Please approve him, Democratic senators, and do it without a lot of fanfare. Ask tough questions in the confirmation hearings, don't brook any bullshit, but don't take your eyes off the flaming sack of Rove. If you do, you're handing the president a victory.
Judge Roberts is fine. There are some people who would have been better, but others who would have been much worse. Two would have prompted the North to secede.
Democratic senators, if you pitch a fit because Roberts was involved in a government brief highly critical of abortion, you'll be acting like demogogues and fools. Lawyers take positions on behalf of clients. He was representing a conservative administration. If you disqualify him because he advocated a troubling argument in his role as a lawyer, you'll be disqualifying all criminal defense lawyers and all deputing solicitor generals who served in the opposing party. It would be like condemning a heart surgeon who operated on a murderer, a reporter who covered a KKK meeting, or an evangelical high school teacher who taught a class on evolution. People's jobs aren't necessarily a reflection of their internal philosophies. So ask him about it, but don't hold it up as conclusive evidence. It might mean nothing.
Other than that, Democratic senators, you've got no argument. Roberts clerked for Henry Friendly, one of the all-time great American judges, and no radical. (Check out the Polaroid factors. They're awesome, and so was Judge Friendly.) So far as we know, Roberts hasn't acted like a jerk in public, and unlike Janice Rogers Brown, he hasn't made any deranged remarks at activist forums.
Meanwhile, the White House is in the middle of spectacular acts of self-destruction in its defenses of Karl Rove. It's been beautiful. It would be a victory for the White House if the Democrats focused their heat on this particular Supreme Court nominee -- it would rally the right-wing base and give all the president's men a platform for sounding reasonable.
Walking home tonight, I had a growing sense of dread that Bush would nominate one of the real psychos to fire up his crazies and distract the press. But he didn't do that -- he nominated a conservative dude, but not a radical. So be it. The nuclear fallout from some of the other prospective nominees would have harmed all three branches of government. You want better than Roberts? Let's nominate a kick-ass Democrat for president in 2008 and settle shit for real. Meanwhile, you spar with the corrupt right-wing lunatics you have, not the detached Republican moderates you want. It would be political seppuku for the Democratic senators to throw gasoline on the Supreme Court while the outhouse that is Karl Rove has just started to go up in flames.
And here I was with a thick packet of print-outs about Edith Clement. I had the transcript of her 2001 Senate confirmation hearing, and even her financial statements. I decided that she might have been mildly awesome, if you think a former maritime lawyer on the Supreme Court sounds cool. Now I'm just hoping that the Democratic senators keep this nomination as boring as possible.
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2 comments:
One minor bone to pick here:
Karl Rove is a slimy, sleazy political goon - one of the biggest assholes of this century or any other. But the damage he can inflict on the republic is fairly minor compared to what a tenured Supreme Court justice can do. I'd caution against rubber-stamping Johnny R just to ensure Rove doesn't skate.
That said, after reading Crimenotes' analysis, I'd have to agree that Roberts is fillibuster-proof. He'll be confirmed, and then both W and the Democrats can start the spin war in which both sides claim credit for improving the "tone" in Washington.
Let's just say our side is due to win one of those.
Thanks for the pushback. I realized when I posted that I took for granted the assumption that Roberts isn't a deeply troubling nominee, but I figured it was better to keep the first overview short and direct. Roberts has a certain Stepford Justice quality, but is overall undisturbing: a mainstream, establishment conservative. There were other possible nominees -- Luttig, Edith Jones, JR Brown -- so egregious that it would have been worthwhile to neglect the Rove story and go to the mattresses.
I hope to post a comparison of Roberts to Scalia and Thomas in the near future.
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