Crap So Thick You Could Walk On It

Unfortunately, SCOTUS nominee John Roberts probably can't avoid getting a little of it on him.

~ ~ ~

Democrat members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and their pet staffers are pissed that - so they think - the center-right blogosphere has more information on Judge Roberts than they do.

"They've got material out there that we don't know about," complained Senator Edward Kennedy, who's leading an effort to force the White House to turn over any documents it has on Roberts.

Translation: we haven't found the nude fraternity pics of Roberts with barnyard animals yet, and we just know those right-wing nuts are hiding them somewhere!!!

Other Democrats said that they believe the White House is providing supportive bloggers with information that paints Roberts only in a positive light.

Well, duh. Like that hasn't been the case with every nominee of every administration. They're just miffed that the White House beat them to the PR punch. The shame is that the left's scorched-earth confirmation tactics have created such a powerful incentive to turn the process into a political campaign.

You just have to love what Uncle Teddy said next:

Kennedy has said that while he doesn't want to mount a fishing expedition into Roberts's past, he will demand paperwork on most of the cases he has handled as a judge and lawyer.

He doesn't want to mount a fishing expedition, but he's got his rod, reel, creel, vest, bait, lucky hat with all the hooks in it, and a chartered boat ready to go "just in case" (Teddy doesn't need a floatation device for obvious reasons). He won't come up with anything but old boots on Judge Roberts, but maybe if he hung out his line long enough, he might catch a MaryJo or two.

But then when has the Massachusetts Manatee ever needed to actually angle to come up whopper fish stories?

"From what we know now, John Roberts had a hand in some of the most aggressive assaults on civil rights protections during the Reagan Administration ... The White House should make all relevant documents available so that the Senate can make an informed decision.''

Translation: we've already got our conclusion - it's the President's job to provide the proof (that we know is there, along side the nude fraternity pictures wi...well, you know the rest...)

Double-M debunks EMK's tiresome slander - not because the latter is any real threat to JR's nomination, but because the former is the right thing to do.

~ ~ ~

Ali Dickbar al-Durbini has admitted to being Jonathan Turley's source for his Los Angeles Times article which asserted, laughably, that Judge Roberts told al-Durbini "he would recuse himself should he face a case in which the law requires ruling against a teaching of the Catholic Church." But - surprise! - the seditious senator insists that Turley's account was "inaccurate."

[T]he Illinois Democrat maintains that the column by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley incorrectly captured the private conversation that the senator had with Judge Roberts in his Capitol office Friday.

When the column appeared Monday, Mr. Durbin's office clarified that "Judge Roberts said repeatedly that he would follow the rule of law."

[al-Durbini] Spokesman Joe Shoemaker also said he did not know who Mr. Turley's source was...

That would be Senator al-Durbini.

...although only a handful of people were in the room at the time.

"Whoever the source was...

That would still be Senator al-Durbini.

...either got it wrong or Jonathan Turley got it wrong," Mr. Shoemaker said Monday.

Seems to me that they all "got it wrong."

Parenthetically, I'm just reading this second-hand and it's confusing to try and follow; can you imagine how confused the principals must be?

"They talked for about a minute, and I'm being generous," Mr. Shoemaker added. "Durbin said Turley didn't identify himself as a journalist but introduced himself as a law professor."

And yet....

Both Mr. Shoemaker and Mr. Turley said large parts of the conversation concerned the writer's previous column. [emphasis added]

Uggh, I'm getting a headache.

Maybe this can be my Ibuprofin:

Mr. Turley said that after he wrote the Judge Roberts column, he read back portions of it to Mr. Shoemaker, whom, he said, verified the account. [emphasis added]

Mr. Shoemaker declined to comment further.

Ah, laughter, the best medicine....

~ ~ ~

Getting back to the Chappaquidick Kid's fishing expedition, the White House has offered to release 75,000 pages of Robert's related documents from his service in the Reagan and Bush41 Administrations. Is that enough for the Democrats? Are you kidding?

"This in no way satisfies any potential document request," said one Democratic aide, generally reflecting the sentiments of Senate Democrats. "The White House has artfully made it look like they are saying yes to our requests, when they are actually saying no."

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote President Bush late yesterday saying they are "disappointed" in the decision to cut off access to "important and informative documents written" by Judge Roberts. Those documents, they said, may be necessary to "evaluate Judge Robert's judicial philosophy and legal reasoning."

Is there anything in these other docs that would be any more revealing of Judge Roberts' "judicial philosophy and legal reasoning" than the several semis' worth of paperwork the Bushies are willing to submit - or, for that matter, in what JR has publicly said and will publicly utter in his confirmation hearings? Not really. What makes the forbidden docs so enticing is that the Donks know damn good and well they're not entitled to them:

The White House has refused to release federal Judge Roberts' papers from his time as deputy solicitor general in the first Bush White House, saying that doing so would violate attorney-client privilege and set a dangerous precedent for judicial nominees.

Not only that, but as the Solicitor-General is the Administration's lawyer before the Supreme Court, the President would be buckling to an outrageous violation of the separation of powers by coughing up these documents. It's yet another blatant power grab by the Senate minority that just can't deal with the fact that they've lost three elections in a row and the trend is still spiraling downward:

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking [minority] member of the Judiciary Committee, responded to the offer by saying the Senate - not the White House - will decide what it needs.

No, Senator Depends, the Senate will decide what it wants; the White House will decide what you get.

And Leahy knows this. It's an unreasonable demand that is a blatant, clumsy pretext for the filibuster that everybody knows is coming. The gambit is better known as "Estradafication," which, in the absence of a last minute apperance by a former law clerk who tearfully fabricates a tale of Judge Roberts reciting lewd Dr. Seuss limericks while, um, strategically dressed in nothing but a "Cat In The Hat" hat, is the only obstruction hook the Democrats will have left.

UPDATE 7/28: K-Lo raises a point I'm slapping myself for having missed:

Charlie Schumer is giving the White House no credit for releasing any documents because they haven't released them all. So what was the point of releasing any? As the day goes by my "benefit of the doubt" reflex toward the White House is becoming weaker and weaker. By the evening news, will the White House even get credit for releasing anything? By the weekend shows will anyone even remember? And those who remember will say, and understandably, If you released some, what can possibly be the justification for not all?

It's like the pre-nomination "consultation" in which the White House indulged, the endless invitations to Democrats to contribute to the Social Security reform debate (that ended up stalling the process to a standstill), and going back to and through the UN in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Bush White House always has and always will bend over backwards to spine-snapping proportions to "reach out" and "be fair" to the DisLoyal Opposition, and they always have and always will get bitch-slapped for their trouble.

For an Administration that gets it so right on not appeasing the enemy in the GWOT, they seem hopelessly clueless when it comes to applying that same principle to domestic politics.

At any rate, it's not as though Leahy's mind isn't already made up, and over what [HT: B4B]:

Senator Patrick Leahy said on a radio call-in show that he would not vote to confirm John Roberts for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court if the appeals court judge does not proclaim his support for the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.

Leahy said on Vermont Public Radio's Switchboard' program that he wanted Roberts to answer questions about previous Supreme Court decisions when the judge appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee for confirmation hearings....

"Just as you would not have a justice nominee who said, 'Well I wouldn't consider Brown v. Board of Education settled law,' I don't see how they could get confirmed. I don't see how somebody who said that they didn't consider Roe v. Wade settled law ... I don't see how they get confirmed,'' Leahy said.

Perhaps that's because, as the highest court in the land, for the SCOTUS there's no such thing as "settled law." In theory, and certainly given the flights of fancy the justices have taken over the past half-century, any five of these nine old fogies can overturn any precedent they want as the whim takes them. Stare Decisis might just as well be a brand of mouthwash as far as they're concerned.

This is the power that Mensheviks like Leaky have sought to invest in the courts, and just love to see them wield - as long as the wielding goes their way. Provided it's the juvenile death penalty or state sodomy laws that are getting struck down, the "living, breathing" Constitution is all that and a bag 'o chips. But let even the hypothetical possibility of their legal golden calf, Roe v. Wade, coming into the crosshairs float anywhere near the political radar screen, and suddenly precedent becomes as the Ten Commandments graven on stone tablets with the Divine Finger.

As you probably already guessed, it wasn't always this way:

In 1990s, Senator Pat Leahy Criticized Litmus Tests On Judicial Nominees:

"I Would Like To Believe ... That No Senator Is Imposing An Ideological Litmus Test On Judicial Nominations." (Senator Patrick Leahy, Congressional Record, 7/10/97, p. S7207)

"Partisan And Narrow Ideological Efforts To Impose Political Litmus Tests On Judicial Nominees And To Shut Down The Judiciary Must Stop." (Senator Patrick
Leahy, Congressional Record, 3/2/98, p. S1199)

"[Y]ou Cannot Have A Small Clique Decide They Want To Know Exactly How Judges Are Going To Rule Before They Go On The Bench, Or They're Not Going To Confirm Them." (PBS' The NewsHour, 10/14/99)

But, of course, those were Bill Clinton's judges, and liberal judges are never partisan/ideological hacks, are they?

Is it any wonder that Dick Cheney once told this preening asshole to "fuck off"? If not for his heart condition, the veep might have dropped a well-placed elbow for good measure.

UPDATE 7/28: This just in: John Roberts is no Lee Sarokin.

Thank God.

~ ~ ~

Have you noticed that these Roberts posts hardly discuss the nominee at all? That reflects, I think, the similarity of JR to the President who appointed him: quiet, modest, brilliant, moderately conservative, and utterly immoveable while his enemies buzz frantically all around him.

Kinda reminds me of a passage from the Gospel of John:

If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.

Dubya ain't no Messiah, but apart from that gaping discrepancy the quote fits.

Well, that and the fact that when Justice Roberts is "lifted up," it'll have nothing to do with nails and crossbeams.