If this guy turns out to be David Souter redux(Ann Coulter's take) or another Sandra Day O'Connor, maybe it's not such a good deal.

Let's wait till he gets confirmed and starts voting on a few matters before we pull out the pom-poms.

Another O'Connor would be better than anyone should expect..

As far as Roberts goes, the deal changes nothing.

oj,

She's horrible. Why would we want her?

Bart:

You would love her since she supports the liberal social agenda.

bart:

she's one of the four or five most conservative judges of the last seventy years.

David:

Except it stopped the filibuster.

oj,

Maybe. But that says more about the last 70 years than about her.

She supports affirmative action, she believes that foreign law should be precedent in an American courtroom and she supports some forms of gun control. How any of that counts as 'conservative' I have no idea.

1. Schumer, at least, is going to try to gin up the administrations refusal to turn over Robert's SG file as an excuse to postpone the vote without having to admit to a filibuster.

2. They wouldn't have filibustered Roberts regardless. Basically, the Dems think that Roberts is about as good as their going to do out of W.

Roberts is a gimmee. This is all about setting the stage for Act II.

It's too early in the administration for the Dems to try running out the clock, and only 20-30% of the country would be behind them in a fight. They'll hold their fire on conservative #3 and try to stop #4 or #5.

The administration may have outsmarted themselves, asking Rehnquist to delay his retirement and using their most confirmable conservative on the first go-round. When Rehnquist's seat opens up, they may have a hard time getting a strong conservative like Jones, Garza, or Brown through. Unless Gonzales is the goal ... he'd be confirmed and the Dems would fight on a Stevens or Ginsberg retirement.

bart:

Everyone supports some forms of gun control.

oj:

You've managed to calm my blood about McCain in the past few months, but saying we'd be lucky if Roberts is another O'Connor is nuts and makes me question your reasoning in general.

We have the most conservative President in memory and the greatest number of conservative senators in memory. Another O'Connor would be a disaster. Full stop.

Luckily, Roberts is another Rehnquist.

I have thought for a while that Roberts was a "free pick" -- somebody with credentials so unbelievably good that they would actually matter. Seems I was right, and he's bulletproof.

The test of the McCain 14 deal will come with Luttig's nomination next.

rds:

Justices rather seldom turn out the way president's expect them to. Hopefully he's as conservative as one of our most conservative justices was--more would be gravy.

ghost:

He's only a gimme thanks to the deal.

That's probably true, oj, and I've never dissed the deal. But I do think it potentially puts a sideboard on Bush's right. McCain and Lieberman have enormous leverage in this ongoing campaign. Being more or less a Centrist, myself, I don't find that objectionable.

Of course, I also think O'Connor has been a fine Justice, and even Souter doesn't give me indigestion.

After studying Roberts and his works for the last couple days, I feel very comfortable in saying that he is profoundly conservative.

One aspect of conservatism is a distaste for changing things that do not absolutely have to be changed. I don't think he will be willing to come out and overrule some cases that have been in place for a long time.

For instance he might approach abortion by voting to uphold the partial birth abortion law without directly overruling Roe v Wade. He will probably refuse to extend Lawrence to gay marriage. In his opinions he may say that those cases stand, but he may cast doubt on their reasoning and suggest that further legislation would be upheld.

Other than abortion and affirmative action, Sandra D. is conservative. I don't see how you can call her anything but a moderate conservative.

Roberts may be a Reinquist or may be an O'Connor. Reinquist would be better but you can't have everything.

Roberts certainly is a highly competent lawyer. His technical skills far exceed all, or certainly nearly all, of the current supremes.

I would think that a highly competent moderate conservative would be valued by all conservatives even if he doesn't vote to
overturn Roe.

Astounding editorial from "The Forward" today:

"In choosing Roberts, Bush appears to have found the combination that has eluded conservatives for a quarter-century in their efforts to remake the high court: a brilliant legal mind with deeply conservative views but a slim paper trail, widely admired in the legal community and all but certain to win easy Senate confirmation."

"The nomination is one more reminder that liberalism's four-decade reliance on the federal courts as a means of advancing its favorite causes has reached the end of its usefulness. Democracy is about winning elections, not lawsuits. Liberals should have figured that out years ago. Now they have no choice . . ."

"While it's true, as his defenders say, that Roberts was making those arguments not in his own behalf but for the administrations that employed him, it's also true that he chose to work for those administrations. Moreover, he was chosen for those jobs because he was politically sympathetic. His record includes not just legal writings but voluntary associations with some of the most conservative organizations on the legal scene, including the Federalist Society and the Washington Legal Foundation. He is not an enigma, but a conservative . . ."

"It seems pointless, given Roberts's history, to search for signs of another Souter or Blackmun waiting to burst forth as a defender of minorities and the poor. Bush campaigned on a promise to move the country and the court to the right, and he has the votes to do it . . ."

http://www.forward.com/articles/3673

oj,

Not the millions of Americans who belong to the NRA and other groups like Gun Owners of America which are even more extreme.

Bob,

'Other than abortion and affirmative action, Sandra D. is conservative'

Other than the fact that he is blind, Stevie Wonder is a great marksman.

BTW, what's conservative about a willingness to apply foreign law as a precedent in American courts?

does o'connor self-identify one way or the other ? that foreign law bs is the antithesis of conservative.

bart:

Yes, them too.

OJ,

Using your own dictionary again I see. When you do that, at least try providing some kind of OJ-English cheat sheet so the rest of us can follow along.

Bart: I don't think one can reasonably require 100% agreement on all issues, no matter how seemingly important. Abortion is very important but not the sole definition of a conservative. Neither is affirmative action. People can have different opinions without being heretics. What was Goldwater's view on abortion? My recollection was that he was not pro-life. So, was Goldwater not a conservative? There can be several different types of conservatives, don't you think?

Goldwater was a States Rights conservative. Like me, he saw no reason why there had to be the same law concerning abortion in Utah and New York. O'Connor has no such consistent intellectual thought pattern or mode of analysis in her career.

I don't expect a Supreme Court nominee to have my positions on everything, certainly not my absolutism on First Amendment or gun freedom issues. However, affirmative action is different. For me to support someone who was in favor of racial preference would be like my supporting someone who wanted to obliterate Israel. The issue of affirmative action, which goes directly to equal protection and contrary to the central American notion that everyone deserves a reasonable shot at the brass ring and that we should advance based on our efforts and abilities and not on extraneous criteria, is for me a virtually existential question when it comes to the US. The US ceases having any raison d'etre if we incorporate racial preference into our firmament. At that point, I become a second-class citizen and I might as well start looking into to real estate in Belize or Argentina or Thailand.

O'Connor's other great sin is her use of foreign precedent in writing Supreme Court decisions. When France or Luxembourg or Togoland get electoral votes and Congressional seats, then we should be interested in what their courts have to say, not before. This issue isn't even ideological, but is instead a violation of her oath of office where she swears loyalty to the Constitution, not to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, not to Mrs. Windsor, not to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, etc.

Or Jim Crow.

Bart: People vote all the time on how government action effects them personally. It's not, though, generally considered to be a brave stand for principle.

The NRA supports all kinds of things like added time for crimes committed with guns, limits on felons, bans on nuclear weapons, etc. Once you establish the right is limited it's just a matter of line drawing.

Did you vote for President Bush, Bart? He supports affirmative action.

Nothing wrong with looking at other common law jurisdictions for help in interpreting stuff. Its just helpful, not binding.

David,

Voting your self-interest is the highest principle. It's what America is all about. Read some Tocqueville.

oj,

Hardly. Your argument is like someone claiming that because one believes that human sacrifice should be illegal, he must therefore be anti-religion. Supporting reasonable punishments for criminals is not 'gun control' any more than denying felons voting rights is a denial of their equal protection.

Hell, before the Elain Gonzales matter, I used to support laws banning the possession by ordinary citizens of armor-piercing bullets. After I saw the behavior of the jack-booted thugs from the INS, I changed my mind.

That hardly puts me in the same league with 'conservatives' like you and Chuckie Schumer.

Bob,

His opponent was worse on the issue. Remember Bill Clinton's PT Barnum Hall of Oddities Cabinet that supposedly 'looked like America.' And Bush's actual efforts weren't unreasonable to my mind, his 10% solution in Texas I thought was quite creative.

It's always interesting what judges in England or Zimbabwe do in a similar case, but it should not be dispositive. You do not cite foreign law as authoritative in a Supreme Court decision, if you do so, you are violating your oath of office and should be impeached and bounced out forthwith. You also do not claim in speeches or in opinions that it is important for America to be 'in line' with the views of foreign judges on any matter. That is clearly treasonous behavior and should be swiftly followed by impeachment, removal from office, arrest,trial, conviction and execution.

oj

"added time for committing crimes with guns" thus implying a limited right.

Such a position by the NRA, only recognizes that guns are more inherently dangerous than butter knives. In no way does it undermine the premise that guns can be used for lawful purposes, or possessed by individuals.

By the way is there a ban on nuclear weapons? Not that I wouldn't favor one.

h:

yes, it just undermines the rather silly idea that there's an absolute right--everyone supports limits on arms.

If Goldwater believed that different states can have different laws regarding abortion, then he would not have favored Roe. Roe denied states any say in the matter.

There are three positions to be taken with respect to abortion. There is the liberal position, as embodied in Roe, that abortion is a constitutionally guarenteed right. There is the moderate position that abortion laws are to be decided by the states. And there is the (social) conservative position that life begins at conception and a fetus has a constitutional right to life, and no state legislature can void that right by making abortion legal.

Noone on the present court holds the conservative position. That position will require a constitutiona amendment. So if Roberts cannot be expected to vote to overturn Roe, then the liberals should be popping corks at his nomination.

Opposition to Roe is the driving force behind Bush's Religious Right constituency. If all he does with his presidency is leave the court with the same balance with regard to Roe than it had when he took office, then they will have wasted their support.