Libertea Party
06-28-2012, 11:56 AM
Mostly I think his decision comes to this (http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=23337B0E-A6AD-4015-8792-AC151883655C):
“I agree with the sentiment that Roberts is likely writing the lead or at least one of the lead opinions in health care, but that doesn’t tell us in this instance the disposition,” said John Eastman, a professor at Chapman School of Law in California.
Still, Eastman, a critic of the health care law, said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Roberts side with the Obama administration and uphold the law. “He’s a creature of the Washington administrative state. That’s his background,” the professor said, noting that Roberts has spent almost his entire professional life in Washington.
and this:
At stake is not only Roberts’s own legacy but also the court’s reputation as an impartial arbiter of the law...That’s the possible connection with the health care case. … In a close call, Roberts has to weigh the prestige of the court, his legacy, if that’s a concern for him, and where the court enters the political fray.”
In summary it's about a an effete lawyer hack exercising his Will to Power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power) over others without having to go through the messiness and unpleasantness of electoral politics.
The cocktail parties with his Northeastern liberal neighbors and Harvard classmates he grew up with are back on forever.
Also I think I remember articles saying that Roberts had some liberal rulings during his nomination fight. Does anyone have any of those blogs/articles?
UPDATE: Found some by Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro. They called it perfectly.
http://www.wnd.com/2005/07/31390/print/
Souter in Roberts' clothing
by Ann Coulter
After pretending to consider various women and minorities for the Supreme Court these past few weeks, President Bush decided to disappoint all the groups he had just ginned up and nominate a white male.
So all we know about him for sure is that he can’t dance and he probably doesn’t know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah … we also know he’s argued cases before the Supreme Court. Big deal; so has Larry Flynt’s attorney.
But unfortunately, other than that, we don’t know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever.
Since the announcement, court-watchers have been like the old Kremlinologists from Soviet days looking for clues as to what kind of justice Roberts will be. Will he let us vote?
Does he live in a small, rough-hewn cabin in the woods of New Hampshire and avoid “women folk”?
Does he trust democracy? Or will he make all the important decisions for us and call them “constitutional rights.”
It means absolutely nothing that NARAL and Planned Parenthood attack him: They also attacked Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Hackett Souter.
The only way a Supreme Court nominee could win the approval of NARAL and Planned Parenthood would be to actually perform an abortion during his confirmation hearing, live, on camera, and preferably a partial birth one.
It means nothing that Roberts wrote briefs arguing for the repeal of Roe v. Wade when he worked for Republican administrations. He was arguing on behalf of his client, the United States of America. Roberts has specifically disassociated himself from those cases, dropping a footnote to a 1994 law review article that said:
“In the interest of full disclosure, the author would like to point out that as deputy solicitor general for a portion of the 1992-93 term, he was involved in many of the cases discussed below. In the interest of even fuller disclosure, he would also like to point out that his views as a commentator on those cases do not necessarily reflect his views as an advocate for his former client, the United States.”
This would have been the legal equivalent, after O.J.’s acquittal, of Johnnie Cochran saying, “Hey, I never said the guy was innocent. I was just doing my job.”
And it makes no difference that conservatives in the White House are assuring us Roberts can be trusted. We got the exact same assurances from officials working for the last president Bush about David Hackett Souter.
I believe their exact words were, “Read our lips; Souter’s a reliable conservative.”
From the theater of the absurd category, the Republican National Committee’s “talking points” on Roberts provide this little tidbit:
“In the 1995 case of Barry v. Little, Judge Roberts argued – free of charge – before the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of a class of the neediest welfare recipients, challenging a termination of benefits under the District’s Public Assistance Act of 1982.”
I’m glad to hear the man has a steady work record, but how did this make it to the top of his resume?
Bill Clinton goes around bragging that he passed welfare reform, which was, admittedly, the one public policy success of his entire administration (passed by the Republican Congress). But now apparently Republicans want to pretend it’s the party of welfare queens! Soon the RNC will be boasting that Republicans want to raise your taxes and surrender in the war on terrorism, too.
Finally, lets ponder the fact that Roberts has gone through 50 years on this planet without ever saying anything controversial. That’s just unnatural.
By contrast, I held out for three months, tops, before dropping my first rhetorical bombshell, which I think was about Goldwater.
It’s especially unnatural for someone who is smart, and there’s no question but that Roberts is smart.
If a smart and accomplished person goes this long without expressing an opinion, they’d better be pursuing the Miss America title.
Apparently, Roberts decided early on that he wanted to be on the Supreme Court and that the way to do that was not to express a personal opinion on anything to anybody ever. It’s as if he is from some space alien sleeper cell. Maybe the space aliens are trying to help us, but I wish we knew that.
If the Senate were in Democrat hands, Roberts would be perfect. But why on earth would Bush waste a nomination on a person who is a complete blank slate when we have a majority in the Senate!
We also have a majority in the House, state legislatures, state governorships, and have won five of the last seven presidential elections – seven of the last ten!
We’re the Harlem Globetrotters now – why do we have to play the Washington Generals every week?
Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, we’re ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork … and Bush nominates a Rorschach blot.
Even as they are losing voters, Democrats don’t hesitate to nominate reliable left-wing lunatics like Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lifetime sinecures on the High Court. And the vast majority of Americans loathe her views.
As I’ve said before, if a majority of Americans agreed with liberals on abortion, gay marriage, pornography, criminals’ rights and property rights – liberals wouldn’t need the Supreme Court to give them everything they want through invented “constitutional” rights invisible to everyone but People For the American Way. It’s always good to remind voters that Democrats are the party of abortion, sodomy and atheism, and nothing presents an opportunity to do so like a Supreme Court nomination.
During the “filibuster” fracas, one lonely voice in the woods admonished Republicans: “Of your six minutes on TV, use 30 seconds to point out the Democrats are abusing the filibuster and the other five and a half minutes to ask liberals to explain why they think Bush’s judicial nominees are ‘extreme.’” Republicans ignored this advice, spent the next several weeks arguing about the history of the filibuster, and lost the fight.
Now we come to find out from last Sunday’s New York Times – the enemy’s own playbook! – that the Democrats actually took polls and determined that they could not defeat Bush’s conservative judicial nominees on ideological grounds. They could win majority support only if they argued turgid procedural points.
That’s why the entire nation had to be bored to death with arguments about the filibuster earlier this year.
The Democrats’ own polls showed voters are no longer fooled by claims that the Democrats are trying to block “judges who would roll back civil rights.” Borking is over.
And Bush responds by nominating a candidate who will allow Democrats to avoid fighting on their weakest ground – substance. He has given us a Supreme Court nomination that will placate no liberals and should please no conservatives.
Maybe Roberts will contravene the sordid history of “stealth nominees” and be the Scalia or Thomas Bush promised us when he was asking for our votes. Or maybe he won’t. The Supreme Court shouldn’t be a game of Russian roulette.
http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2005/07/20/president_bushs_roberts_pick_disappoints/page/full/
President Bush's Roberts pick disappoints
By Ben Shapiro
7/20/2005
On Tuesday evening, President Bush nominated Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court of the United States. "He will strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench," Bush stated of Roberts. Conservatives immediately leapt on the Roberts bandwagon, echoing Bush's sentiments. Talk radio commentator Hugh Hewitt labeled Roberts "a home run." The Heritage Foundation's legal experts cited Roberts' "proven fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law" in backing his nomination. Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard called Roberts "a quality pick."
Perhaps Roberts is a safe pick. He's politically conservative and undoubtedly brilliant. He will sail through the Senate without much hassle. But it is shocking to watch many constitutional originalists and textualists abandon their philosophies in favor of cheap politics.
Roberts is not an originalist. There is nothing in his very short jurisprudential record to indicate that his judicial philosophy involves strict fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution. He is not Antonin Scalia, nor is he Clarence Thomas. At best, he is William Rehnquist, for whom he once clerked. While Rehnquist has been a steady political conservative on the bench, the bench should not be about political persuasion: It should be about upholding the explicit words of our Founding Fathers. There is nothing to indicate that Roberts prioritizes the words of the Constitution above other, more immediate political concerns.
Roberts made his most eloquent statement of his judicial philosophy during his 2003 confirmation hearings for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He repeatedly emphasized "judicial restraint" and referred to the framers' desire that judges "[discern] the law, not [shape] policy. That means the judges should not look to their own personal views or preferences in deciding the cases before them. Their commission is no license to impose those preferences from the bench." There is something conspicuously absent from this description of the judicial role: an appeal to the original meaning of the Constitution. Roberts rails against "personal views" and advocates judicial neutrality, but he does not suggest an alternative source of values. No judge truly believes that he is imposing personal views on statutes; every judge appeals to some higher set of values, be they moral or legal. Some worship doctrine. Others worship "evolving standards of morality." But there is no substitute for the higher authority of the Constitution itself -- and this, Roberts does not say.
Unfortunately, we have no choice but to closely examine Roberts' words, because he has virtually no judicial record. No one knows where he stands on key cases like Roe v. Wade. Any originalist, whether politically liberal or conservative, would overturn Roe in a heartbeat. It is, quite simply, one of the worst decisions in constitutional history. Yet Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard writes, "Is Roberts likely to join an anti-Roe bloc on the court? Probably not."
Meanwhile, speculation about Roberts' role on the court runs rampant. Some claim that Roberts will be another Rehnquist; others claim he will form a "dynamic center" with Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer. When the Supreme Court wields as much clout as it does, why should originalists sit by while a new 30-year swing-bloc is formed?
To this, some may answer that originalists should simply trust President Bush. I ask: Based on what track record? Republicans have named seven of the last nine Supreme Court appointees. Those justices include anti-originalists Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter. Originalists, take note: President George H.W. Bush believed that Souter would be faithful to the Constitution. In fact, H.W.'s nominating description of Souter sounds virtually identical to his son's in favor of Roberts: "I have selected a person who will interpret the Constitution and, in my view, not legislate from the Federal bench." After a decade of legislating from the bench, it is eminently clear that Souter's stealth candidacy and subsequent decisions have undermined the Constitution and the American system of government as a whole.
Yes, Roberts is a political conservative. His track record amply demonstrates that. But politics is no guarantee of jurisprudence: Just ask Earl Warren. Politics is no guarantee that the Constitution will be upheld: Just ask Warren Burger. Perhaps Roberts will turn out to be a Rehnquist. That will be satisfactory, politically if not constitutionally. But President Bush had the once-in-a-presidency opportunity to nominate a clear originalist. Instead, he abandoned absolute adherence to the Constitution in favor of political expedience.
“I agree with the sentiment that Roberts is likely writing the lead or at least one of the lead opinions in health care, but that doesn’t tell us in this instance the disposition,” said John Eastman, a professor at Chapman School of Law in California.
Still, Eastman, a critic of the health care law, said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Roberts side with the Obama administration and uphold the law. “He’s a creature of the Washington administrative state. That’s his background,” the professor said, noting that Roberts has spent almost his entire professional life in Washington.
and this:
At stake is not only Roberts’s own legacy but also the court’s reputation as an impartial arbiter of the law...That’s the possible connection with the health care case. … In a close call, Roberts has to weigh the prestige of the court, his legacy, if that’s a concern for him, and where the court enters the political fray.”
In summary it's about a an effete lawyer hack exercising his Will to Power (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_to_power) over others without having to go through the messiness and unpleasantness of electoral politics.
The cocktail parties with his Northeastern liberal neighbors and Harvard classmates he grew up with are back on forever.
Also I think I remember articles saying that Roberts had some liberal rulings during his nomination fight. Does anyone have any of those blogs/articles?
UPDATE: Found some by Ann Coulter and Ben Shapiro. They called it perfectly.
http://www.wnd.com/2005/07/31390/print/
Souter in Roberts' clothing
by Ann Coulter
After pretending to consider various women and minorities for the Supreme Court these past few weeks, President Bush decided to disappoint all the groups he had just ginned up and nominate a white male.
So all we know about him for sure is that he can’t dance and he probably doesn’t know who Jay-Z is. Other than that, he is a blank slate. Tabula rasa. Big zippo. Nada. Oh, yeah … we also know he’s argued cases before the Supreme Court. Big deal; so has Larry Flynt’s attorney.
But unfortunately, other than that, we don’t know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever.
Since the announcement, court-watchers have been like the old Kremlinologists from Soviet days looking for clues as to what kind of justice Roberts will be. Will he let us vote?
Does he live in a small, rough-hewn cabin in the woods of New Hampshire and avoid “women folk”?
Does he trust democracy? Or will he make all the important decisions for us and call them “constitutional rights.”
It means absolutely nothing that NARAL and Planned Parenthood attack him: They also attacked Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy and David Hackett Souter.
The only way a Supreme Court nominee could win the approval of NARAL and Planned Parenthood would be to actually perform an abortion during his confirmation hearing, live, on camera, and preferably a partial birth one.
It means nothing that Roberts wrote briefs arguing for the repeal of Roe v. Wade when he worked for Republican administrations. He was arguing on behalf of his client, the United States of America. Roberts has specifically disassociated himself from those cases, dropping a footnote to a 1994 law review article that said:
“In the interest of full disclosure, the author would like to point out that as deputy solicitor general for a portion of the 1992-93 term, he was involved in many of the cases discussed below. In the interest of even fuller disclosure, he would also like to point out that his views as a commentator on those cases do not necessarily reflect his views as an advocate for his former client, the United States.”
This would have been the legal equivalent, after O.J.’s acquittal, of Johnnie Cochran saying, “Hey, I never said the guy was innocent. I was just doing my job.”
And it makes no difference that conservatives in the White House are assuring us Roberts can be trusted. We got the exact same assurances from officials working for the last president Bush about David Hackett Souter.
I believe their exact words were, “Read our lips; Souter’s a reliable conservative.”
From the theater of the absurd category, the Republican National Committee’s “talking points” on Roberts provide this little tidbit:
“In the 1995 case of Barry v. Little, Judge Roberts argued – free of charge – before the D.C. Court of Appeals on behalf of a class of the neediest welfare recipients, challenging a termination of benefits under the District’s Public Assistance Act of 1982.”
I’m glad to hear the man has a steady work record, but how did this make it to the top of his resume?
Bill Clinton goes around bragging that he passed welfare reform, which was, admittedly, the one public policy success of his entire administration (passed by the Republican Congress). But now apparently Republicans want to pretend it’s the party of welfare queens! Soon the RNC will be boasting that Republicans want to raise your taxes and surrender in the war on terrorism, too.
Finally, lets ponder the fact that Roberts has gone through 50 years on this planet without ever saying anything controversial. That’s just unnatural.
By contrast, I held out for three months, tops, before dropping my first rhetorical bombshell, which I think was about Goldwater.
It’s especially unnatural for someone who is smart, and there’s no question but that Roberts is smart.
If a smart and accomplished person goes this long without expressing an opinion, they’d better be pursuing the Miss America title.
Apparently, Roberts decided early on that he wanted to be on the Supreme Court and that the way to do that was not to express a personal opinion on anything to anybody ever. It’s as if he is from some space alien sleeper cell. Maybe the space aliens are trying to help us, but I wish we knew that.
If the Senate were in Democrat hands, Roberts would be perfect. But why on earth would Bush waste a nomination on a person who is a complete blank slate when we have a majority in the Senate!
We also have a majority in the House, state legislatures, state governorships, and have won five of the last seven presidential elections – seven of the last ten!
We’re the Harlem Globetrotters now – why do we have to play the Washington Generals every week?
Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, we’re ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork … and Bush nominates a Rorschach blot.
Even as they are losing voters, Democrats don’t hesitate to nominate reliable left-wing lunatics like Ruth Bader Ginsburg to lifetime sinecures on the High Court. And the vast majority of Americans loathe her views.
As I’ve said before, if a majority of Americans agreed with liberals on abortion, gay marriage, pornography, criminals’ rights and property rights – liberals wouldn’t need the Supreme Court to give them everything they want through invented “constitutional” rights invisible to everyone but People For the American Way. It’s always good to remind voters that Democrats are the party of abortion, sodomy and atheism, and nothing presents an opportunity to do so like a Supreme Court nomination.
During the “filibuster” fracas, one lonely voice in the woods admonished Republicans: “Of your six minutes on TV, use 30 seconds to point out the Democrats are abusing the filibuster and the other five and a half minutes to ask liberals to explain why they think Bush’s judicial nominees are ‘extreme.’” Republicans ignored this advice, spent the next several weeks arguing about the history of the filibuster, and lost the fight.
Now we come to find out from last Sunday’s New York Times – the enemy’s own playbook! – that the Democrats actually took polls and determined that they could not defeat Bush’s conservative judicial nominees on ideological grounds. They could win majority support only if they argued turgid procedural points.
That’s why the entire nation had to be bored to death with arguments about the filibuster earlier this year.
The Democrats’ own polls showed voters are no longer fooled by claims that the Democrats are trying to block “judges who would roll back civil rights.” Borking is over.
And Bush responds by nominating a candidate who will allow Democrats to avoid fighting on their weakest ground – substance. He has given us a Supreme Court nomination that will placate no liberals and should please no conservatives.
Maybe Roberts will contravene the sordid history of “stealth nominees” and be the Scalia or Thomas Bush promised us when he was asking for our votes. Or maybe he won’t. The Supreme Court shouldn’t be a game of Russian roulette.
http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2005/07/20/president_bushs_roberts_pick_disappoints/page/full/
President Bush's Roberts pick disappoints
By Ben Shapiro
7/20/2005
On Tuesday evening, President Bush nominated Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court of the United States. "He will strictly apply the Constitution and laws, not legislate from the bench," Bush stated of Roberts. Conservatives immediately leapt on the Roberts bandwagon, echoing Bush's sentiments. Talk radio commentator Hugh Hewitt labeled Roberts "a home run." The Heritage Foundation's legal experts cited Roberts' "proven fidelity to the Constitution and the rule of law" in backing his nomination. Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard called Roberts "a quality pick."
Perhaps Roberts is a safe pick. He's politically conservative and undoubtedly brilliant. He will sail through the Senate without much hassle. But it is shocking to watch many constitutional originalists and textualists abandon their philosophies in favor of cheap politics.
Roberts is not an originalist. There is nothing in his very short jurisprudential record to indicate that his judicial philosophy involves strict fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution. He is not Antonin Scalia, nor is he Clarence Thomas. At best, he is William Rehnquist, for whom he once clerked. While Rehnquist has been a steady political conservative on the bench, the bench should not be about political persuasion: It should be about upholding the explicit words of our Founding Fathers. There is nothing to indicate that Roberts prioritizes the words of the Constitution above other, more immediate political concerns.
Roberts made his most eloquent statement of his judicial philosophy during his 2003 confirmation hearings for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. He repeatedly emphasized "judicial restraint" and referred to the framers' desire that judges "[discern] the law, not [shape] policy. That means the judges should not look to their own personal views or preferences in deciding the cases before them. Their commission is no license to impose those preferences from the bench." There is something conspicuously absent from this description of the judicial role: an appeal to the original meaning of the Constitution. Roberts rails against "personal views" and advocates judicial neutrality, but he does not suggest an alternative source of values. No judge truly believes that he is imposing personal views on statutes; every judge appeals to some higher set of values, be they moral or legal. Some worship doctrine. Others worship "evolving standards of morality." But there is no substitute for the higher authority of the Constitution itself -- and this, Roberts does not say.
Unfortunately, we have no choice but to closely examine Roberts' words, because he has virtually no judicial record. No one knows where he stands on key cases like Roe v. Wade. Any originalist, whether politically liberal or conservative, would overturn Roe in a heartbeat. It is, quite simply, one of the worst decisions in constitutional history. Yet Fred Barnes of The Weekly Standard writes, "Is Roberts likely to join an anti-Roe bloc on the court? Probably not."
Meanwhile, speculation about Roberts' role on the court runs rampant. Some claim that Roberts will be another Rehnquist; others claim he will form a "dynamic center" with Justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer. When the Supreme Court wields as much clout as it does, why should originalists sit by while a new 30-year swing-bloc is formed?
To this, some may answer that originalists should simply trust President Bush. I ask: Based on what track record? Republicans have named seven of the last nine Supreme Court appointees. Those justices include anti-originalists Kennedy, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter. Originalists, take note: President George H.W. Bush believed that Souter would be faithful to the Constitution. In fact, H.W.'s nominating description of Souter sounds virtually identical to his son's in favor of Roberts: "I have selected a person who will interpret the Constitution and, in my view, not legislate from the Federal bench." After a decade of legislating from the bench, it is eminently clear that Souter's stealth candidacy and subsequent decisions have undermined the Constitution and the American system of government as a whole.
Yes, Roberts is a political conservative. His track record amply demonstrates that. But politics is no guarantee of jurisprudence: Just ask Earl Warren. Politics is no guarantee that the Constitution will be upheld: Just ask Warren Burger. Perhaps Roberts will turn out to be a Rehnquist. That will be satisfactory, politically if not constitutionally. But President Bush had the once-in-a-presidency opportunity to nominate a clear originalist. Instead, he abandoned absolute adherence to the Constitution in favor of political expedience.