Moron of the Day: L.A. Times Letter Writer Robert Earle
I’d fisk this one, but some things just fisk themselves, so instead I’ll just lay it out for all to see:
Your Sept. 20 editorial advocates that Democrats in the Senate vote to “Confirm Roberts.” Why? John G. Roberts Jr. has an extensive record of advocating positions that are in opposition to core Democratic beliefs; voting for his confirmation would be voting against those beliefs. Roberts will be confirmed. The American people assured that when they turned control of the Senate over to the Republicans. The Democrats are the opposition party, so why shouldn’t they oppose? Your editorial makes no sense.
ROBERT EARLE
Torrance
September 22nd, 2005 at 11:27 am
Heck, I think the Dems ought to not only vote against Roberts but filibuster him as well.
The Dems are under no obligation to go along with Bush’s proposals – they’re entitled to vote against things/people they don’t like and to use the processes (filibuster) that are available to them. Why shouldn’t they use the process to do what they can to keep him off the bench?
Given that Roberts’ views and Democratic Party dogma have as much in common with one another as…. Palmeiro and steroid-free baseball, if the Democrats don’t do everything they can to keep Roberts off the bench they will be guilty of abandoning their supporters.
September 22nd, 2005 at 4:14 pm
Steve, don’t you think the Democrats owe a duty to anyone but their voters? Don’t they owe a duty to America as a whole? To civil society? To an independent judiciary?
Do you really think it would be a good thing if judgeships became an entirely political position where the judges had to cater to a political party to get their positions?
Would you still feel this way if judges that don’t share your political and moral views started abusing the Constitution just like the judges who do share your views have been doing for the last forty years?
September 22nd, 2005 at 4:36 pm
Doc: the democrats owe a duty to the people that vote for them to advance a liberal agenda and one of the ways they can do so is try their darndest to see that only judges who see things ‘their’ way get onto the bench. Doing so is not illegal and, as I am sure all those strict constructionists out there would agree, if the founders did not write the Constitution to specifically preclude applying political litmus tests to judges, then it is not for us to say otherwise.
And the Democrats owe no more of a duty to those who didn’t vote for them than Bush was obligated to bring the troops home from Iraq or raise taxes because people who didn’t vote for him would have liked him to.
And, by the way, I am quite conservative.
September 22nd, 2005 at 10:18 pm
Steve, sometimes I wonder when you’re being facetious and when you’re making a serious point. Do you really believe it is the job of both parties to wipe their butts with “advise and consent” and instead vote to “bork” every judicial candidate who doesn’t share their political philosophy? How come none of the conservatives understood that when Ruth Bader Ginsburg (or Stephen Breyer, or Thurgood Marshall, or whoever) was up for a vote? Or are you buying into Mr. Earle’s apparent view that the role of an opposition party should be to oppose for opposition’s sake?
September 23rd, 2005 at 6:09 am
No, it’s not the job of an opposition party to oppose for opposition’s sake, but it is their role to do what they can to defeat programs and people they feel pose a threat to their interests… and make no mistake, Roberts poses a huge threat to the things Democrats hold dear.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that defines the term ‘advise and consent’. Each Senator is free to determine for themself what standard to apply when deciding whether to vote for or oppose a particular nominee. Senators in the minority are under no obligation to defer to the President (winning the election gives Bush nothing more than the right to nominate Justices). They may want to in the hope that if they ever gain the Presidency, the other side will return the favor, but doing so is by choice and not by rule.
While some people might not like the tactics that politicians use to advance their interests, until such time as those practices are outlawed, politicians are free to use every tool in the shed, including borking, in the pursuit of what they think is right.
You’re right that the GOP doesn’t do to Democratic nominees what the Dems have done to GOP nominees. The two parties have very different views on how to engage the other… the Dems view it as a street fight (can you imagine a Democratic controlled Senate ever passing up the opportunity to convict a GOP President accused of offenses as was Clinton?). On the other hand, the GOP has an approach more akin to the way Braddock fought the French and Indians. That explains why the GOP goes along with the likes of Ginsburg, why they didn’t filibuster Clinton’s tax hikes in 1993, why they didn’t go nuclear in response to the Dems filibuster… heck, it explains why GOP politicians tend to go soft, I mean ‘grow in office’, while I would only need one finger to count the Democratic politicians who got more conservative while in office.
September 23rd, 2005 at 4:24 pm
Steve: All Congress people owe a duty to the Constitution to vote for judges who will uphold the Constitution. If all members of the government have no duty except to those who voted for them, we quickly end up with a tyranny of the majority.
September 23rd, 2005 at 5:11 pm
Doc: every Senator ought to vote up or down on nominees based on their view of whether said nominee will ‘uphold’ the Constitution or not…. it’s simply, and I do mean simply, that there are differing views as to what upholding the Constitution means and, as such, individual Senators will have different views on whether a particular nominee will or will not uphold the Constitution.
As a rule, liberals think there’s a Constitutional right to abortion and that the Constitution allows affirmative action. And because liberals think Roberts will not uphold the Constitution (as they think he ought to) they ought to oppose his nomination.
And Xrlq, this time I am serious.
September 24th, 2005 at 10:09 am
Senators are supposed to confirm or deny judges based on competence and the likelihood they will apply the Constitution faithfully as the judges themselves understand it, not necessarily the way the Senators themselves do. If all Senators behaved like Democrats, the Supreme Court would be just another political branch, and query whether we should bother having one at all.