E.J. Dionne: An Honest Brawl Over the Court - liberals should welcome a real debate -- and win it.

[jefferson_dem]

An Honest Brawl Over the Court

By E.J. Dionne Jr.
Monday, May 11, 2009



The coming battle over President Obama's first Supreme Court nomination could be an enlightening debate over what direction the court should take. But it could also be a nasty and hypocritical fight that obscures more issues than it clarifies.

When George W. Bush was president, Senate Republicans now proposing to raise an ideological ruckus said Democrats were wrong to use judicial philosophy as a benchmark for confirming a nominee. If a president's picks were formally qualified and intelligent -- and both Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito were -- that should be enough, the Republicans said.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) warned during the Alito confirmation that if Democrats used ideology as a measuring stick with Bush nominees, it was inevitable that Republicans would apply the same standard to the appointees of a Democratic president. "I say to my Democratic friends, think carefully about what is being done today," Kyl warned in 2006. "Its impact will be felt well beyond this particular nominee."

In fact, there is no evidence that Republicans would be nicer to an Obama nominee if Roberts and Alito had been confirmed unanimously. Nonetheless, Kyl had a point. To pretend that these judicial fights are about anything other than the court's philosophical direction is a form of willful dishonesty. It's better to be straightforward about the existence of a political struggle over the court than to manufacture phony reasons for opposing a nominee related to "character," "qualifications" or "temperament."

Liberals, who (in my view, correctly) opposed Roberts and Alito on philosophical grounds, should thus not be hypocritical themselves and deny the conservatives' right to challenge a nominee's philosophy. On the contrary, liberals should welcome a real debate -- and win it.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051001958_pf.html

[Cha]

1. Yeah. Thanks

EJ Dionne. We need a good Liberal on the Court to help balance all the fascist liars.