Shot In The Dark: Let Slip the Dogs of Bork and Thomas

July 19, 2005

Let Slip the Dogs of Bork and Thomas

I know Supreme Court inside baseball like Hugh Hewitt knows music, of course, but I think it's a great call on the President's part.

Hugh, fortunately, knows law like I know music, and he's impressed:

A home run for the president, the SCOTUS, and for the United States.

Judge John Roberts may be the smartest lawyer I have known, and he combines that intellect with a graciousness and good humor that will make it hard for any except the most extreme ideolouges to oppose him. Here's his bio, but it cannot fully convey the great intellectual force which Justice Roberts will bring to the SCOTUS.

Read Hugh's entire spiel; he's snuck in an excellent explanation of Roberts amid double-shift today.

Of course, his detractors are lined up because they see a threat to the great sacrament of the liberal religion, abortion.

The scrutiny of Judge Roberts centered on his role in co-authoring a Supreme Court brief for the Reagan administration arguing that Roe v. Wade was “wrongly decided and should be overturned.” The case was called Russ v.Sullivan,and the government argued that it could prohibit doctors in federally funded family planning programs from discussing abortions with their patients.

The brief stated the Supreme Court’s conclusion in Roe, “that there is a fundamental right to abortion … finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.”

Which is, of course, correct; Roe is one of the worst-written decisions in the history of the court, making up law out of essentially the clear blue sky (and I'm far from a dogmatist about abortion, although I'm personally pro-life).

If President Bush is looking for a potential Supreme Court nominee with conservative credentials who would inspire a minimum of fuss at a confirmation hearing, he may turn to Judge John Roberts Jr., say fans of the Buffalo native, who sits on the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
“Almost alone among the serious candidates, Judge Roberts combines youth, intellect, temperament, judicial philosophy, and confirmability,” said a former associate White House counsel,Bradford Berenson, who worked on judicial selection under President Bush.“He is young, he’s bright,he’s conservative,he’s well respected across the ideological spectrum, and he’s unlikely to run into effective opposition if he were nominated.”

Which leaves the left in a lousy position, having to try to drum up hysteria against a candidate who is essentially hysteria-proof:

But liberal critics say not so fast — a pre-eminent Supreme Court litigator before ascending to the bench, Judge Roberts argued for overturning the landmark abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade while he was deputy solicitor general in the Reagan administration.

A potential battle over his nomination could come down to the question of whether a lawyer should be held responsible for the arguments he makes on behalf of a client.

Look for the sleaziest smear campaign in the history of the Republic.

And, if I may - look for it to backfire on the Democrats. Bad. The American people's support for abortion is a mile wide and a foot deep - like gun control, it's a topic where the phrasing of the question makes all the difference. And if the Dems put all their hysterical chips on the table over smearing the (by all rational accounts) un-smearable Roberts, whose only pain point would seem to be the largely-peripheral issue (for most people) of abortion, it'll make the Clinton Impeachment imbroglio look like a walk in the park.

It's going to be an interesting fall.

Posted by Mitch at July 19, 2005 08:02 PM | TrackBack

Comments

The usual Democrat suspects will ask Roberts a lot of inappropriate questions, and he won't answer, and then they'll vote against him because he didn't answer their inappropriate questions, which is the way they'd vote in any case, so it won't make any difference what he says. It's as predictable as Kabuki theatre. If nothing else, it keeps the campaign checks coming from the moonbat brigades.

Posted by: RBMN at July 19, 2005 09:33 PM

I heard that Dick Durbin issued a press release stating that John Roberts was Pol Pot's lawyer.

;)

Seriously, I work quite closely with his firm during my day job and sent out gradulatory emails to my colleagues there. It's going to be a pretty exiting day finding out that one of the partners at your firm just got nominated to the Supreme Court!

Posted by: Thorley Winston at July 19, 2005 10:18 PM

This is a brilliant pick on the President's behalf & he should be commended on this choice. How do I know, seeing that I'm not a lawyer? Simple. It was plastered all over Chuck Schumer's & Pat Leahy's faces when they read their prepared statements. They looked like they'd just come the funeral of a longtime & dear friend. There's another telltale sign about this: MSNBC's Dan Abrams, hardly a rock-ribbed conservative, is predicting that Roberts will get confirmed with 90+ votes in the full Senate.

Posted by: Gary Gross at July 20, 2005 06:00 AM

Meh. I think the pragmatists in my party are going to carry the day on this. Roberts seems ideologically to be somewhere around Rehnquist. That's more conservative than I'd like, but that's life after losing an election.

The usual suspects are barking, but most of left blogistan is pretty sanguine; Roberts isn't insane, and he's not Scalia-righty. He'll get some sharp questioning on Roe v. Wade and be confirmed something like 80-20.

As for "brilliant"--not really. More like "safe." But safe's okay.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke at July 20, 2005 11:09 AM

"The usual suspects are barking, but most of left blogistan is pretty sanguine;"

Dunno - not only are the Kossacks in full fulmination, but your pals at the NewPats have been reduced to slandering the guy's eyes.

" Roberts isn't insane, and he's not Scalia-righty. He'll get some sharp questioning on Roe v. Wade and be confirmed something like 80-20."

Aw, Jeff. I was feeling good about this until you predicted his confirmation. :-)

Posted by: mitch at July 20, 2005 03:05 PM

Parotting the talking points again, huh Mitch. Why no comment about Hugh Hewitt's recent statements about "anti-tax zealots"? King B, Doug from Bogus Gold and Strom have all commented.

Posted by: Eva Young at July 25, 2005 10:59 PM

"Parotting [sic] the talking points again, huh Mitch."

Not so much parrotting as directly channelling Karl Rove. Natch.

Jeez, Eva, do you have a hot key with "Parotting [sic] talking points" on it?

" Why no comment about Hugh Hewitt's recent statements about "anti-tax zealots"? King B, Doug from Bogus Gold and Strom have all commented."

So go read their posts.

Posted by: mitch at July 25, 2005 11:53 PM

What's the matter Eva? Traffic flatlining at "Eva's Toxic Dump?" I've noticed you've taking to writing flamer links and leaving comments again.

Which are both perfectly fine was to drum up traffic, but it would be easier if your writing didn't suck so completely.

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