Court Fight

Less than 24 hours after Bush announced his first candidate for the Supreme Court, MoveOn.org announced a Stop Robert campaign. Originally their web site simply labeled Roberts a "conservative." After reflection, they stepped this up. Now Roberts is a "right-wing lawyer and corporate lobbyist." An entry quoted in the Daily Kos says why they took this tack:

Blasting Roberts as a corporate lawyer is an excellent smear tactic. People hate lawyers. They dislike and mistrust big corporations. It also conveniently happens to be true -- just as it was literally true that John Kerry is an upper crust Bostonian married to a woman with a fuckload of dough. Sliming Roberts as a corporate lawyer is probably more effective than attacking him for his views on abortion or other social issues, since a.) the paper trail is better and b.) it can be used as a wedge to separate him from some of his socially conservative but downwardly mobile supporters.

The big question is why are they doing this? By all accounts, Roberts is one of the best qualified nominees possible. He may be conservative, and this is not settled, but he is not likely to be a crusading conservative.

Roe v Wade will not be affected. Most court watchers counted six votes for upholding Roe including O'Conner. At most this would make the vote 5-4 in favor.

Probably all of this is just going through the motions. MoveOn and the Democrats have been saying for years that we had to give them money to either keep Bush out of the White House or keep him from appointing conservative judges. Never mind that Clinton got to appoint liberal judges, Bush cannot be allowed to appoint conservative ones.

So Bush picked a compromise candidate. Lieberman admits that he has no objection and that will probably go for enough Democrats in the Senate to prevent a filibuster.

But these groups raised all of this money for a fight. If they don't demonize Roberts and fight him as hard as they can they will not get any money for the next fight. They are stuck going through the motions.

This will not help the left in the long-run. They are likely to lose. Bush picked a non-controversial candidate. There is no real dirt on him, at least none that turned up in the last 48 hours. They can try to manufacture some.

If they succeed they will get the Republicans really upset. After all, this is a compromise candidate.

If they lose they will upset their constituency, the people who selected Howard Dean because they want to see Republican blood.

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter is upset that Roberts is not conservative enough.

But unfortunately, other than that, we don't know much about John Roberts. Stealth nominees have never turned out to be a pleasant surprise for conservatives. Never. Not ever

Funny thing - in the same column she lists Justice Thomas as a good justice. He was the ultimate stealth candidate. He refused to give his views on anything during his confirmation. That's why the left resorted to painting him as a sexual predator.

But then maybe Coulter is mad because she wasn't nominated. She actually is qualified and anyone would look next to her.