WP,pg1: A Move To the Right, An Eye to Confirmation

[DeepModem Mom]

A Move To the Right, An Eye to Confirmation
By Dan Balz and Charles Lane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 20, 2005; Page A01


President Bush moved boldly to shift the Supreme Court to the right last night by selecting federal appellate judge John G. Roberts Jr. to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But in choosing a jurist with establishment credentials and bipartisan allies, Bush was also looking for a nominee who could still win confirmation with some Democratic votes.

Bush appeared to have the court's future and the confirmation process in mind as he made his decision this week. All day the name of appellate Judge Edith Brown Clement floated through Washington as the president's apparent choice, but many on the right consider her conservative credentials far more suspect than Roberts's. By picking Roberts, Bush displayed his determination to put a more conservative stamp on the court.

At the same time, the president passed over a number of highly conservative judges whose nominations would have been seen as far more polarizing than Roberts's. Given that this was the first but probably not the last Supreme Court vacancy he will be asked to fill, Bush sought a less confrontational approach with the Senate than he has adopted with his lower court nominations.

Roberts faces a potentially contentious confirmation battle in any case, given the significance of O'Connor as the swing vote in many of the court's most important cases. There was no more important seat on the court than O'Connor's and outside groups on the left and right began drawing lines last night even before Bush appeared in the East Room of the White House with Roberts and his family. They have been ready for months for a noisy and lengthy argument over the future of the court....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/19/AR2005071901946.html

[merwin]

1. How can someone who is against everything dems stand for possibly have

"bipartisan allies"? Sounds like DINO's to me.

Let's see... pro-corporation, anti-choice, anti-free speech, pro-censorship. Yeah, democratic values indeed.