Roberts Nomination and the SMEAR Campaign

I was enthused when there was no real partisanship shown in the initial hours after President Bush nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court. Since, it has been a perverse and incredible parade of idiotic statements like the one attached below. Yesterday, Ted Kennedy and today John Edwards.

John Edwards is perhaps the poster child for trial lawyers. He, more than perhaps anyone else, should understand the importance of Attorney-Client profiled and being an advocate for a client. Instead, he and the party of the trial lawyers support the release of private documents that in a criminal or civil trial would have the ACLU and the trial lawyers screaming about violations of their Constitutional rights. As an aside, this is also a wide departure from the standards set in the 80's and 90's with Justices like

Additionally, it is unbelievable that Senators Schumer and Leahy have publicly espoused litmus tests which would exclude any practicing Catholics, Protestants, orthodox Jews or any person whose religous convictions would personally not allow them to accept abortion or euthenasia in their own lives rather than as a rule of law. The Kennedys and Schumers of the world have also begun smearing Judge Roberts's wife. When did family become fair game? Oh, I remember - in the campagin when Vice-President Cheney's lesbian daughter and President Bush's "normal" college-aged kids' antics became a focus.

Where has the debate over ideas gone? If the loss of power by the Democratic party so cancerous that the hard core Democrats like Kennedy, Byrd, Feinstein, Schumer and Leahy will stop at nothing? I hate to quote Sean Hannity, but folks, you have to win elections and then you get the priveledge of appointment and agenda. If it were not for Ross Perot Bill Clinton would not have been elected in 1992 and the greedy power base created by the Democrats in the 1990's would not have happened.

I will say I heard Sen. Lieberman this afternoon and he, at least, sounded reasonable and that he would go into the vortes with an open mind.

Kennedy and Edwards criticize Roberts' record
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former
Democratic senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards harshly
criticized Supreme Court nominee John Roberts Friday, calling him "a partisan
for conservative causes."
Roberts, finishing his second week of visits with
senators in search of confirmation votes, was being criticized from the
sidelines in a speech that Edwards prepared for the American Constitution
Society.
This came a day after Sen. Edward Kennedy accused Roberts, 50, of
having a questionable commitment to civil rights.
Although the complaints
aired Friday were among the toughest yet since Bush picked Roberts for the high
court, there still were differences of opinion within the Senate Democratic
caucus. And there remained no hint of a filibuster.
In fact, some other
Democrats have called Roberts "outstanding" and have said they'd been assured he
wouldn't be a conservative activist on the court.
But a review of paperwork
that Roberts drafted while he worked in the Reagan administration shows a "very
different young lawyer at work, a partisan for conservative causes," said
Edwards.