Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Give the Guy a Chance

There is no need to check the back yard for pods, or stick a hot wire into a petrie dish of my blood, it's really me, and I'm not drunk. Why am I saying this, you might ask. Well, I'm about to agree with George W. in a big way, and while it's bugging the crap out of me, I can remain silent no longer. I like John Roberts for the Supreme Court.

Now before you ask me for my Liberal Membership Card and my bleeding heart lapel pin, hear me out. W could have nominated some crazy, KKK-esque right-wing nut job that would have the Congress tied up in hearings for months, but for once he chose the smart path. Roberts is conservative, yes. This is no surprise; how many judges aren't? Everything I have heard about Roberts tells me that he is a rational, intelligent, and moderate person interested solely in upholding the law. Left-wing extremists have tried to connect a ruling he made in 1991 to an abortion clinic bombing in 1998 in a poorly planned tv spot, which has since been recalled. Right-wing extremists have tried to connect him to gay rights because he once worked on a gay rights case in the 80's. He was a lawyer, working for a firm, and took the case pro bono (without charge) regardless of his personal views, which I think speaks volumes for his respect for the law. I would question a lawyer who would refuse a case because of the client's sexuality. He argued the case based on the rule of law, not the rule of hyberbole.

Roberts strikes me as someone who will carefully examine each case, using precedant and the Constitution as his guides, rather than emotion and dogma.

Here is a quote taken from his wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Roberts,_Jr.):

[S]imply because you have a problem that needs addressing, it’s not necessarily the case that Federal legislation is the best way to address it...[T]he constitutional limitation doesn’t turn on whether it’s a good idea. There is not a ‘‘good idea’’ clause in the Constitution. It can be a bad idea, but certainly still satisfy the constitutional requirements.

Given that Bush was not going to put someone in the Supreme Court who leaned too far left, I'm glad to see that he is nominating someone who is definately on the right, but seems to be more interested in the stability of the middle.

In other words, it could have been a whole lot worse.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You make me feel so good. I feel the same way. I have also been feeling bad about it. Many petitions & protests over Roberts have come thru my email, I've deleted them all. He seems pretty reasonable to me. Who would GW come up with if they dumped him? Don't think I want to know.

Thanks for speaking up!

Anonymous said...

C'mon Marius, just because you haven't seen the guy eat babies on live television doesn't he won't be serving the dark lord as soon as he can get away with it.
Any liberal who has but a passing familiarity with the history of this administration should know by now that the administration would not have nominated Roberts if they did not believe that he would push their theocratic anti-constitutional agenda.
You think Bush just woke up one day and decided to be reasonable after all the crap he's been shoving down our throats since day one? Not a chance.