John Roberts of FOX News describing John Roberts about three minutes ago:
He's been a corporate lawyer for all of that time and most that really doesn't apply here.
So there's your official frame announced openly for the first time as far as I know: It's all about abortion. The Supreme Court of the United States doesn't have anything to do with corporate decisions. And FOX won't be the only ones pushing this.
This will be the fastest confirmation in the history of the court. I don't know why he didn't wear the robe to the announcement.
Remember what Sirota wrote last week:
Business cases, many concerning the reach of regulation and interaction of state and federal governments, consume a large chunk of the Supreme Court's docket. Now for the first time, the National Association of Manufacturers, which represents big corporations, is creating a committee of executives to screen the business rulings of prospective nominees...Two lower-court judges have drawn interest in corporate circles because they represented companies on regulatory matters before going on the federal bench: John Roberts of the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals and Michael McConnell of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver...
Plus he's cute.
And you should have heard Nina Totenburg on NPR as she *gushed* over how *smart* and *wonderful* he is. You'd swear she was trying to seduce him right there on the radio.
Bleh.
Posted by: fred | July 19, 2005 at 09:31 PM
Not a fucking dime for NPR from me as long as they have these gushers. I've emailed my California Senators as follows:
A partisan hack for Supreme Court Justice ? Did the President seek your advise and consent on this choice ?
No, for God's sake, No, filibuster, whatever it takes.
Do the job you were elected to do.
Posted by: Aeolus | July 20, 2005 at 12:32 AM
Hey Fred. Hi Aeolus. You guys will probably be mad at me too then because I say pass the guy with flying colors. Unless there's some proof out there that he's an idealouge on Roe, then the battle is lost with the public. They don't care what his interpretation of the Commerce Clause and how that affects the Endangered Species Act or OSHA or a million other things that will end up in tatters over the next ten years. And there's no way to explain it to them. And the people who should be trying to explain it to us are so far in the tank for corporate interests tha they really don't even know it. They think they're players now themselves.
Aeolus: I stopped listening to NPR a while ago. It's doing exactly what the radical Republicans want me to do but I can't stomach their news any longer.
Posted by: eRobin | July 20, 2005 at 07:54 AM
I think you're probably right, eRobin, but I'm cajoling people to make some noise anyhow.
Posted by: Chris Clarke | July 20, 2005 at 05:22 PM
He's an ideologue on Roe. He's written numerous times in conservative publications that Roe is bad law and should be overturned as soon as possible. For Bush, this is a two-fer: an anti-Roe ideologue and a corporate lawyer friendly to oligarchs.
Having said that, I see no point in fighting him. His record is all over the (conservative) spectrum; Roe is, so far as I can tell, the only issue he's an ideologue about. I'm not even convinced he will be as good a friend to corporations as Bush and his corporate backers assume he will be. I'd give him a very hard time over Roe and his corporate background, then vote for him. If he's rejected, his replacement--a la Bork--will be ten times worse. I think Chris is right: pass him eventually but make a lot of noise first.
Posted by: Mick | July 20, 2005 at 08:58 PM
Yep - that's basically Amanda Panda's idea too, which I endorsed at the American Street. Now let's see if the Dems can do it. I predict glowing speeches about his fitness from Schumer and Biden and their ilk.
Posted by: eRobin | July 20, 2005 at 09:38 PM