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July 20, 2005
First Thoughts on John Roberts
We now know the name of President Bush's first nominee to the Supreme Court: John Roberts.
The news media chimed in almost immediately about how wonderful and thoughtful this choice was. Some on the left were equally as vigilant to oppose the nomination and call for a defeat of Roberts in the Senate.
I don't think either response is right. In this "war room" mentality of Washington, reasoned examination loses out. Americans -- and Coloradans -- deserve a careful and thorough examination of Roberts' record.
Our response should be to ensure that the Senate spends the time to examine Roberts' record and ask the key questions we need to know. Specifically, we need to find out if Roberts has a commitment to the core American values of freedom, equality and fairness.
That's not something that we can figure out overnight. The Constitution has a process, and we need to let the Senate use that process, to answer these questions. We cannot afford to rush to judgment -- one way or the other -- on somebody who will get a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.
Posted by dslater at July 20, 2005 08:43 AM
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Comments
Dan...
Yes your suggestion is the responsible and idealistically correct approach, but it will not have the desired effect. The fact is that within 48 hours, the general sense of the nation will have been set by our mainstream media channels and the Senate's decision will be subject to what the media tell them our nation is thinking.
For those of us who do not like the proposed candidate, our only strategy is to object right away in order to be at all involved in that process of creation of public opinion. Only 7 or so gigantic media companies are racing to predict the outcome, there is precious little time for reasoned consideration.
Also, since the candidate was already considered and confirmed for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals only two years ago, his record is already available, and the time for additional deep investigation is probably not necessary at this time.
I think it behooves Democrats to make a quick and good decision and then do their best to have their best arguments heard by the media, and also heard particularly by Senator Salazar.
Here are two places to begin research:
http://www.independentjudiciary.com/nominees/nominee.cfm?NomineeID=5 &
http://www.allianceforjustice.org/research_publications/ research/john_roberts_report.pdf
Posted by: harvie branscomb at July 20, 2005 03:52 PM
I was highly against Roberts until I learned that Ann Coulter was against him too. Now, eh, not bad?
(Her reason was because he was a white man, just fyi.)
I saw a bloggers headline last night that read: "Abortion war starts with the nomination of..." and then he put Roberts later on in the night. I think the dems, as you said in your post, need to really look at him before they launch a full out war (MoveOn just did).
Posted by: Andrew at July 20, 2005 05:46 PM
Right. A knee-jerk reaction to what is a fairly subtle nomination is exactly the wrong response. The White House is playing the pro-choice groups like fiddles, showing the public that they are just reactionaries. They've calculated that with Roberts there's no way they're will be a filibuster. Thus, rantin' and ravin' is not only a waste of time, it decreases the legitimacy that could be gained for a nomination next year. If Democrats don't get baited this time around, they'll have a lot more credibility next time, when Bush is more likely to push an ultra-conservative to replace Rehnquist.
Posted by: Stygius at July 20, 2005 05:46 PM