John Roberts: Unprincipled
John Roberts: Unprincipled
John Roberts, 9/13/05:
I do feel compelled to point out that I should not…agree or disagree with particular decisions. And I’m reluctant to do that. That’s one of the areas where I think prior nominees have drawn the line when it comes to, Do you agree with this case or do you agree with that case? And that’s something that I’m going to have to draw the line in the sand.
John Roberts, 9/13/05:
I agree with the Griswold court’s conclusion that marital privacy extends to contraception and availability of that.
In his testimony, Roberts explained he only won’t talk about cases that are “live with business.” When is something “live with business”? When John Roberts says it is.
As Sen. Arlen Specter noted there have been 38 cases in which Roe has been taken up and had its core holding upheld. Roberts still considers that case “live” and off-limits. There is no principle. Roberts talks about cases when it is politically convenient. When it isn’t he clams up.
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It doesn’t matter, he’s a media darling. They love that guy and the ridiculous outfits he dresses his kids in.
September 14th, 2005 at 10:36 amListening to Orin Hatch make his speech this AM, basically encouraging Duddly Do-Right to keep his mouth shut and keep stonewalling made me want to throw up. Duddly will be confirmed, no doubt, as if he has an original opinion outside the Administration, we won’t know until later. Just supposing, however, that his opinion goes against most of what the Republicans are hoping for. People change with time, age, and experience: usually to a more progressive and tolerant point of view. Unless you are a complete sociopath with a one-track mind, like Bolton and Bush.
September 14th, 2005 at 11:04 amBiden, despite the love of his own voice, really DID catch Roberts yesterday violating the “Ginsberg rule” on a question regarding Moore v. East Cleveland … so I think it’s clear to Americans that Roberts is going to answer whatever he feels like, and finally a party vote will push him through and that’s that.
September 14th, 2005 at 11:09 amBiden was pretty well spoken. I loved it when he told roberts to continue not answering the question.
Way too smooth for the repugnicans to catch.
If you are hoping roberts might actually do the right thing, we have a better chance of Reinquist returning to the land of the living.
They are hell-bent on getting the most ultra right-wing zealots in place by the time we actually get an election right. (man voted in that actually gets the job)
Heck, if you helped me steal a presidential election, giving you a lifetime job with huge power would be the very least I could do for you.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:10 pmThis administration feels the noose tightening but it has yet to either change their ways or to quit fighting to achieve their wrong-wing agenda.
These clowns are taking this country and the world down the same path as germany in the 1930’s. We don’t have the 1 enemy on the list this time, we have several: Muslims, Blacks & Gays. Quite a workforce for their little war machines too.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:14 pmwow. What a shocker. You mean to tell me that Roberts actually refuses to put his head on the chopping block voluntarily? What kind of man is this? Please don’t point out the obvious and pretend it is somehow insightful. No rational person, liberal or conservative, would do anything other than exert the minimal effort needed for confirmation.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:18 pmHe fits right in with the bushies…dodge,weave,etc.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:38 pmHe’ll restart roe/wade so fast a bullet train can’t catch it.
Feingold for President, Graham for Sale
http://caveshadows.typepad.com/cave_shadows/2005/09/feingold_for_pr.html
September 14th, 2005 at 12:42 pmThere is no diffrence politicaly between Judge Roberts and Mr. Bush, the only diffrences are Robert’s is better looking and far more intelligent. Altho I hate to see him installed because of his far right opinions, sadly he will get the job because of the right wing holding the most seats. Bush again get’s to pay someone back for the favors rendered during the 2000 election. We must impeach Bush now..Blessings
September 14th, 2005 at 12:42 pmSorry, the complaint doesn’t fly — there’s a difference between Roberts speaking about Griswold while refusing to discuss Roe.
Roberts said he agreed with the result of Griswold, but pointed out — as he said many times through the hearing — that there is a right to privacy “focused on the due process clause and liberty, rather than Justice Douglas’ approach [in Griwold].
Roberts affirmed the right of privacy arising out of the 14th amendment. This is a good thing. It’s also no more contraversal than affirming that the constitution contains a 1st amendment.
The Griswold case concerned the right of a married person to buy condoms — something illegal in CT at the time. Roberts noted
“I feel comfortable commenting on Griswold and the result in Griswold because that does not appear to me to be an area that is going to come before the court again.”
Do you honestly think those facts would ever come before the court again?
As for Roe — yep, been affirmend 38 times. And it’s a live issue — it was mentioned a couple of times that there’s a case with reference to Roe coming before the court in the next session.
Sounds like a principled decision to me. Or to put it a less argumentative way — I would never feel comfortable writing what you wrote based upon the actual facts.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:44 pmAnd this is supposed to be one of those times where we shouldn’t be cynical?! Good grief, the nightmare just keeps getting worse… who’s gonna come after the media darling Roberts? Goebbels’ grandson? For four decades now I have slaved under the oppression of the baby boomers. Now Gen-X and our juniors will get to live out our days under the lingering tyranny of the Boomer elites and their pretty boy pick as Chief Justice. What my children can expect is to inherit a savage dystopia where aristocrats and corporate plutocrats act on every whim and lust at the public’s expanse. The days of the Roman empire will look like a mere birthday party as the ravages of privileged elites’ excess and largesse are purchased on the bared and scarred backs of our kids who will face compulsory motherhood, compulsory Christianity, and constant hunger and every deprivation while the Barbies and Kens smile and giggle on their way to shop and recreate.
September 14th, 2005 at 12:44 pmThis guys is going to be confirmed as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and he hasn’t answered any meaningful question posed by the Democratic Senators at all. I don’t care if Ginsberg didn’t answer certain specific questions or not. This Judge is doing everything he can not to be honest and tell the truth although he swore to tell the truth when he took the oath. The Republican would support Judge Bork if Bush had nominated him again. They are prepared aren’t doing there jobs when they try to rubberstamp this guy for Chief Justice.
He keeps saying, “I will listen to the arguments from bothsides and keep an open mind”, but so did Thomas and the other dictators on the right. They are not the least bit interested in the Constitution, they only want a Police State, which they say they hate. On every case involving Police misconduct, they side with the Police. The so called conservatives say they hated communism and the Soviet Union, but we have become more like the Soviet State since Rehnquist and this crowd sat on the Court.
Just think about what was happening in the Soviet Union during the Stalin era until recent years. People being held without charge, neighbors being encouraged to spy on each other, no right to attorney, to right to be secure in your own home, the government taking peoples property with cause, arrest and detention with trial. All of these are provisions of the USA Patriot Act. The Act has not been over turned because the so called Conservatives in government and on the Supreme Court are for the government, not the people.
The day they past the Patriot Act, the US Constitution was torn up and thrown out with the trash. Judge Roberts doesn’t think people have a right to privacy, women have no right to abortion, and blacks and minorities don’t really have a right to vote for the same rights as every other American. If this guys is the type of Justices we will have on our highest Court then this Country is in real trouble, not from outside forces, but our own courts. How ever coined the phrase, “We have met the Enemy and he is us”, was never so right.
Watch out Conservatives, and be careful what you wish for, because you might very well get it. Your hate and intolerance will be the downfall of a once great nation. Who needs terrorist when you got conservatives unwittingly doing their work for them. The more our rights are taken away by the idiots on the right, the more Bin Laden laughs at us all. They are doing exactly what he can’t do. We say we want to bring democracy to Iraq. But they are taking our democracy away at the same time. They often quote Ronald Reagan when taking away our rights. I believe Mr. Reagan is turning over in his grave along with the founding fathers when they see Conservatives taking away rights guanteed by the Constitution. For example the 4th Admendment barely still exist anymore.
Think about what I’m saying before you conservatives jump all over me. Ronald Reagan wasn’t for big government, he hated it. He wouldn’t have been for the Patriot Act. Why? Because i think he would say, “If you take away the rights of the American People the Terrorist win”. If you are a true conservative like I am, you’d be for eliminating government not making more of it. He was anti big spending, this administration and spent us into deficits as far as the mind can think ahead. He didn’t believe government was the solution, Mr Reagan though big government was the problem. I completely agree with him we need to get rid of all of these new big brother programs and leave the American people alone. http://WWW.plainnews.blogspot.com
September 14th, 2005 at 1:02 pmRoberts also said he agreed that Lochner v. New York, the holy grail of federalism cases that the Federalist Society wants to see reinstated, was properly overrulled as bad precedent.
Far from being “settled,” the issue of federalism, and the limitation of the commerce clause has been “live wu=ith business” lately in federal courts.
September 14th, 2005 at 2:08 pmThis should be a question at the hearings:
“The President, during the campaign, promised that should he be reelected, he would appoint justices to the Supreme Court who were like Justice Antonin Scalia.
Well, Judge Roberts, can you tell use if the Preisdent kept his campaign promise? Where do you agree with, or differ from Justice Scalia in your judicial methodology, temperment and ideology? If at all?
I’ll just sit back and let you answer that in detail, with a few follow up qestions.”
September 14th, 2005 at 2:13 pmJudd just plain doesn’t know what he is talking about. He is either ignorant or dishonest.
In its 1965 Griswold decision the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law that had made it a crime for Planned Parenthood to provide birth control counselling and contraceptives to married couples who wanted to prevent the unplanned conception of a child. The case presented the question whether the Constitution protects the right of marital privacy against state restrictions on a couple’s ability to be counseled in the use of contraceptives. The Court held that, while the Constitution does not explicitly protect a general right to privacy, the various guarantees of privacy and liberty within the Bill of Rights operate together to establish a right to marital privacy. The Court struck down the Connecticut law as violative of that right.
There simply is no dispute whatsoever about this decision among modern legal scholars. Judd would have to look long and hard to find any legal scholar who argues today that Griswold ought to be overturned. To that extent, it is far different from Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, both of which are the subjects of vigorous, continuing debate throughout the body politic, including courts and legislatures. The validity of both cases will be at the heart of two abortion limits cases (concerning partial birth abortion and parental notification) that are on the Court’s docket for the 2005-06 term.
So you see, contrary to Judd’s blinkered reading of his statements, there is a principled basis for Judge Roberts’ responses after all. Can you say “Chief Justice Roberts”?
September 14th, 2005 at 7:09 pm“These clowns are taking this country and the world down the same path as germany in the 1930’s.”
Way off topic and way over the top. This is more “Bush=Hitler” garbage. If you knew anything at all about Germany in the 1930’s, you’d never make such asinine remarks.
September 14th, 2005 at 7:14 pm“These clowns are taking this country and the world down the same path as germany in the 1930’s.”
Just for the record: (1) America has no military draft, (2) we have an all-volunteer military, (3) the U.S. military is smaller now than it was 15 years ago, (4) we have not withdrawn from the UN, (5) we have not violated or withdrawn from any existing peace treaties, (6) we have not violated or withdrawn from any existing arms accords, (7) we have not occupied any neighboring countries, (8) we have not passed any domestic laws defining Jews or other racial or ethnic groups as second class citizens, (9) our economy is booming, (10) there are an unprecedented number of press, media and Internet news sources, and (11) there is an unprecedented variety of unrestrained social and political debate throughout our culture.
Any comparison between Bush and Hitler, or between America today and 1930s Germany, is as wacky as it gets. I think you should go play with your tinfoil hat, and let the adults here handle the serious stuff.
September 14th, 2005 at 7:39 pm“Think about what I’m saying before you conservatives jump all over me.”
comment by Koolhandluke
OK Kool, I’ve thought about it. You’re a Utopian. Reality isn’t your forte. How old are you, sixteen?
September 14th, 2005 at 7:39 pmRoberts’ replies to the baiting left have been on-point, firm, and completely within the bounds of what is required of judicial branch nominee. Read your Constitution.
September 16th, 2005 at 2:10 pm[...] Coupled with her previous support for a constitutional ban on abortion, Miers’ silence on the matter is notable. Even John Roberts, who refused to discuss his position on virtually any past cases during his hearings, did state his support for Griswold: I agree with the Griswold court’s conclusion that marital privacy extends to contraception and availability of that. [...]
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