Novak Skewers Schumer
Arianna’s not the only one who gets her stories from little birds; Robert Novak has the scoop on a private elevator conversation between Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, in which Schumer railed that John Roberts just wasn’t acquiescing in Schumer’s quest to get judges to vote according to liberal social agendas rather than constitutionality and the law:
Schumer said at the beginning of the hearing he would accept Roberts as a “mainstream conservative” but not an “ideologue.” Is Roberts more of an ideologue than Justice Antonin Scalia, who was confirmed with 98 votes? Is Roberts more of an ideologue than former American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) general counsel Ginsburg, who got 96 votes? Chuck Schumer did not make his case.
Novak also says that partisanship has so gripped the Democrats that Roberts will get no Democratic votes from the Judicial Committee, and only eight in the full Senate, for a 63-37 confirmation. If so, as I stated previously, it will be a shameful moment for the Democratic Party, and a dangerous sign for their future prospects.
Ugh. If there’s one thing worse than today’s Republican Party, it’s today’s Democratic Party. It’s people like Schumer (and Feinstein, and Biden, and Kennedy, and Byrd, and…) who drive us to elect people like DeLay (and Bush, and Frist, and Santorum, and Coburn, and…). Maybe Germany has the right idea: elect no one and let gridlock tear the place apart.
Here’s an interesting statistic–72% of Americans (according to Rasmussen) think Roberts will be confirmed–in other words they expect him to be. If only 63% of the senate votes for him, they will be revealing their disconnect with the rest of the population, if you see what I mean.
Here they go again, latching onto another losing issue.
Oh, Ryan, you John Kerry supporter, you…actually, it’s very shortsighted of the Democrats if they do withhold a large number of votes from Roberts…it’s practically begging for retaliation when the shoe is on the other foot…
Retaliation? Like how Republicans retaliated for Bork? Dems have no fear of anything like that because the media will back them up as they are doing now and attack Republicans as obstructionist.
Just to be clear, I don’t WANT the Republicans to retaliate, and yes, you’re correct about how the media will treat it…
I voted for Kerry; I didn’t support him. I’d just like to clarify that there is a difference there. All I am committed to is wanting him to be president MORE than I wanted Bush to be president. It doesn’t follow that I actually wanted either of them in the first place. Just to clarify.
The lesser of two evils, eh?…I got you…
Over the weekend I went to a party where pretty much everyone but me could have been described as hailing from the MoveOn.org faction of the left. I had a chat with another guest who was very worked up about the prospect of Roberts as Chief Justice. I pointed out that Roberts had gone to some lengths to deny that he was an ideologue, and had taken a distinctly non-conservative position on a constitutional right to privacy and other issues.
“Well, he’s very subtle,” the other guy said. “But that just makes him all the more dangerous.” I just nodded politely and made some vague, noncommittal noises.
In other words, these people aren’t picking their enemies based on what they say, or even what they do. Any nominee, policy, or proposal from the Republican side is ipso facto evil. If the Senate Democrats uniformly reject Roberts, they’ll just be reflecting the views of the wing of the party that increasingly seems to be setting the Democratic agenda. Yes, the MSM will support them on this and no, Bush won’t retaliate. But it doesn’t sound like a strategy for winning over independent voters.
utron, that’s quite a, umm, subtle argument your friend made…
ERA-
Like the media is backing up the image of John Roberts as a heartless automaton or idealogue? Even the text of the NYT editorial calling for a vote against him reads like a litany of praise.
Sadly, the era of Big Government is not yet over, but the era of Big Media is. Their power is dramatically different than it was in the ’80’s.
One question I don’t have an answer to yet — what difference does it make, in terms of Bush’s next nominee, whether Roberts is confirmed 63-35 or 83-12? Does it make any difference? If it does — in which direction? I’ve heard arguments both ways — but no one seems to be suggesting that perhaps the Democrats are in fact completely irrelevant.
Well, at least we have come a long way from when Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell — a notably mediocre judge — and then-Senator Roman Hruska defended the nomination, because “even mediocre people deserve to be represented on the Supreme Court” –