Posted on 09/21/2005 5:59:48 PM PDT by Crackingham
Shakespeare had it right. Thanks to C-SPAN and the passions stoked from the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, the American voters had a chance to see a range of idiocy from the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, all of it coming from the sound and fury of Democrats trying desperately to stay relevant. One by one, they strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage--how we wish it had only been an hour--and wound up signifying less than nothing.
The minority party came into the hearing with a host of problems: President Bush had nominated a legal genius whose scholarship and skill would be obvious in any public hearing. Because of his short tenure on the appellate bench--the result of a Democratic filibuster--his track record left his judicial philosophy unclear, even to the president's supporters. The two months it took to start the hearings had produced wild and reckless charges from liberal interest groups and media outlets that backfired, note, for example, the smear campaign from NARAL which falsely claimed that Roberts supported abortion-clinic violence. That ad generated such disgust and easy rebuttal that even Democrats called for a retraction.
The death of William Rehnquist dealt Democrats a further strategic blow when Bush switched Roberts from replacing Sandra Day O'Connor to replacing his mentor, the chief justice, suggesting that the Court might rebalance itself. The media retracted its claws, especially the Washington Post, which went from raising strange charges of racism and misogyny against Roberts to eventually
endorsing him. The Democrats on the Judiciary Committee limped into the hearings bereft of momentum and lacking any cohesive argument against the nominee.
Did that stop them from attacking him? Not at all.
From the first day, the strategy of the opposition was clear: get Roberts to refuse to answer questions about specific cases and paint him as unresponsive. Unfortunately for the Democrats, Roberts had prepared several candidates for hearings such as these. He refused to say how he would rule when presented with specific cases and hypotheticals based on issues that will probably come before the Court--but each time he explained in detail why he could not answer, and then instead talked about the process he would use to approach cases such as those outlined by the senators. He didn't sound unresponsive; rather, Roberts came across like a law professor giving a lecture in Jurisprudence 101 to a group of inattentive freshmen.
In return, the Democrats acted like . . . inattentive freshmen.
Well I must say, after reading this I feel a little more at ease about Roberts.
As the old golf joke goes; "That's not a long drive! That's a short putt!"
Roberts never made me nervous.
Once I heard him call himself a "practicing" Catholic, the del was sealed.
Roberts must have read Anne Coulter's " How to Talk to a Liberal, If you Must." He seemed to follow her recipe to the letter and it worked.
Good book Anne! Credit where credit is due!
Roberts must have read Anne Coulter's " How to Talk to a Liberal, If you Must." He seemed to follow her recipe to the letter and it worked.
Good book Anne! Credit where credit is due!
The dimmycrats were like little leaguers pitching to Barry Bonds before steroid testing.
Oh, great! Now they'll accuse Judge Roberts of being on steroids. ;-D
Judge Roberts was like a cat playing with the mouse, just before killing and eating it.
HeHeHeHe....
What was that's dog's name in the Whacky Races ???
Excellent.
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