Posted by: McQ on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 Well we have Harry Reid saying he just can't find it in himself to vote for John Roberts to be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. There's a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with John Roberts. It has to do with the next Bush nominee. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) declared yesterday that he will vote against chief-justice nominee John Roberts and pointedly warned President Bush about his next choice for the Supreme Court in anticipation of today’s White House meeting to discuss it.It's really simple if you think about it. There is no real reason to oppose John Roberts. Oh there are torturously stretched attempts to brand him a racist or a man with no heart, but anyone with two brain cells to rub against one another reject those attempts as nonsense. No, this is about next time: “If there is a significant number opposed, that could have an impact on who the president would nominate for the second vacancy,” Neas said.Roberts is going to get the job. The Dems know that. But by opposing Roberts, probably one of, if not the most qualified nominees ever to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee, they can claim that A) he's bordering on the extreme (even if he isn't) and B) the next nominee, if he's one millimeter to the right of Roberts, is extreme. This has all been a setup job for the next nomination. That and a chance for the potential '08 Dem presidential nominees on the committee to do a little political grandstanding. The question is, will opposing Roberts come back to bite them in the political rear? As Michael Goodwin notes: As the Judiciary Committee prepares to vote tomorrow on Roberts, Dems are stuck in an embarrassing situation. President Bush was right - Roberts is supremely qualified to be head honcho of the Supreme Court. And they were wrong to jump the gun with their criticisms, as three days of hearings proved.Other than the extreme left, I think that's pretty much the view of the majority of those who've followed this process. The Senate Democrats did not come out of the hearings looking very good at all. In fact, truth be told, they proved themselves to be rather petty, pretentious and partisan in their questioning. And, as many have pointed out, using Ginsburg as an example, hypocritical in their demands. But all of that doesn't mean that they're in a political hole. Quite the contrary, it means that while they're essentially conceding the Robert's nomination, making a show of opposition puts them in the position to call any future nominee in the "extreme" category and sell that as a justification to "Bork" him or her. Harry Reid fired that warning shot yesterday when he said: “One thing I think would be a poke in the eye with a sharp stick” on the part of the president, Reid said, would be “to give us one of the 10 we’ve opposed before.”He's talking about the 10 previously filibustered, but I think its safe to say Reid and the Dems have expanded that list to just about anyone Bush finds acceptable. If you don't believe it, just take a gander at these words by Harry Reid: "The president is not entitled to very much deference in staffing the third branch of government, the judiciary."If that's not setting the tone, I don't know what is. I'd also point out that it is statement which Democrats may some day come to rue. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. |
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