In arguing four years ago against Democrats filibustering President Bush’s judicial nominations, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., complained, “We are really changing the constitutional design of what it takes to basically nominate and approve any judge.” So does that mean that Roberts would oppose a GOP filibuster of President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor? If not, Ari Rabin-Havt of the Media Matters Action Network argued, Roberts “will make it undeniably clear that he is happy to use the Constitution as a political prop.”
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21 Comments
IF, then…
From “Media Matters”.
Scraping bottom.
Oh well, life is good. A few projects and a little golf on tap today. I’m out.
This is a typical Lib, arm flailing statement.
Roberts “will make it undeniably clear that he is happy to use the Constitution as a political prop.”
lol
You gotta love it. You have the rational GOP, represented by outlander, and the loony GOP, represented by you know who, and both have whiffed on Ari Rabin-Havt’s high hard fastball.
Whiff!
This is what happens when humans are confronted by cold hard logic.
Of course Roberts will be reducing the US Constitution as a mere political prop if he yanks on the Democrats as harming the constitution for filibustering then but supports now GOP filibustering as healthy to the constitution.
Duh.
Is this the one worth sacrificing the potential votes from 14 percent of the population but 25 percent of the live births?
Is this one for one replacement of a liberal judge going to be the downfall of America, or republican ideals?
Learn to pick your battles.
I always have to laugh when the party of Borking and the ‘high tech lynching’ of Clarence Thomas tries to give lessons on how not to use the Constitution when selecting justices.
“As conservative groups mobilize to oppose the next Supreme Court nominee, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be hard-pressed to complain if the debate centers not on the nominee’s resume but on his or her ideology.
After all, when Obama and Biden served in the Senate, they opposed nominees who, by all accounts, had superior brainpower and impressive credentials. They voted no because of philosophical differences with the president’s choices.
Biden set the framework for this approach 22 years ago when President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. As Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden sought to upend the Senate’s usual approach to evaluating presidential choices. Many of the major nomination battles in the past had revolved around the perceived personal shortcomings of a candidate, but Biden shifted the spotlight toward the person’s ideology.”
Jeez, liberals appoint liberals, conservatives appoint conservatives. Who wudda thunk it?
And – gasp! – liberals oppose conservative nominees and conservatives oppose liberal nominees! Wow!
And get this! The MAJORITY party in the Senate usually gets their way! Holy cow!
End of story – Sonia Sotomayor will be the next Justice of the Supreme Court.
Dang. Does anyone know what Harriet Meirs is doing these days?
Roberts posturing? Just because he got an Academy Award in the category of ‘selected outrage by a politician’ doesn’t mean he’d use anything as a prop.
WS that is what I have said these last few days. She is our next justice. Just don’t ride your white horse in and demand we all be nice guys. The conservatives are following the lead of the Teddy Kennedys of the world.
Set back and enjoy the action just don’t give anymore lessons on the ‘right thing to do’. Remember there is an election every four years.
Seriously, Brownlee…do you ever actually post anything that matters? ALL politicians are politicians first and foremost. Why don’t you show off your “big mind” just once and actually post something that’s worthy of discussion?
Will Roberts suddenly discover he likes judicial filibusters after all, thus making him at best a total hypocrite about a very solemn and serious undertaking?
Probably.
But we all know the reality: the party out of power will filibuster if they’ve got the votes. I don’t know why Roberts even bothered to say that before (oh, right, filibusters were holding up District Court appointees he wanted).
Did the Dems filibuster Roberts or Alito? Nope (and they should have).
It’s been an unwritten rule that, absent a major scandal, a president’s first nominee gets, more or less, a “free pass” (see O’Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Roberts). Of course, no one in their right mind wants a coronation, but the party that gave us the “nuclear option” might think twice about breaking the uneasy peace when the boot is on the other foot.
P.S. Of course,they’ll need 41 votes. . .
(chortes)
“Just don’t ride your white horse in and demand we all be nice guys.”
My horse isn’t white, but it does have a 96 cid engine.
Roberts is very good at ’selected outrage’, remember his calling for investigations when leaks out of Washington were harmful to his king, or party, but could care less when the admin was having stuff leaked daily that helped their position or cause.
Roberts could have cared less about a CIA agent being outed by tha admin., but righteous indignation about anything counter repub.
I would have more respect for Roberts if he said he would listen to the hearings before declaring his intention to vote against her. I won’t vote for him the next time he runs.
R= wussies. Let the left talk trash and take it like a real wuss. Roberts needs the boot, the entire gop needs the boot….new young blood in the gop would be a blesssing, republicans without chicken wings, someone who could give a crap about political correctness. Someone with Obamas bravery, but not ignorant like him.
The point is this, any conservative nominee made by a Republican president undergoes torturous confirmation hearings, fillibusters, and relentless savaging by the media and the assorted liberal outfits. The last two liberal nominees by Democratic presidents sailed through with overwhelming majorities and pro forma questioning. Sotomayor will too. The lesson is: If you want to be on the Supreme Court, establish a liberal record – the sailing is much smoother. The media will gang up alongside you if you attack a conservative; it will call you a hypocrite if you attack a liberal.
I was wondering who “Media Matters Action Network” was anyway. At their website they identify themselves: “Media Matters Action Network is a progressive research and information center dedicated to analyzing and correcting conservative misinformation.” Not a surprise that that’s where Brownlee does his research.
Should Brownlee get his info from the conservative misinformation source? That wouldn’t be any fun as the libs here would tear it to pieces.
BobChi
Posted May 30, 2009 at 9:42 pm | Permalink
The lesson is: If you want to be on the Supreme Court, establish a liberal record – the sailing is much smoother. The media will gang up alongside you if you attack a conservative; it will call you a hypocrite if you attack a liberal.
—
You assume that any “valid” ie unassailable conservative candidate is one who believes either of the extant conservative positions. That is, modern conservatives to believe a candidate to be valid if s/he believes that the Constitution is a document static with respect to either its time or to its literal meaning (these can be the same thing, see John Roberts).
Note that if you are conservative and believe neither of the above, then you will not get attacked — by your own argument.
I guess your challenge, then, is to determine if that’s possible. My guess is that it ain’t, not given the yahoos currently calling the GOP home.
Good luck on breaking new ground, though. Really. Best of luck!
The key to being a modern conservative, though, is clearly this:
You must believe the US Constitution to be static in one significant way or another.
If you believe it lives, in any way we normally think of life and living, you are pretty much screwed out of the gate.
Key: static, or dead.
Just saying. :)