Decision ‘08

One Judge, Two Views

From the right, National Review…from the left, The Nation…read ‘em both, and you decide…it’s really no contest.

8 Responses to “One Judge, Two Views”

1 algiga Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 2:39 am
What a surprise you are leaning for the NR?! And what a great, intelligent statement by Coffin, “… the special interests merely want a judge who is a sure vote for their agenda”. Are these special interest groups any different from the Administration that selects the candidate? Would the President have selected someone who would oppose him on issues close to his heart?
2 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:02 am
algiga, your point is? I love the Nation guy who opposes Roberts because he’s not an affirmative action selection - really intelligent there. And of course, if Bush had picked, say, a black candidate, what would you guys have said? ‘Uncle Tom’ ring a bell? In any event, here’s a little secret:

Ready?

Conservative presidents pick conservative candidates. Liberal presidents pick liberal candidates. It’s why we go to the trouble of those bothersome elections every four years…
3 Clint Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:42 am
Mark-

It’s not just that he’s not an affirmative action hire — that’s just the secret-decoder-ring clue that he must be really, really bad.

Is it just my faulty recollection — weren’t there mentally stable, intelligent writers at the Nation as recently as ten years ago?
4 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:47 am
Well, a certain Christopher Hitchens comes to mind - he was there until a few weeks after 9/11, when he famously came to his senses…
5 algiga Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 3:55 am
Mark, that’s exactly the point i’m making! So it’s ridiculous for Coffin to make such a puerile statement. BTW, alternatives/disagreemets with your points of view on certain issues does not necessarily mean, as you seem to assume to be on the ‘left’. That “..you guys..” reference, whilst possibly true on occasions is not a universal rule.
6 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 4:51 am
All right, I see what you mean now, I think: point conceded…one man’s special interest is another’s bread and butter, right? Okay, sorry to be so prickly…
7 Greg Bullock Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 7:07 am
I think The Nation piece is quite good because it summarizes in one place all the quarrels the left has with John Roberts. Shapiros piece reveals the lefts case to in fact be as weak as the many conservative pundits keep insisting it is.

Back on July 22, National Reviews Rich Lowry penned a potent column rebutting many of the concerns Shapiro appears to have. Its called “Flailing & Flummoxed.” Lowry wrote:

“[Roberts critics] are reduced to resorting to the French-fry case. Washington, D.C., had a policy of taking into custody minors who committed offenses in its Metrorail stations. A 12-year-old girl was nabbed eating a French fry and duly arrested. Roberts upheld the constitutionality of the policy, not because he liked it, but because it wasn’t unconstitutional: The question before us … is not whether these policies were a bad idea, but whether they violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. It was a unanimous decision.”

Also at NRO is “High Society,” a reprint of a piece by Kate O’Beirne written back in 2001. It provides some necessary information on the Federalist Society: “Be forewarned: Democrats hope to turn Federalist Society into two of the dirtiest words in American politics. They will use this phrase to distort the records of judicial nominees, in a concerted effort to derail their nominations.”

Wow. Talk about prescience. She continues, preemptively extinguishing the lefts fire:

“Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU, has spoken at Federalist Society forums regularly and constantly since its founding, and praises both its fundamental principle of individual liberty and its high profile on law-school campuses She sees the law-school chapters as the best organized, most heard, and most influential groups at law schools. She also praises the group’s intellectual diversity, noting that there is frequently strenuous disagreement among members about the role of the courts. She explains that she typically can’t draw any firm conclusion about a potential judicial nominee’s views based on the fact that he is a Federalist Society member ….”
8 Mark Coffey Says:
July 27th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Greg, many thanks for the excellent references: just yesterday, a liberal friend of mine asked me if I didn’t find it scandalous that Roberts may have been in the Federalist Society (scandalous!)…