Posted 3 years, 4 months ago in the wee hours by abogado
I suppose this is my department. Having spent the last year in law school you would think I would know a thing or two about the law, and consequently would have some opinion about the nomination of John Roberts to the SCOTUS. The truth is I know very little about the law, and have no objection to the nomination of Roberts. What I do know has taught me that Mr. Roberts is about as qualified as they come. I would not have nominated him. I also (unfortunately) was not elected President. Regardless of my opinions about Mr. Bush, Roberts is the kind of guy that transcends politics. Case in point: for some reason, I still receive emails from MoveOn.org. If they can’t come up with better stuff than this then how can you oppose the guy:
In nominating John Roberts, the president has chosen a right wing corporate lawyer and ideologue for the nation’s highest court instead of a judge who would protect the rights of the American people. Working for mining companies, Roberts opposed clean air rules and worked to help coal companies strip-mine mountaintops. He worked with Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr), and tried to keep Congress from defending the Voting Rights Act. He wrote that Roe v. Wade should be “overruled,” and as a lawyer argued (and won) the case that stopped some doctors from even discussing abortion.
This shows a complete lack of understanding of what it means to be a lawyer in America and a misinterpretation of how the legal system works. For a liberal organization that should understand the value of process, they completely disregard the fact that we have in place an adversarial system where it is the lawyer’s duty to represent their client to the best of their ability and to let the judges and juries decide the outcome. Roberts may have many things going against him (I haven’t seen them yet – other than his being “right wing”) but none of them are included in the above. All this demonstrates is that they disagree with his positions, but they make no legal attempt to discredit them and as such undermine any shred of credibility they may have had. This frustrates me to the extent that there will likely be a political battle (maybe even in the next few months) where very relevant arguments can be made, but MoveOn and others on the left are showing that they lack the objective credibility to make such arguments.
This, to me, is shameful. This is pure partisan nonsense, a la what Democrats (rightfully) claim to disdain about Republicans (see e.g., attacks against John Edwards). The man was summa cum laude at Harvard and magna at Harvard Law. He clerked for Rehnquist. He worked in government at the DoJ , went to private practice, and then returned to government again (which, I promise you, pays nada compared to what he made at Hogan & Hartson), arguing some of the above cases for the US at the DoJ. This guy is the paradigm of a qualified attorney and a top-notch legal mind. Compared to someone like Gonzalez, Roberts is the Jesus H. Christ of legaldom.
What I am slowly but inexorably coming to realize is that my lack of knowledge, and corresponding lack of opinion, is not a fault or a failure on my part. In fact I am quite proud that my intense hatred of all-things-neo-con has not clouded my rationality like those of the MoveOn.org clan who would oppose the re-nomination of O’Connor herself were Bush to be the one putting it forth. The law, the Supreme Court, and the country have survived much more valid threats and have survived. People need to take a step back and realize that there are things that are more important than ephemeral political battles. I think John Roberts will do exactly that, and that is all we can ask of any Supreme Court Justice.
I read an op-ed in WaPo saying liberals shouldn’t trust him because conservatives haven’t rejected him. I thought that was pretty funny.
His hair was pretty bad in the 80’s, but Republicans can’t help that.
Just when I thought I was gonna get through an Abogado post without any latin, there it was: summa cum laude. Well, at least it had cum in it.
I really should start doing something on my Friday nights other than this.
Damn, I’m impressed. Here I was thinking of temporarily changing my avator to the GWB one, in anticapation of a judicial disagreement, and than you post something very fair and reasonable like this!!
What makes me feel even guiltier, is that I was mad at Bush for picking Roberts. Here we are controlling the white house, the senate, the house, we have an agreement on filibuster bans, and Bush decides to pick a moderate conservative to replace another moderate conservative? WTF. Yeah, Roberts is probably a bit more conservative than O’Connor, but not much. He will probably end up being a Rehnquist conservative, which isn’t nearly as conservative as I was hoping. I was hoping, indeed, I was demanding, that Bush put another Thomas or Scalia on the court. Than he went and put this guy on, a guy who should pass even if we didn’t control the senate or have a filibuster deal. What a waste of an opportunity, I thought.
But you’re right, that was me being partisan, that was me being blinded by my ‘neo-con’ views, and losing sight of the bigger picture, that being that Bush did pick a very qualified judge, a judge that both sides can respect, and a judge with integrity, and respect for the law and constitution. So I guess I should be happy about that.
However, when Rehnquist retires….
Just wanted to write a quick note to say I’m impressed as well. Nice post.
I’m crossing my fingers though in hopes that he does indeed turn out to be a good judge…
Well if HP and Peter think this was a good post, then I obviously think it sucked.
That was me trying to be ironic.
whats an “abogado”?
HP, “Yeah, Roberts is a bit more conservative than O’Connor, but not much. ”
what do you think, HP? Is Roberts a 16 or more like an 18? O’Connor was definitely close to a 24 vertical, 18 horizontal. my guess is 22.
Exactly my friend. Exactly. The knee jerk reaction of liberals to this nomination is pathetic. His “anti-abortion” brief was written for a client (the US Government) and (as is his duty as a lawyer) he had to make arguments necessary to give his client the best chance to win the case. And, oh, by the way, they DID win the case. Must not have been that nutty of an argument.
The guy is an absolute genius, you forgot to mention he was the managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. The ONLY real knock on him is his lack of experience on the bench, as he has only worked at the DC Court of Appeals for about 2 years. However, in those two years he has authored 40 opinions, for which only THREE had dissents. Meaning of the 40 times he made the argument that decided the case, only three times did any of the other justices disagree with him.
Also, we should not soon forget that Sandra Day O’Connor was nominated by Ronald Reagan and turned out to be a rather moderate judge. And Earl Warren was nominated by Eisenhower as a conservative, and ended up being an EXTREMELY liberal judge in the Civil Rights movement.
Basically, Bush is going with someone with very little track record because he wants to avoid a major fight. It’s unfortunate, but hey, that’s how we got Souter. I’m just wondering how he managed to not nominate Easterbrook or Posner.
[...] So, in the spirit of avoiding work that is desperately overdue I present my also long overdue opinion of Mr. Alito. I feel like I was pretty fair with Roberts and Miers, so hopefully I retain some credibility with our conservative readers when I say Alito should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court. I largely accept the premise that nominations to the Supreme Court are political and thus the corollary that Bush should be allowed to nominate whoever he wants. This is mostly because I also accept the premise that judging itself is largely a political process. There is simply no way to be objective when it comes to the major contemporary legal issues; every judge makes value decisions when deciding what the constitution means. In some ways this limits my arguments; I can’t yell and scream about protecting our rights and the like because I think our “rights” as defined in the Constitution are pretty vague and subject to opinion. Likewise, I can’t claim to know precisely what the founder’s meant in drafting each provision of the Constitution. So I’m left with political arguments. But I think at the moment these arguments are pretty strong. [...]