JOHN ROBERTS IN THE HOUSE OF WAX

NOW THAT THE SHOCK OF BUSH NOMINATING A FIFTY YEAR OLD RIGHT WHITE GUY HAS WORN OFF, I Found Myself Again Shocked to Discover that John Roberts is a Beltway Insider. Then I found out he had done some work for the Republican Party in Florida.  Then I found out he thought Roe was settled law, but that it was settled wrong.  Then I remembered how much everyone cited how John Roberts has argued thirty nine cases before the Supreme Court.  Somebody tell me how many he has won.

Everyone says it. John Roberts has a judicial temperament. While he has only been a Federal judge for two years, John Roberts has argued thirty nine cases before the Supreme Court. Damned lawyers (or more politely, learned in the law attorneys) take sides in an argument.  John Roberts has done that thirty nine times before the Supreme Court. People credit that number thirty nine an awful lot.  That is a lot of arguing. On what side he argued and how is how he can be judged. Remember Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall? When he argued before the Supreme Court, he didn’t take the side of Board of Education, he took the side of Brown. In Brown v Board of Education, Marshall and this nation won.

Many now wax long and strong about John Roberts as though his success is a given (as so many things are given to right white guys), but whether John Roberts and his record will melt under scrutiny remains to be seen.  Argument about who will decide on arguments will continue heatedly.  Many will forge this as a political battle with winners and losers. Whether the American people win now is all that matters.

PREVIOUS HERETIK POST ON JOHN ROBERTS: [WHO IS THIS GUY?]

RECOMMENDED READING
[DED] Just so you know....According to RedState.org, John Roberts' wife, Jane, is the former vice president of an anti-choice organization, Feminists for Life.

[HOWARD KURTZ/WASHINGTON POST] At 1:27 a.m. yesterday, the Guerilla Women of Tennessee weighed in on President Bush's Supreme Court nominee.
"John Roberts: Married to Anti-Choice Org VP," the group's Web site blared. Another site, A Liberal Dose, asked: "Why does John G. Roberts Hate Our Soldiers?"
And Feministing.com made no attempt at subtlety: "Why John Roberts Sucks."
The lightning-quick attacks came after 50 top liberal bloggers held a 45-minute conference call Tuesday night. [HAT TIP: TALK LEFT]

[COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW] ECHO CHAMBER It's Clement! No, It's Roberts! No, It's a Mariachi Band! What's a Cable News Talking Head to do when he has spent all afternoon on air next to a blow-up headshot of Judge Edith Brown Clement and an on-screen bullet-pointed biography of Clement -- and suddenly he gets wind that Clement might not be the president's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court?

[MAJIKTHISE] The Republicans are setting up certain expectations about the upcoming fight. They pretend that a senator is obliged to support the president's choice unless they can cite an egregious violation of ethics or jurisprudence.
Republicans are trying to encourage the misconception that a nominee's views are irrelevant. As convenient as that assumption is for the side that picks the nominees, it's still wrong. The standard line is that what matters is the soundness of the nominee's legal reasoning, not his substantive conclusions. The logical rejoinder is that nominations are political decisions within a system of checks and balances.

[KING OF ZEMBLA] Benjamin Wittes . . .wrote an ARTICLE in the May Atlantic on the disturbing prospect of a Supreme Court packed with, or tilted by, Bush nominees. Alarmist liberals, Wittes said, tend to exaggerate the danger that an even-more-conservative court would pose to abortion, civil liberties, and the like. However, they underestimate the threat to another area "where the stakes are truly immense": protection of the environment.

[HAPPY SCRAPPY] I wonder who gets a bigger head at an event like that: The president who knows he’s making a mark that’ll last a generation, like pissing on a tree and leaving a permanent stain; or, the guy who thinks to himself, "Even if I get thyroid cancer and stop showing up for work, I still get to keep this job. Sweet!"
[HAT TIP: JILLIAN JOHNSON/SKIPPY]

[NEWSWRITER] Top 10 reasons to nominate John Roberts for the Supreme Court

BACKGROUND READING [DKOSPEDIA: JOHN ROBERTS]

MORE TO FOLLOW
 

Comments

[ol cranky]

Ms. Jane Sullivan Roberts is also a partner at Shawn Pittman, you're one-stop shopping for those who want to < ahref="http://www.pillsburylaw.com/go/areamaster.nsf/practices-all/International:%20Iraq%20Reconstruction">make some cold hard cash in the rebuilding of Iraq.

[ol cranky]

BTW - have you guys read this yet?

Argument Five - THE COMMERCE CLAUSE: According to Schumer, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass, and the liberal Alliance for Justice, Roberts’s interpretation of the Commerce Clause is so restrictive that it would cripple federal powers.

“To me, the number one issue is the Commerce Clause,” Schumer said.

The underpinning of the expansive federal government is this phrase in the Constitution: “The Congress shall have Power... To regulate Commerce… among the several States...."

The Commerce Clause is the basis for the Endangered Species Act and other laws that affect businesses and individuals every day from Anchorage to Atlanta.

It may turn out that the most important thing Roberts has written in his 25 years of lawyering and judging is a dissent — amounting to barely more than one page — in a case called Rancho Viejo LLC v. Norton, issued on July 22, 2003.

In it, Roberts questioned whether the Endangered Species Act of 1973 gives federal regulators the power to stop a housing development that might affect the survival of a species, the arroyo toad, which lives within the boundaries of one state, California.

[Night Bird]

Ol Cranky:

I cannot get your link to work, can you post it again.

[Night Bird]

Ol Cranky: Do not worry I got it.

Iraq Reconstruction

[Night Bird]

John G. Roberts is a member of the Federalist Society

[Shakespeare's Sister]

Joe, have you seen this?

Also, I read someone pointing out (can't remember who) that the people now saying that 2 years is plenty of experience are the same ones were crowing about how John Edwards' 6 years as a Senator was not sufficient experience to hold the Vice Presidency. Interesting.

[coach purses]

If you want to sing a song. Make it simple to last your whole life long. Don't worry that it's not good enough For anyone else to hear.Just sing, sing a song!