Voting Yes on Roberts

The link takes you to a Kos diary. the diary argues for Democrats in the Senate to vote yes for Roberts as a strategy. I really believe that folks arguing for this option have their hearts in the right place and are trying to come up with the best options for improving the status of the Democratic Party. However, I really don't understand this argument. As things stand I see no value for Democrats to "seem reasonable". All the polling data and everything else I can find out about the mood of the country indicate that people:

Think that George Bush is taking the country in the wrong direction.

Want to see the Democrats stand up to Bush and challenge him.

Are turning away from the Republicans but

Not yet turning toward the Democrats.

All this leads me to believe that the best thing for the Democrats to do is to take a level headed principled stand against John Roberts.

I'm not talking about filibuster here. I accept that the Democrats should not appear to be stopping the functioning of the courts. However, whether the Democrats vote for or against Roberts will have no affect at all on the operation of the Government. Furthermore, the Democrats could make clear that if the Republicans want the votes of Democrats then the Republicans will have to work with Democrats.

I agree that having Roberts on the court will not be disastrous, but it just seems that although the country would like to have a clear alternative to Bush and the Republicans the Democrats have one again taken the opportunity to tack as close to George Bush as they can. It just seems to be the wrong strategy.

Also, much of the talk about picking our battles sends, I think, exactly the wrong message. Everyone knows that the Democrats don't want John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The fact that we won't make a clear statement to that effect does not make it any less of a defeat for us. Rather we appear to be completely cowed.

Reid on Roberts

See here and here for a discussion on Harry Reid's statement on the Senate floor today regarding John Roberts. Reid has said that he will not vote to confirm. I applaud him. In particular, I am glad to see a dispassionate, level headed, plain spoken reason for not voting for Roberts to be Chief Justice. The leadership of the Democratic Party has long needed to take clear stands to distinguish them from the Republicans. Let us hope this continues.

Liberal Options on John Roberts

Here is a problem that Liberals seem to have in trying to get their message across, that I don't understand. Why does it seem that the only options liberals have on something like John Roberts for Chief Justice are "waxing hysterical" or voting to confirm. Various groups and folks are arguing that he is a complete right wing nut and will strip us all of all civil rights. Others seem to be saying that he is not that bad so we should vote to confirm because we will never succeed at keeping him off the bench. Is there really no basis whatsoever for a level-headed and dispassionate opposition to John Roberts? From the mood of the country now it might be a good idea for the Democrats to argue that Bush is so clearly taking the country so far in the wrong direction that they can no longer support his government. Until there is substantive and wide ranging reforms in the way the executive does business the Democrats will not be supporting George Bush. This position is not, in any rational sense, hysterical, but it is opposition. I just feel that the opposition party should well, you know, oppose something.

Thought on the Roberts nomination

I'll get to Roberts in a moment but first, Matt Yglesias over on Tapped has a good response to Byron York regarding the Mike Brown nomination as head of FEMA. Seems democrats did little to investigate Brown and approved him. As Matt says, however, "I'll happily cop, as a personal matter, to having simply assumed that the Bush administration didn't appoint a totally unqualified hack to this important but low-profile job and to have somewhat erred in doing so." Now given that the right wingers are arguing that it's our fault for letting such an unqualified hack get confirmed I think we would be well advised to insist that we need to investigate John Roberts very thoroughly.

Indeed the question I would like to pose to the Bush administration is this "So you're saying that John Roberts is every bit as qualified to be chief justice of the Supreme Court as Mike Brown is to be head of FEMA?"

Certainly the Democrats need to reject the Republican argument that the Senate must accept this nomination just on President bush's promise that he is really qualified. The nomination process has clearly broken down, the confirmation process must now be that much more thorough.