Kerry on Roberts Nomination

[newsguyatl]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: David Wade or April Boyd
July 19, 2005 XXX-XXX-XXXX


Statement by John Kerry on the Nomination of John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court
"Americans deserve a Supreme Court that is fair, independent, ethical and served by justices committed to our constitutional freedoms rather than an ideological agenda. Justice O'Connor refused to use her position as a means to advance a political agenda. In replacing her, we must be confident Judge Roberts will do the same.

"We know Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O'Connor, and the White House has sent a clear signal. There are serious questions that must be answered involving Judge Roberts' judicial philosophy as demonstrated over his short time on the appellate court. The Senate must learn whether he has clear consistent principles upholding Constitutional standards like civil rights and the right to privacy in Roe v. Wade. These issues are in serious question if you take even a cursory glance at his record.

"The American people expect the Senate to fulfill its duty to conduct a thorough, independent review of any nominee, and I intend to do exactly that. I hope Judge Roberts and the White House are forthcoming about his qualifications, background and constitutional philosophy so the Senate can act with all the facts. There's too much at stake to do anything less."

[stevedeshazer]

1. Good.

It feels like this is a done deal, and Kerry is the first I've heard suggest that they'll at least make a game out of it.

[Cha]

2. Sounds like an excellent

response to me.

[Rebellious Republican]

3. A well thought out response, very good Senator!

Does not give the GOP much to respond to, and distract from other equally imortant matters. :thumbsup:

[bribri16]

4. I believe that Roberts will be ok. If he is a man of integrity he must be

sick of this administration and its lying and deceiving. I believe he is a man of integrity and just because Bush nominated him doesn't mean he will be controlled by the religious right.

[newsguyatl]

5. um, welcome to du

[xray s]

7. averaging 10 posts a day

how quickly they can burrow...

[newsguyatl]

8. they're everywhere tonight

"let's just confirm him! he's great!" focus on rove!"


PUHLEASE!

[Mass]

10. It started a few days ago

First, it was: do not fire Rove, we need to judge it, as if the two were not compatible,

Now it is Dont filibuster this guy, we need to focus on Rove.

At the speed the investigation goes, we will probably still be there in 2008 and the Democrats will have fought nothing against Bush on the principle of "we must choose our issue(s)".

I thought the Dems could multitask. Apparently some here cannot.

[MisterLiberal]

18. I don't get it

And it's getting more than just a little tiring to see posts like this over and over again.

I'm not claiming anyone here is a freeper in sheep's clothing :eyes: but man! How many times can they tell us to sit down and "let this one go"?

WE GOTTA MAKE A STAND!!!

[AuntiBush]

19. Yawn.... Roberts is super-kewl w/this liberal. Now, how about ROVE

LIBBY
DOWNING STREET DOCUMENTS
WORSE THEN WATERGATE
OUTING OF CIA AGENTS

So, (yawn) to the Freepers. I could care less - whatever.

Downing Street Memos and Rove/TraitorGate is what I'm focusing on.

[Mass]

31. 'cause you cannot focus on both.

Sorry this is important TOO.

[AuntiBush]

50. I know. My Apologies...

Sincerely, last night I didn't know who the hell I was posting with. Trust me, I know how important it is and if it goes through, I will have just about had it.

[Pacifist Patriot]

13. I suggest you look at his judicial record again.

Welcome.

[Forever Free]

16. I agree with you.

Don't let sensationalism distort your view.

[McCamy Taylor]

22. You believe this, do you? Good for you. I believe he is Renquist Jr.

[Mass]

6. Good - at least one who says it clearly.

I am sure that a lot others will follow.

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. Fortunately Congress is in recess for the next 5 weeks

that gives us plenty of time to dig around. I'm already finding lots of stuff.

1. Donated to the Bush 2000 Recount and may have worked on it.

2. Was a former deputy solicitor under Kenneth Starr.

3. Argued that the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era federal civil-rights law that federal judges across the country have invoked as the basis for injunctions to bar the protests, does not apply to actions motivated by opposition to abortion.

[loudsue]

11. Eeeeewwwww. Something stinks.

Looks like bushbot is trying to throw flames onto his Supreme nominee to deflect from turdblossom...

BTW, I've always wondered HOW it is that shrub knows ANYTHING about how Karl Rove's turds blossom...well....no....I haven't REALLY wondered. Homophobic closeted gays, all of them.

:kick::kick::kick:

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. It's so bad he risked political disaster

naming a nominee too early for the short term gain of a much needed distraction. I guess it's better then blowing something up? Oh right, did that last week and it didn't help much either.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

14. indeed mr president

[Humor_In_Cuneiform]

15. Excellent, clear concise calm

Maybe we should all take a long, collective, deep breath and realize that the process re the SC nominee has hardly begun.

[The Jacobin]

17. We should also realize

That it is a deadly serious matter and should be pursued at least as vigorously as Rove.

[Mojambo]

20. Perfect tone. n/t

[usregimechange]

21. Why the hell is he confident this guy will be fair?

[McCamy Taylor]

23. As in "Fair and Balanced?" Americans love their abortion rights.

If the Dems and Women's groups decide to challenge *'s candidate as a serious threat to Roe v. Wade, America will not be pleased. In fact, Americans will be hopping mad.

It is only natural that some would like to persuade Democrats and women and supporters of choice to trust this guy to be "Fair" so that he can get a nice smooth, quiet comfirmation.

[flpoljunkie]

34. Rethugs know Americans support reproductive freedom overwhelmingly.

Their wives do, too. Sandra Day O'Connor's record of supporting big business was overwhelming-- and is the crucial determinant for powerful, nonideological Republicans who would prefer no corporate oversight. Just look at who Dubya has nominated for the SEC, Chris Cox. His nomination disturbs me more at the moment.

Let's not waste our time on this nominee. Dubya made a smart pick--it could have been much worse. The man is a conservative. I have no problem with real conservatives, and Roberts is not considered to be a "movement" conservative.

Let's focus on Karl Rove and how the White House maliciously outed a covert CIA operative to smear Joe Wilson who wrote an op-ed that started the questions about how this president misled this nation to war lying about Saddam Hussein having "recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

[cestpaspossible]

27. With all due respect, you are misreading it.

"Justice O'Connor refused to use her position as a means to advance a political agenda. In replacing her, we must be confident Judge Roberts will do the same."


In other words, we can't consent to his nomination unless we are confident he will do the same.

You are reading it as if he said:

"In replacing her, we are confident Judge Roberts will do the same."

[wisteria]

24. I like this , we will reserve judgment approach!

No one needs to rush into this, lets take some time and not just slam him right away, doing this will only be giving re pubs something to throw back at Democrats. Lets look reasonable and gather facts and information behind the scenes.

[GetTheRightVote]

25. Thank God Kerry came out right away about Roberts, filibuster him

Go Dems Go !!

[cestpaspossible]

28. I don't hear that...

he takes a tough tone, but I hear a willingness to listen to Roberts' answers... or is that just posturing?

[lojasmo]

29. Sounds a bit like triangulation to me.

Like voting against before voting for.....or that pretty speech he gave in the senate before voting for Bush's war.

[Mass]

39. Well, guess nothing will satisfy you

Too bad that Teddy has more or less the same view. You must hate him too, I guess.

LOL, It must be one of those days where he should jump from a bridge, but who knows, he may fake it too.:sarcasm: .

[lojasmo]

42. Teddy didn't vote for the war.

I'm sick of Kerry's constant triangulation....Kennedy is somewhat more forthright.

[Mass]

43. One-issue person?

OK, I get it. Sorry, this will NEVER be my case.

[lojasmo]

45. Nope.

Sick of triangulating democrats.

Also don't like people putting words in my mouth like:

"One issue person?"

And "you must hate Teddy too"


Thanks for playing.

[snowbear]

26. Trying to decipher that one comment about Roberts someone posted:

..."Argued that the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era federal civil-rights law that federal judges across the country have invoked as the basis for injunctions to bar the protests, does not apply to actions motivated by opposition to abortion."
------------


Anyone on-duty here tonight that can explain this in easier to understand terms? Kinda confusing (for me anyhow.. :7 )

[ddeclue]

30. Let's not be sore winners about Judge Roberts

Fellow Democrats:

I am a very serious Democrat who not only voted for Kerry here in Orlando but put well over 1,000 hours volunteer time and who donated over $1,000.00 to that campaign and was actually an official staff member here in Orlando. I am still active after the election with the party doing volunteer work today and continue to actively donate money as well. I tell you this because I'm sure that I'm about to be accused of heresy and being a "freeper" for what I'm about to say...

I think it is important that we start off this topic by recognizing that Bush could have made a lot of worse choices for this position than he has made in Judge Roberts. As we all know in our hearts, George Bush has made a great many bad decisions in office - so for many of us, it is our first instinct to assume that he is stupid and/or bad and that every decision he makes is automatically going to be a bad one. Bush knows this and I think in this case he is probably trying to use our natural instincts as Democrats against us by making a not-so-bad decision and hoping that we will still react like he made a bad one.

Judge Roberts is no doubt more conservative than we want him to be but it is also important to realize that he is probably not nearly as conservative as the religious right-wing wants him to be either. Remember these people were going to be unhappy if Attorney General Gonzalez got the nomination because they viewed HIM of all people as not conservative enough.

Before we get all spun up to go after Judge Roberts, let's look at the bigger picture.

This nomination seems extremely well timed to change the national subject of conversation from Karl Rove, Lewis "Scooter" Libby and the growing scandal at the White House over the leak of Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA officer to the media and public as a means of punishing Ambassador Wilson over his op-ed in the NY Times. It may well be that the Bush administration is hoping that the Democrats will indeed forget about Rove and go off on an ill founded witch hunt instead on a candidate that is viewed by the public as relatively moderate and a compromise choice.

Indeed the FoxNews people, only minutes after the nomination were already playing it up that the Democrats will be zealous and unreasonable and were painting us with this brush. We need to do what we can to take this brush away from the right-wing by dialing down the rhetoric. If in fact this is an attempt to distract us from Rove, then if we make it a non-news story and dial it down, then this attempt will have failed and the focus will go back to Rove in one or two news cycles.

If it turns out that Bush did make a compromise and picked a moderate to conservative candidate in Judge Roberts rather than a far right candidate, then I say that we should very publically declare victory NOW for containing Bush and the religious right wing in advance on this major issue by putting them on notice and by gearing up to let them know that we would have fought a far right candidate.

In some ways this is like the Social Security situation. They talked big about privatizing Social Security but soon realized that public sentiment was against them and that we were ready to take them on and win. They then backed down and we can reasonably claim victory on this issue. Likewise, they talked big about another far right conservative like Thomas or Scalia but they realized that the public was against this and we were ready to fight them on it so they backed down and nominated a compromise moderate to conservative candidate instead.

We should be magnaminous and grant Bush some credit for compromising and then claim our victory - let's not look like sore winners on this one.

If it turns out that Bush did make a compromise and picked a moderate to conservative candidate rather than a far right candidate, it will not be us but rather Bush's base, i.e. the religious far right that will be, by far, the most unhappy and demoralized because THIS is SPECIFICALLY why they fought so hard for Bush. Bush will in effect have sold them out and this will cost the Republicans in 2006 and 2008 at the polls when the religious right will be far more tempted to stay home and sit it out.

We don't want to play into Bush's hands by looking overly zealous and out of the mainstream while Bush gets to look like he was the nice guy who compromised and we didn't appreciate it.

Instead we need to be respectful of Judge Roberts and give him the benefit of the doubt to a reasonable extent at least. We should do our homework and thoroughly research Judge Roberts, his previous confirmation hearing, and his previous rulings and private practice casework in case something really outrageous pops up but we shouldn't go crazy trying to derail his nomination.

During the hearings, the Democrats in the Senate should ask the tough questions but they need to do it with the maximum of respect, courtesy, and professionalism. They need to do it without appearing to be playing to their base but rather as statesmen first, Democrats second.

In fact if I were a Senator I would concentrate in the hearings on the Patriot Act rather than the abortion issue which is what the Republicans are counting on us getting spun up about. Let's not play to the Republican stereotypical wedge issues but rather lets use the Patriot Act as a wedge issue of our own against them. There are many traditional conservatives to whom the Patriot Act is an anathema including Bob Barr, Newt Gingrich, James Sensenbrenner, Arlen Specter and many others.

I know that there are plenty of Democrats who are really strong single-issue pro-choice people who will think me a heretic for what I have just said but I believe that we need to be careful about this confirmation hearing or it will blow back in our faces. Remember that we have an election coming up in 2006 and this issue could be used to bash us if we play it too hard.

Remember too that there are several other Supreme Court Justices that may want to retire or may die of old age before January 20th, 2009 when George Bush leaves the White House. If we screw up and lose the mid term elections because we are too hard on Judge Roberts now, then we could be setting ourselves up for a whole court full of Thomases and Scalias later on in 2007 and 2008.

Thus ends my rant....



Democratically Yours,

Doug De Clue
Orlando FL

[brentspeak]

35. Explain why the Democrats would lose the midterm elections

"because we are too hard on Judge Roberts now".

Roberts was unknown to the public before last night; therefore, why do you claim that he is a "candidate that is viewed by the public as relatively moderate and a compromise choice"?

[ddeclue]

36. re: because we are too hard on Roberts now...

I say this simply because we don't have anything really substantial to go after Roberts on. I know that our interest groups are out there cherry picking what little of Roberts record that is available to try to make him look bad but you and I both know this is premature and that we need to really look at his record first before we look like idiots later.

If we go overboard on Judge Roberts it could be a Terry Schiavo situation in reverse. In Schiavo, the Democrats looked reasonable and moderate and the Republicans let their wackos run amok and it made them all look crazy. This cost them dearly in poll numbers. We shouldn't let our own hard liners run amok and make us look like the crazies to the middle third of America which swings back and forth on the issues.

I say this also because it is quite clear that the right wing wanted a Thomas or Scalia clone or another Bork, - not Roberts. They are secretly seething over this choice I can promise you. Roberts appears to me to be a quick choice made to try to change the subject from Rove and Libby and a sacrifice choice at that. I say let's claim victory and concentrate on nailing Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

Doug De Clue
Orlando, FL

[brentspeak]

37. "They are secretly seething over this choice"

Not quite.

This guy has impeccable RW credentials; he's a member of every conservative legal activist group there is.

All the usual civilian RW suspects have spoken up quickly on Roberts: they like him. They would not hide their feelings if they felt otherwise.

There's no reason to "run amok", but not allowing the American people to scrutinize Roberts by refusing to conduct a stern nomination process would be pretty stupid for the Democrats.

[peacetalksforall]

46. brentspeak, you are right about the perfect right wing credentials.

If I understand the Cheney energy dissent - we have a ton of ammunition.

The point is that Bush did NOT come up with a moderate.

Yes to Rehnquist, Jr. Scalia, Jr. Maybe even a Bork, Jr.

He was selected by the Federalist Society. He is a member of the Federalist Society. That's the starting point for me.

The Federalist Society members are the direction pointers, authors, and implementors of the rewrite of our Constitution and Bill of Rights - what they have in mind and what they have done will ruin what we called our country.

They approve of secret sub-governments.

[lala_rawraw]

32. Ah, I think I remember a position

a very political one at that which appointed a leader in 2000, against the wishes of the voters.

[Totally Committed]

33. When Roe v. Wade is overturned because of this choice,

remember Kerry's concession. We are here today, our asses having been handed to us because of it. If he had stood and fought, at least we could have held our heads high. But, when Roe v. Wade goes down, in my mind, Kerry will have enabled it.

Just my opinion, but it is sincere.

TC

[Mass]

38. Unfortunately, this is wishful thinking

You know better than that.

Independantly of the issue of whether Kerry had a leg to stand on, it would have ended in the Supreme Court and the decision would not have been different than in 2000.

[Totally Committed]

40. But, wouldn't you feel differently now?

We could stand with our heads high. We could feel free to acknowledge Kerry's piss-poor campaign, but at least respect him for fighting. We would have some dignity and moral validity in this voter fraud issue. (Thank God for the courage and doggedness of John Conyers.)

And, what if, just what if he had managed to prove his win, and then had the SCOTUS annoint Bush... then our outrage would at least appear legitimate to those moderates on the other side, and we might have had them voting with us more.

The 2004 election, more than even the 2000 election, ripped my heart out and stomped it into the ground. I have taken it personally.

TC

[Mass]

41. I would be happy had Kerry won,

but I do not think what you say is correct. With the current supreme court, he would never have won a context.

For the rest, you know what I think. I am not going to go back on that.

I am happy Kerry is among those fighting on this one, rather than being on the side of the clueless who think that we cannot fight more than one fight at a time.

[peacetalksforall]

44. Yes, that was a goodstatement. n/t

[Mr.Green93]

47. I'm glad

John Kerry has our back.

[Imagevision]

48. Bush announced Kerik as the Next attorney general until his background

became a serious issue and declined Bush's offer.

Let's see what Roberts is all about, couldn't tell much in a few minute byte.

[second edition]

49. very good comments and a good approach.

Lets not behave like attack dogs without further information. I makes us look ridiculous and gives the repubs days of radio talking points.