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July 29, 2005
No double-standard here, move along...
What's the difference between then-prospective Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and current prospect John Roberts?
If you're Teddy (hic!!!) Kennedy - one gets a free pass, one doesn't. Three guesses as to which way that pass went, and the first two don't count.
When it comes to insisting Supreme Court nominees discuss how they would rule on future cases, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., has apparently done a philosophical U-turn.The senator has been vocal recently about President Bush's nominee John Roberts, saying the federal judge "will be expected to answer fully" any questions about his views on controversial issues; but the Democrat sang a different tune in 1967, when he noted that candidates should "defer any comments" on such matters.
ButOfCourse™. Ol' Thurgood was a Demoscum, nominated by a Demoscum and rubber-stamped in by an Imperial Socialist Congress. Roberts, on the other hand, is a white Catholic conservative.
(To get just the right flavor of that last, say it with the most pissy-faced sneer you can manage. Don't hold that face too long, though, or it'll freeze that way and you might become a Donk. (grin))
In a story titled "Kennedy Flip-Flops on Quizzing High Court Nominees" by Jeff Johnson, Cybercast News Service reports it obtained 38-year-old film footage of Kennedy, who was responding to a question about senators grilling Thurgood Marshall about how he might rule in future cases should he be on the nation's highest court. The news service combined the 1967 video with footage of Kennedy's contradictory July 20, 2005, remarks. (ED. NOTE: To get footage of that, go here.)"We have to respect that any nominee to the Supreme Court would have to defer any comments on any matters, which are either before the court or very likely to be before the court," Kennedy said during the 1967 press conference. "This has been a procedure which has been followed in the past and is one which I think is based upon sound legal precedent."
A standard which also applied to...let's see, what was her name again??? Ah, yes - Ruth Bader Ginsberg. One of Kaiser Wilhelm von Slickmeister's nominees. Time and again refused to answer any questions about her views on matters that might someday come before the Court. Got pretty much the same free pass that ol' Thurgood did, too, if memory serves.
But not so with the white Catholic conservative justice-designate, no-sirree-Bob.
On June 20 of this year, Kennedy delivered a speech on the floor of the Senate in which he seemed to contradict the notion of deferring any comments, saying that senators "must not fail in our duty to the American people to responsibly examine Judge Roberts' legal views.""Because Judge Roberts has written relatively few opinions in his brief tenure as a judge, his views on a wide variety of vital issues are still unknown," Kennedy stated. "What little we know about his views and values lends even greater importance and urgency to his responsibility to provide the Senate and the American people with clear answers."
Translation: He's a conservative, and we have to do everything we can to scuttle his nomination, no matter how well-qualified he is."
Not that it matters, of course. Roberts will be confirmed, and the Donks' grasp on government - not to mention reality - slips that much further into the abyss.
Gotta love it.
Posted by Lord Spatula I, King & Tyrant at July 29, 2005 04:53 PM
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