Pat Leahy will support Roberts:
Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, announced Wednesday he will vote to confirm John Roberts for chief justice of the United States after leading senators met with President Bush to discuss candidates for a second high court vacancy.
The decision by the veteran Vermont senator dealt a serious blow to liberal efforts to mount significant Democratic opposition to the conservative judge who would succeed the late William H. Rehnquist at the helm of the court.
Leahy’s announcement on the Senate floor came shortly after he and three other senators met with Bush at the White House to talk about the vacancy created by the decision by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to retire.
Sanity from unexpected quarters.
And so will Chafee. Activists are distraught:
Update [2005-9-21 11:29:52 by Armando]: Leahy surrenders. Will vote yes on Roberts. Depressing betrayal. This signals that many Blue State Dems plan to vote yes. Incredibly stupid and HARMFUL to the next fight in my opinion. I will detail why I think so in a later post.
Update [2005-9-21 10:16:19 by Armando]: By Armando. I am shocked. Aren’t you?
This is precisely what is wrong with the current confirmation process. People actually think it is principled to vote against Roberts to set the stage for the NEXT confirmation battle.
Geek, Esq.
Wouldn’t all of this be evidence that the Dems are thinking for themselves on Roberts, instead of pursuing it as a partisan attack?
Dan Spartan
Maybe Cheney offered him an apology for his vote. :)
WHOOSH…..I’ll be flying on now.
Lines
I’ll bet Bush had Rehnquist killed. Psychopathic behavior, such as Bush has displayed at every turn, will eventually turn against Bush, leading him down a road of self-destruction.
If he’s not already snorting his lunch off of Gannon’s naked stomach, he soon will be.
Why should Democrats vote for a person that was given the appointment by a psychopath and a liar? A person that offered their legal opinion to a defendent in apparent return for the appointment? Nah, no ethical issues there.
bs23
i have to agree. for chrissake, if gonzales is on deck, then you gotta save the heat for him.
Dave Ruddell
I’ll wander over to dkos from time to time, and I have to say that Armando is shrill even for them. SO, this isn’t terribly surprising.
ppGaz
I don’t agree that there is anything “wrong” with the confirmation process. It’s a political process that lives in a political body. The body regulates itself. If people don’t like messy, ugly processes, they can always opt for a benevolent dictator, because that’s basically your alternative.
As for Roberts, I say, confirm him and move on. I think I have said this since the day he was first nominated and nothing has happened since to change my mind.
Geek, Esq.
Armando has been on a rampage recently. He called NYC Dems who vote for Bloomberg racist.
Because Freddy Ferrer is Hispanic.
docG
The vicious partisanship rampant in America today, of which the Court confirmation process is but a symptom, has its roots in several important late 20th Century shifts in our basic structures. The presidential nomination process was modified to allow voters more input and to prevent the “smoke-filled room” decision making of the national conventions from holding sway. Like many liberal ideas, the truly good intentions created negative unintended consequences. Placing the nomination process in the hands of primary voters lead to an increased reliance on media buys to win a nomination. This lead to increasingly negative and partisan attack ads, poisoning the well of political good will. The powerbrokers also responded by pushing politics to the far right and the far left, making an appeal to the large numbers of centrists unnecessary in primary elections. Having a smaller number of people voting in primaries, who tend to agree with you in the first place, gave greater control to the powerbrokers, and increasing the harsh negativity and partisanship so prevalent today. Needless to say, the increased money and mechanics for delivering it (PAC’s, interest group spending, etc.) in the new political system have added to the partisanship.
Related to this development was the “commodification” of news. News divisions became profit centers, and devolved into lowest common denominators of gotcha stories and People magazine celebrity and human interest stories. Politicians became celebrities, in the Hollywood sense, and have been opened up to personal attacks that would have never happened in an earlier age. The public mauling of President Clinton (a morally repugnant, ethically challenged man, whose impeachment was the equivalent of the death penalty for jaywalking) over Whitewater and the Lewinsky affair is a prime example.
Politicians have not avoided blame for their own situation. Democrats, in power so long as to become arrogant, grew to respond only to small, loud interest groups that violated the interests of mainstream Americans. This infatuation continues today, with the public perceiving Democrats continuing to push an anti-religion, pro-seaminess agenda. True or not, this is the general perception and recent election results are the proof.
And who can forget the “screw you, we won” attitude of Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America. The new Republican Congress came in with the sense of self-control and decorum of a drunken 15 year old who just got laid for the first time. Partisan or not, the attempt to destroy President Clinton was overreaching, deeply personal and arrogant behavior that has left a legacy of no compromise, distrust and frankly hatred that plays itself out in many ways, including the Senate confirmation of judges processes.
The effort to point out who is most to blame for partisanship and political negativity is a game without end. The entire system is broken. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are heroes in this mess. A revolution from the center is needed to restore balance, but the current system provides no incentives or leaders for the effort.
ppGaz
Mostly true enough, and the blahsphere (here, where we are) offers no light at the end of the tunnel either.
Blogging has already and quickly morphed from some idealistic “grassroots” concept thing into a contest for eyeballs (page views, the blog equivalent of ratings).
Bloggers want eyeballs, and the way to get them is the same way that cable tv gets them: Foment churn, contention, “controversy”. Turn complex issues into simple binary ones.
KC
Honestly, there are all kinds of things going on here that we probably don’t know about. It’s every Senator’s perrogative to vote how they want.
Com Con
No, it’s not. They’re supposed to confirm *qualified* nominees and Roberts is most certainly qualified.
Geek, Esq.
Please cite the constitutional text which supports your position.
TallDave
Hehe, just wait for the fireworks when Bush, with low approval ratings, nominates black female conservative firebrand and (iirc) previous filibuster candidate Janice Rogers Brown.
Seriously, I think Karl Rove may be setting this up to force Dems to filibuster her right through the 2006 elections. Their interest groups doubtless will demand it. Should be interesting.
Mithrandir
John said:
And you’re surprised by this WHY?
Politics was supposed to include the idea: “You scratch my back if I scratch yours” … reference Ginsberg. But the “elites” are no longer in power, so they don’t “play nice” anymore.
Steve S
Com Con – Actually no. It is not solely about qualification, never has been.
When President Washington nominated John Rutledge as chief Justice, his nomination was rejected by the Senate because of his opposition to the Jay Treaty.
If it was simply the Senate’s job to confirm qualified nominees… William Weld would have been ambassador to Mexico during the 2nd Clinton administration. However, Republicans failed to even give one of their own a hearing because Jesse Helms personally didn’t like the guys opinions.
I’m getting a whee bit tired of Republican hacks rewriting history to suit their arguments. You want to play politics, fine, but quit whining when politics bites you in the ass.
Steve S
TallDave – Possibly. But Janice Brown isn’t qualified for the post which is pretty obvious from her judicial decisions. Even so it’s hard to see much backlash from the average American for them filibustering her.
Actually she’d probably fall just like Robert Bork, with many Republicans voting against her.
Mark
if gonzales is on deck, then you gotta save the heat for him.
If Gonzales is the nominee, Democrats could just sit back and watch the Republicans fight amongst themselves.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I usually agree with Armando, but while I can see merit in opposing the Roberts nomination, I don’t see why it should be a Democratic crusade. There is some logic in opposing Roberts to say I told you so if his jurisprudence turns out ultra-right, but I myself don’t think it’s worth it given the unlikelihood of getting anyone better, plus the fact that the battle was pretty much lost in 11/2004.
I wonder why it’s necessary to oppose Roberts in the same way as (say) Janice Rogers Brown, whom I agree should be fought every-which-way. Practice?
ppGaz
That didn’t keep the insane Clarence Thomas off the court.
If you think I exaggerate, get ahold of a video of him making one of his rare public performances. You’ll think you are watching the pilot of a bad new Fox Network prime time show.
Mac Buckets
Don’t you mean “the WB?”
Racist!
ppGaz
Yes I did. Thanks.
Justice Thomas is a minority member? Who knew?
J. Michael Neal
Again, John ignores the elephant in the room. Bush chose Roberts in part with his eye on the next confirmation battle. Expecting the Democrats to behave any differently is not only fanciful, but biased.
So much of this comes about because the President gets to make his political calculations in private, with no scrutiny, while the Senate, and the opposition in particular, is forced to play it out in public. One should not mistake the absence of public political game playing on the part of the executive for the total absence of political game playing.
Retief
Wait a minute John. Is it your contention that the voting on Roberts will have no effect on the nomination process of the next Justice, or that Democrats in the Senate should ignore any such effects?
TallDave
LOL Thomas and Brown “not qualified?”
Well, so much for a sane debate. For the sake of two-party democracy, I hope the elected Dems aren’t as crazy as some of their constituents.
Mac Buckets
Hey, just ask Senator Reid. He doesn’t even think you have to have ever been a judge to be qualified to serve on the Supreme Court. His recommendation list to Bush for the O’Connor spot was four Republican Senators!
ppGaz
Have ya heard Thomas speak?
I don’t think he’s qualified to change a tire. I wouldn’t let him on my property, he looks and acts like a mass murderer.
DougJ
Thomas is the greatest legal mind ever to joke about pubic hair on a coke can.
Mac Buckets
Racist!
DougJ
Mac, have you ever spoken to an African-American person about Clarence Thomas? A good friend of mine who is African-American refers to Clarence Thomas as “a lawn jockey”.
jobiuspublius
Probably because it would help clean out the SOTUS and the SCOTUS. You know judges can be impeached.
Ooooh, looky, O’Connor willing to stay a litle longer, interesting.
BTW, Katrina’s got a big sister named Rita.