The bottom line to me is that once a justice is confirmed it doesnt matter one whit whether it is by one vote or unanimous. And I think even the senators are smart enough to understand that and prostitute themselves accordingly.

Way to hit it out of the park. The abortion issue is a huge money maker. Reid is not the organ grinder begging for money- he’s the organ grinder’s monkey.

I just heard John Eastman and Erwin Chemerinsky debate this on Hugh Hewitt’s program. Erwin tried to argue that the Constitution is plastic and that people are entitled to select judges according to their political views.

John tore that to bits. He denied that the Constitution is supposed to be stretched that far. “Words have meaning.” You have to interpret the meaning of things like “equal protection” but you can’t make it fit denying it to white people in order to make up for denying it to others in the past.

There have to be other ways to lift the disadvantaged up without pushing everyone else down.

You can’t ask nominees to commit to specific outcomes on various issues. For one thing, what could you do to them if they lied about it? For another, what can you learn about their qualifications and the quality of their thinking if you force them to lie or refuse to answer?

Reid, Kennedy and Kerry are selling out to PFAW, NOW and NARAL and ignoring a Senator’s real duty. The Dems shouldn’t let these pressure groups stampede them towards a cliff like this. Leahy announced he’ll vote for Roberts. Probably because he didn’t want to spit into the wind.

The intellectual dishonesty of the Dems regarding this issue is shown by your honesty. You claim this is war and thats the way it is going to be. I appreciate the honesty. The Dems are trying to create the myth that the fillibuster is the norm for SCOTUS nominee’s when historically it has been a rare thing. And there is a difference between a majority party stalling in committee, a practice that has been common, and a minority party fillibustering a SCOTUS nominee which is a historical anomaly. Majority infers a heightened power over the minority in the Congress. They are given more power as far as the commitee’s.

You are honest enough to see that Roberts and Gonzales are conservative, yet they are not radical. Yet the Dems name every Bush pick as radical, even if the don’t fillibuster. If the republicans had adopted the Democratic logic Ginsburg would not have been put on the court, let alone get all but a handful of Republican votes. her politic and views were no more out of line with republican political views the Roberts are from the Democrats. Yet they followed the traditional standards for SCOTUS picks and voted her in except for 3 or 4 votes. Reid is trying to set up a liberal litmus test for what he calls “mainstream”. If Reids standards were the mainstream the DEMS would not be the minority in ever national house of power. And since you have decided that this is all out war I am sure you will not cry out about tradition and the raping of senate rules if the fillibuster is eliminated for judges. It would be hard for you to declare war and then whine when you get shot at. Unless you are like Reid who creates standards as he needs them.

His support or opposition seems to have about as much of an effect as room temperature.

The intellectual dishonesty of the Dems regarding this issue is shown by your honesty. You claim this is war and thats the way it is going to be. I appreciate the honesty. The Dems are trying to create the myth that the fillibuster is the norm for SCOTUS nominee’s when historically it has been a rare thing. And there is a difference between a majority party stalling in committee, a practice that has been common, and a minority party fillibustering a SCOTUS nominee which is a historical anomaly. Majority infers a heightened power over the minority in the Congress. They are given more power as far as the commitee’s.

You are honest enough to see that Roberts and Gonzales are conservative, yet they are not radical. Yet the Dems name every Bush pick as radical, even if the don’t fillibuster. If the republicans had adopted the Democratic logic Ginsburg would not have been put on the court, let alone get all but a handful of Republican votes. her politic and views were no more out of line with republican political views the Roberts are from the Democrats. Yet they followed the traditional standards for SCOTUS picks and voted her in except for 3 or 4 votes. Reid is trying to set up a liberal litmus test for what he calls “mainstream”. If Reids standards were the mainstream the DEMS would not be the minority in ever national house of power. And since you have decided that this is all out war I am sure you will not cry out about tradition and the raping of senate rules if the fillibuster is eliminated for judges. It would be hard for you to declare war and then whine when you get shot at. Unless you are like Reid who creates standards as he needs them.

“Advice and consent” means neither a rubber stamp, nor the right of a Senate minority to dominate the process. It means the President gets to choose, but if he wants to be cocky and in your face with his pick, he needs a supermajority.

Is there some evidence that the current POTUS is likely to make a “cocky and in your face” nomination to the Supreme court? His first, and so far only, nomination to SCOTUS seems like a pretty darned capable and qualified nominee.

Who is “cocky and in your face” as far as this process has gone so far? That wouldn’t be Reid, Biden, Kennedy, and Pelosi, would it?

Which brings me, out of proper order, to:

My problem is with people who refuse to acknowledge the LEGITIMACY of those on the other side of the political divide.

It isn’t the fact that there are people on the “other side of the political divide” that is causing such consternation and backlash against the Democrats these days. It is, specifically, the illegitimacy of the form of their opposition. The behavior of the Democratic Party – the opposition party – is, quite frankly, illegitimate.

George W. Bush is not a stark-raving madman, a bible-thumping theocrat, the second coming of Hitler, a moron, Evil Dick Chaney’s puppet, The Chimp Who Stole the Election, he doesn’t control the weather, and he didn’t invent global warming or any of the other horsemanure that is, apparently, the single extant plank of the Democratic Party platform anymore. He’s a twice elected POTUS and his party holds the majority in both houses of congress. Therein lies “legitimacy”. His nominees for various posts deserve at least the respect of semi-civilized hearings and confirmation processes.

It’s more than 4.5 years into his presidency and if it isn’t clear to the “opposition party” yet that he is a “moderate” by any definition of the term that doesn’t label Ward Churchill as “moderate”, then that’s their problem, not his.

The Democrats have got to stop their infantile shrieking or be beaten out of existence. If you are a Democrat you might give some serious thought to delivering that message. Behaving like crack-adled teenagers who can’t get the car keys from Dad is not “legitimate” opposition – it is stupid and counterproductive and not in the US citizenry’s best interests.

Now, I really don’t wish to start any abortion catfights, but it ain’t 1974 anymore. Abortion is no longer an issue of rusty coathangers wielded by drunken quacks in moldy basements anymore. And even if the worst thing any “liberal” could possibly imagine, overturning Roe v. Wade, were to happen we wouldn’t somehow snap back to some black and white world of innocent bobby-soxers who, in a brief moment of youthful lust, found themselves with no option but the rusty coathanger or condemnation by society for all eternity.

It is now 2005. In addition to the fact that the citizenry has made it perfectly clear that they want abortion, within some as yet undefined liimits, to be legal. There are now a plethora of contraceptive methods. Condoms are available right next to the danged bubblegum. There are abortion pills. If SCOTUS were ever to overturn Roe within 48 hours at least 40 of 50 states would continue on with their current state of legal abortions. In the other 10 or less the issue would be tied up in various legal actions until about three centuries past armegeddon. And the citizens of the 40 or more states are not all that concerned with Oklahoma’s attitude re: abortion – presuming it is substantially different than the national attitude. The Abortion Genie cannot be stuffed back into the bottle. There is far more standing between 2005 and 1974 than Republican POTUS SCOTUS appointments.

Abortion is a vastly different issue today than it was back in the day of Roe v. Wade. It has long since moved on from “legal” or “illegal” to matters of parental notification (and if you don’t think a whole lot of parents who aren’t mouth-breathing, bible-thumping, incestuous neanderthals find THAT portion of the issue are real big freakin’ deal you haven’t been paying attention) and is every abortion method within the capabilities of modern medicine really necessary to condone. Stir in the fact that a fair number of people are beginning to get fed up with only one, of the many available, “choices” being blessed as “legitimate”.

Abortion is the biggest “non-issue” issue in American politics. I, for one, an sick of every judicial nomination being turned into another tired abortion argument. We have other problems like emminent domain and McCain-Feingold to worry about. I’m far more concerned about property rights and free-speech for ordinary citizens than I am about “choice”.

There, I’ve vented. Let the beatings begin.