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October 31, 2005
Sound Familiar?
Ralph Neas, from People for the American Way when John Roberts was nominated for the Supreme Court:
“It is extremely disappointing that the President did not choose a consensus nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor,” said Neas. “John Roberts’ record raises serious concerns and questions about where he stands on crucial legal and constitutional issues – it will be critical for Senators and the American people to get answers to those questions. Replacing O’Connor with someone who is not committed to upholding Americans’ rights, liberties, and legal protections would be a constitutional catastrophe.”When Harriet Miers was nominated, from PFAW's press release:
If confirmed, Miers would replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the key vote on many crucial 5-4 decisions on the Supreme Court. Justice O’Connor cast a number of decisive votes protecting the right of privacy, reproductive freedom for women, the constitutional principle of government neutrality toward religion, effective civil rights remedies, environmental protection, congressional authority to protect Americans’ rights and more.Ralph Neas, today, on the nomination of Samuel Alito:
“Replacing a mainstream conservative like Justice O’Connor with a far-right activist like Samuel Alito would threaten Americans’ rights and legal protections for decades,” said Neas. “Justice O’Connor had a pivotal role at the center of the Court, often providing a crucial vote to protect privacy, civil rights, and so much more. All that would be at risk if she were replaced with Judge Alito, who has a record of ideological activism against privacy rights, civil rights, workers’ rights, and more.”These guys have got to get some new rhetoric. Every nominee has come under the same exact line of attack. It's almost enough to make you believe that Karl Rove orchestrated all of this to make the left pull out their talking points not once, not twice but three times.
Posted by slublog at October 31, 2005 09:40 AM
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Comments
This may make the left look like a broken record, but there isn't any reason for them to change their message, is there? They are concerned that SCOTUS will no longer make decisions on social issues that they can live with--and wouldn't you be if Kerry was the one making these nominations? So they will do all they can to make sure that far-right justices are not appointed, including consistently suggesting that they would accept a mildly right justice instead. At least they are being honest about their objection.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at October 31, 2005 10:10 AM
But the point is that they won't even accept a mildly right judge. If they were willing to do that, they would have fought in favor of Miers when she was being criticized by the right.
The point is, they are going to slap the 'far right' label on anyone this president nominates. Their rhetoric is not nominee-specific, given that they issue the same press release moments after each nominee is announced.
Posted by: Slublog at October 31, 2005 10:17 AM
The other thing is that ideology is not a fair objection to a Supreme Court nominee. The left can crow all they want about the so-called 'far right' views of Alito (as they did with Roberts) but that won't change the fact that Republicans were much more fair with Clinton nominees Ginsberg and Breyer than the Democrats have been with any of Bush's nominees.
Plus, the Dem rhetoric may seem consistent, but it's politically risky, as it can be easily portrayed as obstructionist in future election campaigns. Imagine those quotes shown, one after the other, in a political ad. Give it the right slogan ("Democrats: Out of Ideas") or some such thing and it's a negative.
Posted by: Slublog at October 31, 2005 10:31 AM
I agree that ideology is not a good criterion for justices, because legislating morality is not SCOTUS' job. That notwithstanding, the social leaning of the Court appears to be important to those on the Hill. Here is why the left is using the same brush to paint everyone: they don't have the votes amongst themselves to stop any nomination, so the only thing they have left is to try to convince the RINOs that the nominee isn't "fair," that he is too extreme. So really this boils down to Frist vs. Reid for the 14, who are on the record supporting moderation. It doens't matter whether Alito is far right or not, what matters is whether the 14 can be convinced that he far right.
I got the impression that once it was clear that the GOP was going to fight Miers for them, they piped down. Before then, of course, it was the same courting the 14 as with Roberts. Roberts was just too stunningly competent to argue against without looking silly. It remains to be seen whether this is true about Alito, I haven't had a chance to look at much yet.
Posted by: MainiacJoe at October 31, 2005 10:43 AM