Why are so many smart liberals being fooled by John Roberts?

[geek tragedy]

Take this obviously knowledgeable and intelligent author, for instance:


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0507270014jul27,1,1899219.story?coll=chi-news-hed

<snip> That brings me to John Roberts. During the 2004 presidential election, George W. Bush promised to appoint Supreme Court justices like those he most admires: Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. In nominating John Roberts, Bush has broken that promise, to the great good fortune of the American people. The last thing the nation needs is for one-third of the Supreme Court to be off the deep right end of the law."
<snip>

Have we gotten to the point where a rightwing Republican hack can spend his entire professional life expressing unmitigated hostility towards civil rights and women's right, advocating every single goal--from banning abortion to destroying the independence of the judiciary--of the extreme right, and be called a moderate?

Newsflash, naive Democrats and progressives: Just because someone dresses up his agenda in pretty talk about principle and restraint doesn't change how illiberal and dangerous his agenda is.

Wake up! Roberts record is perfectly clear where it exists--he's to the right of Clarence Thomas.

Wake up! George W. Bush would never dream of nominating an indenpendent thinker to the Supreme Court. The only kind of nominee Bush would consider is an ideologically-driven extremist who shares Bush's rightwing absolutism. Bush hires company men, not independent contractors.

Wake up! We may not be able to stop Roberts from joining the SCOTUS, but we must DEMAND that Senate Dems present a united front--Roberts is a rightwing ideologue who will always follow the dictates of RNC headquarters. Any Dem voting for this Manchurian Justice should face a primary challenge.

[wli]

1. filibuster

This is the time to do it.

[DanCa]

2. Agreed

Unless, and this is a big unless there saving there ammunition for Traitor gate.

[Erika]

3. Roberts was a GOP political suck up

all the years in his life. A rich kid with priviliges. W thinks he's just the average American as Roberts does.

[gumby]

4. Who wrote that?

My registration isn't working.

You are correct, Roberts is to the right of (expletives deleted) Clarence Thomas. Roberts is off the political charts. He's right up there with the enablers of the worse names in history.

[geek tragedy]

8. Prof. Geoffrey Stone--U of Chicago Law School. eom

[fujiyama]

11. Isn't the University of Chicago Law School pretty conservative?

The home of Law and Economics? Milton Freidman and various other conservatives? The Chicago Boys?

Now this is not to say the entire faculty is consrvative, but it looks like it is definetely skewed.

[geek tragedy]

12. It's conservative by law school standards, but it has its share of liberal

professors too.

Stone is a liberal:

http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/stone-g/

He's also naive, at least in this case.

[expatriot]

5. because he's a " beltway insider" rather than from Texas

and Bush has been able to play the expectations game in his favor... everone was expecting Satan himself to rise up and accept the nomination. It is sad... Bush has shifted the whole paradigm.... by appointing someone who is not clearly a zealous religious SOCIAL conservative but someone who is a ultra- CORPORATE conservative... everyone thinks he is moderate.... BushCo has been so effective at fanning the flames of culture war in this country that even many liberals have fallen under the spell and in the trap.

[geek tragedy]

7. Roberts is also a hardcore social conservative. He just doesn't talk

that way in public. He hides it behind legalistic hocus-pocus.

[anitar1]

Have the become LINO's? Just as many Dems are DINO's?

n/t

[ugarte]

6. They're not being "fooled"

They know he'll be an abject disaster for the next 30 years. So what does that tell you?

[geek tragedy]

9. I get the feeling that they have really bought the "independent thinker"

bullshit.

And it is bullshit. Boy is it ever bullshit.

[ugarte]

10. The Harvard mystique

Nobody wants to believe that someone who has gone to Harvard and spent 6 or 7 years living in Cambridge can be a Neanderthal neocon.

[sandnsea]

13. He doesn't drool

therefore he's intelligent and thoughtful. :shrug:

Is this nuts or what:

"This does not mean, of course, that he will not vote to eviscerate Roe vs. Wade or reject the rights of homosexuals or narrow the scope of affirmative action or expand the role of religion in public life or endorse the so-called "new federalism." He may vote to do some or even most of those things. But if he does, it will be in an open-minded, rigorous, intellectually honest manner, rather than as an ideologue whose constitutional principles derive more from fiction and faith than from legal reason."

He concedes the guy is likely to overturn every liberal principle of the last 50 years, yet calls that open-minded. Must be some kind of rationalization to avoid acknowledging the country is going insane.

[fooj]

14. He doesn't have anyone fooled. Blackmailed, maybe.

Peace.

[Journeyman]

15. Hamlet said it best: "One may smile, and smile. . .

and still be a villain."

[deadparrot]

16. Since the MSM has been practically worshipping at

the altar of John Roberts. How wonderful and intelligent and thoughtful and handsome and well-spoken he is...ad infinitum. :puke:

[wickerwoman]

17. I'm not fooled, I'm just exhausted.

I just can't think of any really strong *legal* objections to Roberts.

He doesn't believe what I believe but since I'm not president and people with my beliefs don't have the majority in the Senate, I don't really get the luxury of having someone I want filling the seat. And honestly, who is Bush going to nominate who is going to be any better?

He's young but it just sounds like sour grapes when we say this. There isn't a constitutional age limit so what are you going to do?

He may not have the experience for the job and we might be able to make the argument here but it will almost certainly fail because the media won't cover it and we'll look like desperate partisans.

Are we really going to filibuster for three damn years? And on what grounds besides he's young and we don't like him? I don't see it happening.

This just feels like a battle we lost last November and I'm sorry if I can't work up the energy to keep beating my breast about it. I hate to sound defeatist and please don't flame me but I really have yet to see an honest, *legally precedented*, non-sour-grapey reason to keep Roberts off the court. If anyone has one, I'd love to hear it.

[Carolab]

18. He worked to help Bush steal Florida in 2000. How's that?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4208940&mesg_id=4208940

[geek tragedy]

20. How about the fact that he doesn't believe in an independent judiciary and

has been extremely hostile to civil rights for most of his career?

[ConfuZed]

19. "He's cute!"

Screw gay rights,civil rights and abortion! :sarcasm:

[Solly Mack]

21. ::::clamps hand over mouth, refrains from stating the obvious:::

You're right, Roberts is a typical right wing extremist.

[Kalish]

22. The guy may be a corporate hack

but I see nothing that indicates he's an extreme social con fundy hack...

[me b zola]

24. That is why Kerry and other Dems are calling for the release of all

documents related to Roberts.

The little bit that has been released show that he *is* an extreme social fundie hack. He is anti civil rights, anti affirmative action, and believes Roe should be overturned.

Combine all of that with his pro-corporate agenda and his war profiteering and you have the mother of all disasters as SCOTUS.

[converted_democrat]

23. Leahy does not like Roberts, called him an activist judge, and he said he

would move to filibuster. At least there is one Dem with some balls left.