’m unclear as to whether the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment included access to schools as a civil right; I’ve seen arguments on either side regarding the legislation that was proposed to ban school segregation after its ratification. I haven’t myself looked into it enough to draw a conclusion. However, the issue as given in the Plessy decision was that it is a sign of social equality, not civil equality; that as long as it were possible to give blacks an equal education in their own facility, they would still be civilly equal to whites, even if not socially equal, but that’s ok, because that’s what the Fourteenth Amendment was intended for.
Thus the only issue with regard to whether the Plessy majority opinion was originalist or not is the issue of whether the framers of the Fourteenth thought whites sitting next to blacks in railway cars or schools was a sign of civil or social equality. It is not an issue of “defining equal as something other than equal”; almost nobody in 1868 thought of racial equality in the terms that we would now. Look at Pace v. Alabama, where Harlan did not dissent. Why? Because the issue was cohabitation, which was a social equality issue. The only difference between Harlan and the Plessy majority was that Harlan felt the issue at hand in Plessy was civil, not social, and here it is that his test comes into play. As far as social rights are concerned, “separate but equal” was fine.
It is, of course, true that now we consider Plessy to have been wrongly decided the day it was. But this is only because we’ve thrown out an originalist analysis of it, under which it’s a legitimate issue as to whether being able to sit next to someone of a different race is civil or social under the original understanding of these distinctions. Now, we look at it and see that equality should mean equality and that as an issue of policy, “separate but equal” cannot be coherent, and thus it cannot achieve the equality we read the Equal Protection clause to grant us. This is, of course, due to the Warren Court; it’s not originalist in the least.
I wouldn’t mind originalists so much if there weren’t so much bad originalism out there.