NYT: Nominee Roberts Is Pressed on End-of-Life Care (Schiavo)

[DeepModem Mom]

Nominee Is Pressed on End-of-Life Care
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: August 10, 2005


WASHINGTON, Aug. 9 - Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman whose case provoked Congressional action and a national debate over end-of-life care, became an issue on Tuesday in the Supreme Court confirmation of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. when a Democratic senator pressed him about whether lawmakers should have intervened.

The senator, Ron Wyden of Oregon, said that Judge Roberts, while not addressing the Schiavo case specifically, made clear he was displeased with Congress's effort to force the federal judiciary to overturn a court order withdrawing her feeding tube.

"I asked whether it was constitutional for Congress to intervene in an end-of-life case with a specific remedy," Mr. Wyden said in a telephone interview after the hourlong meeting. "His answer was, 'I am concerned with judicial independence. Congress can prescribe standards, but when Congress starts to act like a court and prescribe particular remedies in particular cases, Congress has overstepped its bounds.' "

The answer, which Mr. Wyden said his aides wrote down word-for-word, would seem to put Judge Roberts at odds with leading Republicans in Congress, including the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, and the House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay, who both led the charge for Congressional intervention in the Schiavo case this spring. Mr. DeLay said at the time that the federal judiciary had "run amok."

Mr. Wyden has a keen interest in end-of-life issues because his home state, Oregon, has a law providing for physician-assisted suicide. That law is the subject of a Supreme Court case, on the docket for Oct. 5, about whether the federal government has the right to withdraw prescribing privileges for doctors who follow the Oregon law and prescribe lethal doses of medicine to their dying patients....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/10/politics/10confirm.html

[madeline_con]

1. He could surprise everybody...

He's a Republican, no?

Why does anyone believe anything he says during his confirmation? If he isn't lying, why are the Repugs still behind him?

[Somawas]

3. They are still behind him because Bush nominated him.

That's really all. I looked at Freepland this evening. Half of them are with Coulter and the other half trust GW's christianity and good heart to have the "right guy."

[cssmall]

2. I fear this man; however. . .

He appears to have a bit of a free mind, though however scripted he may be. Either he will be a great Trojan horse to us or to them. However, I think, in any point, that his two years of service on the courts suceeded only his lifelong support of republicans and corporate lobbyists.

If Bush wants a conservative, then he would do well to nominate Cynthia Kinzer (SC justice in VA). . . oh wait, she didn't fucking support the Supreme Court's decision in '00.

[wli]

4. I have a vague hope...

Namely, that blocking the records release will draw out the nomination process until such time as Bushler, Cheney, & Rummy can be brought to justice.

[Sgent]

5. What's our end goal?

What do we plan to achieve with this nomination? I don't think we'll get a better candidate if this guy is thrown out, and will probably get a much worse one.

I don't particularly like this guy, but he seems like the best of a bad lot.

[WildClarySage]

7. That doesn't seem like a good reason to confirm him, though.

It's like, I wouldn't eat liver and onions just because the only other food in my house was brussel sprouts, I'd just go to the grocery store and get something else, yk? I think we simply need more time to evaluate the options here.

[Sgent]

8. To take your analagy further though

The grocery stores only have liver, onions, and sprouts.

If Bush is the grocery store, what's the chance he's gonna carry a democratic steak?

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. Roberts is an idiot savant foisted on us by the rw & red state

ignorance. A retrograde shit head who ought to be in presiding over a small claims court, where he couldn't do too much damage.