Senate Democrats have "sharply escalated their resistance" to Roberts

[Rose Siding]

snip>
Mr. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that recently released documents from Judge Roberts's work for the Reagan administration showed that "he expressed views that were among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women's rights, privacy and access to justice."

Another Democratic committee member, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said Judge Roberts was "on or beyond the outer fringe of that extreme group."
....
The Democrats tried, in part, to dispel reports that their party had all but acquiesced to Judge Roberts's confirmation. A front-page article in The Washington Post on Tuesday, citing unnamed senators and aides, said Judge Roberts was unlikely to face a major fight.

In a statement, the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, called such talk "laughably premature," adding, "John Roberts must still persuade the Senate and the American people that he is a worthy replacement for Justice O'Connor."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/17/politics/17dems.html

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. Not according to NPR, their fluffers have this sailing through as smooth

as snot.

[endarkenment]

3. npr makes me very angry these days

what a bunch of cowards.


resist fascism.

[Skidmore]

6. Dana Milbank was singing the same snide verse on KO

last night, and I've heard it on other cable news channels as well. The Dems are going to roll over and play dead on this one.

[gkhouston]

7. actually, listening between the lines to their report this morning

it sounded like they were hoping someone would step up to the plate. They were emphasizing Fred Thompson as being a slick salesman and saying things like blivet** wants a big margin of votes for Roberts because they might want to make him Chief Justice later and if Roberts goes through now it will make it difficult for Senators to object to other justices simply because they're conservative. But that didn't come across as hand-licking to me. To my ears, it sounded as if they were practically standing on their heads imploring the Senators to do something while they still could because there's a lot riding on this nomination.

Even if there's the biggest cat-fight that ever was over this nomination, I expected the Dems to use August to quietly gather ammunition, so it's hard to say at this point what's really going on. There was quite a fluff in DU a week or two back about whether or not the Roberts adoptions were completely on the up-and-up. Does anyone know if anything ever came of that or was it just a slime du jour?

[mattclearing]

2. The Wa. Post's front page feature on the surrender to Roberts is another.

This guy is going to get decked when the confirmation hearings start.

[Tesha]

5. Sorry, but only in your dreams. He's a shoe-in. (NT)

[mattclearing]

8. Nonsense. This guy makes Scalia look moderate. You'll see. nt

[Tesha]

9. I don't disagree with the fact that he's a right wing radical.

And still, he's a shoe-in. The Democrats will roll over for him.

Tesha

[Threedifferentones]

4. I hate to be a pessimist but

I think they are going to cave.

[gratuitous]

10. Unnamed sources say rollover; named sources say fight

Who to believe? Think, think.

It's a simple fight, really. Release the entirety of Mr. Roberts' record so the Senate can perform its constitutionally-mandated duty. The White House nominated him, the White House needs to provide his records, rather than stonewalling. This isn't a dictatorship.