Posted on 11/28/2018 10:14:13 AM PST by Starman417
If the Kavanaugh hearings showed Chief Justice Roberts anything, it should have been that the notion that the Supreme Court is in a pristine bubble immune from political considerations and thoughts is false and has been at least since the days that the character assassins of Robert Bork made his name a verb in the dictionary his failed nomination left on the ash heap of history:
The year was 1987. It was fall. It was November 11. It had been a tough year for President Ronald Reagan. Liberals were going bonkers with Iran-Contra as a hopeful tool to destroy a great president on the verge of winning the Cold War. The media was dubbing Iran-Contra the worst mistake of Reagan’s presidency. It was not. What happened on November 11, 1987 would, in due course, constitute the worst mistake of the Reagan presidency: the nomination of Anthony Kennedy for the U.S. Supreme Court.It had dawned on the Democrats that they could bypass the cumbersome legislative process still tied to that inconvenient “consent of the government thing” by concentrating on the courts and populating it with judges who believed in the “living constitution” which was to be interpreted in the context of the times inflamed by public passions and the liberal cause du jour. Original intent was an anachronism.The Kennedy pick was supposed to calm the waters after the storm generated by the Robert Bork and Douglas Ginsburg nominations. Bork would have been a brilliant justice, but leftists savaged the man, transmogrifying him into an ugly beast — a gargoyle. Bork suffered the ignominy of the likes of Senator Ted Kennedy portraying him as “anti-woman.” A new verb was introduced into the political lexicon: the process of being “Borked.”
Bork’s nomination scared the hell out of Democrats who thought the unalienable right to life Thomas Jefferson placed in the Declaration of Independence didn’t really mean that:
When President Reagan nominated Bork to the Supreme Court, there was no serious question about his qualification for the bench. Just five years earlier, he had been unanimously confirmed for the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, having earned an “exceptionally well qualified” label from the American Bar Association. But in the interim, the Democratic Party had taken control of the Senate. The late Senator Ted Kennedy orchestrated a smear campaign against Bork so breathtaking in its distortion that even the liberal Washington Post denounced it as a “lynching.” On Oct. 3, 1987, Bork’s nomination was rejected by the Senate on a 58-42 vote.Bork was an originalist meaning he believed the Constitution contained no “penumbras” and “emanations” one could hang an imaginary eight to an abortion on, a factoid which prompted Chappaquiddick’s champion of women’s rights, Sen. Ted Kennedy, to cross that bridge when he came to it in his epic rant on Bork’s nomination:
"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, and schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution," Kennedy said.With a Senate cowered by political considerations and the passions of the moment, we got Anthony Kennedy’s America, a land of weather-vane SCOTUS decisions and coat-hangers continuing to be beaten into scalpels. Thanks to President Trump, who realized the Supreme Court was and still is a political arena, at least for those who confirm SCOTUS picks, the appointments of Gorsuch and Kavanugh have shifted SCOTUS back in an originalist direction. Are they “Trump” justices per se? Perhaps not, but they share his views on the role and limitations of the Supreme Court.
Your rebuke of President Trump for saying there was such a political animal as an “Obama judge” was a poster child for hypocrisy that hearkened back to the day that you sat silent as President Obama scolded the Supreme Court during the State of the Union over the Citizens United victory for free speech:
(Excerpt) Read more at Floppingaces.net...
Very concerned; Roberts is more concerned about being “loved”
than the constitution. He very well could be the next Souter or at the least “swing vote” Kennedy.
His wife must be a Hillary supporter and she beats him when he comes home.
Nearly the whole FISA court was picked by Roberts. Everyone of them was previous Obama picks minus one.
I know still nominated by President Bush and would take another 8
As would I, but he was second choice to Harriet Myers that shows Bush’s real inclinations.
Chief Justice John Roberts is not a true conservative as proven by his Obamacare decision for one.
He is also compromised ideologically: another elitist overlord.
“We live in the courts.”
Violating the rule of law to ostensibly support the rule of law is ultimately a losing proposition Constitutionally.
Exult in more 3D Chess if you like; I refuse to do so. Roberts had no prerogative to so act “strategically”!
The Rule of Law is meaningless to lawless ideologues like the liberals on the court. Since they ignore the facts, then you must outmaneuver them.
Be as rigid as you like, it is still better than an unconstitutional law is broken, than a Supreme Court justice gets a personal “moral victory” leaving the unconstitutional law to fester under the porch like a dead raccoon.
By *not* killing bad law, our nation is still saddled with bad law from the time of FDR and LBJ. Had the justices thought strategically like Roberts, our country would not be nearing bankruptcy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.