Response to Roberts Nomination: Progress For America Announces $1 Million Campaign

"Brilliant"

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Progress for America is a great group, and between them and the Club for Growth I have found that I have less and less reasons to donate to groups such as the NRSC and the RNC.

Bump

They're wasting their money. there will be no challenge to this nomination.

I want the Dems to filibuster on Roberts. They will be nuked, no doubt. Save your money.

Less and less $$$ to RNC seems to be the way to go, and more to these specific solid pro-America rightwing groups, like the Pro-Roberts guys, the Swift Boats for Truth, the Minutemen, Free Republic etc. Specific Conservative causes that don't get all jumbled up when you contribute to the RNC, RNC being too wide of an interest group for my interests, that has not much to say for themselves that really excite me, on bedrock conservative issues such as open borders, gay marriage, affirmative action or abortion.

"They're wasting their money. there will be no challenge to this nomination."

I disagree. The Dems will feel their way to a "legitimate issue." In this case, it will be that Roberts is "not really answering the questions."

Then they will launch the biggest, dirtiest attack ever seen on a nominee---beyond Thomas and Bork.

The thing is, they have to lay the groundwork first, with an intricate tangle of questions. Specter is on their side. Mark my words.

He is starting out being "fair". But eventually, he will realize that his conscience cannot allow him to do anything but oppose Roberts with all of his being. People on this board will sneer at that---but for one of the rare times in his life, Arlen will be telling the truth.\

from an email i widely distributed during the Stop Specter campaign:

In the Book, Passion for Truth, By Senator Arlen Specter with Charles Robbins (William Morrow, 2000) Specter explains the key to his thinking about the Supreme Court. (All page numbers cited in this article refer to this book.) Specter states that (p. 331-2) “Bork’s theory essentially held that judges should not make law but should merely follow what was originally intended. In pure philosophical terms, Bork’s view that the Constitution should be interpreted as it was originally intended appeared to make sense, at least superficially. But the Constitution has turned out to be much more dynamic than that: a living, growing document, responsive to the needs of the nation.

“Bork’s narrow approach is dangerous for constitutional government in America. Without adherence to original intent, Bork said, there was no legitimacy for judicial decisions.”

The Constitution has indeed been “a living, growing document, responsive to the needs of the nation.” Not in the childish manner that Specter conceives, as an excuse for the Supreme Court to invent any law it wants to, but as the founders intended, via the lawful amendment process set forth in the Constitution itself.

In addition, the legislature and executive were moving the U.S in the direction of decency and fairness (Specter’s lodestones, quoted below) quite nicely before the Supreme Court “took over” the job on a full time basis. Just before the famous Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954, for example, the US Army abolished segregated units---without the Courts help. Before Brown v. Board of Education the Supreme Court’s most activist decision was Dred Scott---a decision that unilaterally extended the rights of slave owners and made those rights supercede the law of northern states, effectively making slavery legal there. This was hardly in the interests of “decency and fairness” as we now understand it, and was one of the causes of the Civil War.

A few pages later (p. 334), Specter gets near to the heart of how Liberals like himself want to use the Supreme Court to transform America. “I was troubled by Bork’s writing and testimony that expanding rights to minorities reduced the rights of majorities. By that thinking, giving a criminal defendant Miranda warnings deprives the police of a confession, which might put a criminal back on the street to harm the majority. While perhaps arithmetically sound, it seemed morally wrong. The [law abiding] majority in a democracy can take care of itself, while individuals and minorities often cannot [referring in the case of Miranda to the minority of people in America that are criminals].”

This is about as coherent as can be expected for an argument that supports Liberalism and the Left Wing agenda. However, the notion that it is within the realm of Republican Party thinking is absurd.

Finally, Specter comes to the crux of the matter (p. 337). “The story of America is the story of decency and fairness, with the Supreme Court as the guarantor. Robert Bork displayed little grasp of that. After Brown v. Board of Education, nobody could argue in favor of segregated schools. But you don’t get to Brown via original intent. You get there via evolving notions of decency and fairness.”

Specter, with his background as a lawyer, has promoted himself as something of an “expert” in this area. Here is an example of his reasoning. “Ultimately (p. 339) my view was that original intent cannot guide constitutional law very much. I suggested another standard, quoting Frankfurter, whom Bork had characterized as one of the stars of the Supreme Court. Frankfurter had quoted Cardozo on fundamental values and used the phrase “tradition and conscience” in his opinion in Rochin v. California, in which the Supreme Court suppressed evidence pumped from the defendant’s stomach. Again, the story of America and constitutional law is the story of decency. Original intent and legislative talent [the legislature itself], I told Bork, ‘only take you so far, and beyond that you can rely on Cardozo or Frankfurter to effectuate the values and the tradition of the people without being able to pull out a specific constitutional right.’”

Don’t misunderstand me, as a representative of the “say anything to reach the Leftist agenda” Left, Specter is an effective representative and I understand why Democrats in Pennsylvania consistently vote for him and why the Democratic leadership nationwide supports him. I just do not buy the idea that a person who votes for him to Chair the Judiciary Committee can call himself a Republican.

Very well-researched and thought out, and a pleasure to read.
They may very well make the gentleman sing for his supper, but I can't see the left blocking a vote. He just doesn't fit the "extreme circumstance" clause of the agreement.

"Very well-researched and thought out, and a pleasure to read."

Thank you very much.

"They may very well make the gentleman sing for his supper, but I can't see the left blocking a vote. He just doesn't fit the "extreme circumstance" clause of the agreement."

I believe you yourself are a gentleman (or lady). I respect you for it, but believe we are fighting animals here. I hope, however, that you turn out right, and myself wrong.