Stringing up John Roberts

I'm not really surprised about this story from the AP. Well, actually, I am. There are poorly veiled pot shots taken at Roberts decrying his stance on quite a few things. He's stood for reducing the Justice Department's financial liability (bad conservative), advised then President Reagan not to say AIDS couldn't be spread through casual contact (they'll hold this against him even though at the time science hadn't proven the contrary, bad conservative), and was in favor of a national ID card for legal citizens and later wrote opinions supporting the idea even under scrutiny of then 1983 White House Counsel Fred Fielding (his boss... Don't want to piss the boss off, you bad conservative).

Now that science has proven Roberts' prudence unwarrented in the face of ignorance on the AIDS issue I'm sure someone will HAVE to rake him over the coals for that. Unfortunately for the left, Roberts doesn't have to say much more than "No one at the time could say for sure based on scientific data, and I advised President Reagan against putting himself out on a shaky limb."

And I just KNOW someone's going to dig into him for wanting to reduce spending. I'm not sure how they'll go about that, but his stance on the Justice Department's ideas to reduce their workload were pretty funny to me. It went something like this: Why should the Supreme Court take an extended vacation every year, without fail, but then consider commissioning a lower court out of thin air simply to supplement their heavy work-load? Vacation is all fine and dandy, but the summer break for the Supreme Court is mandatory. That didn't enter into the thought process of the court when they were considering bringing in more judges (spending more money) to suppliment their 150 case a year work-load since there is obviously so much more to take care of. Ever hear of getting the job done before you take your vacation? Nah, makes too much sense. Let's just throw money at the problem!

Now I can' say that I agree with Roberts' opinion of the female workforce and his efforts to stymie anti-discrimination actions early on in his career as a lawyer, but I somehow think he's matured as a lawyer over the years. I'm sure it will come up in his hearing that his opinion of women in the workforce has changed considerably, but him just saying that won't be enough for lefties to take at face value. That, and his favorable opinion to "defund the left" (bad conservative!) will probably be the straw that breaks the camel's back for people like Barbara Boxer and other "mainstream" (read: wacko) Democrats. I guess time will tell whether the left will be able to swallow their pride and play the game the way it's meant to be played. They'll always threaten to block something with a filibuster. Well, in some cases I guess they can. Problem is the vote to get John Roberts on the Supreme Court bench doesn't require cloture. I wonder if we'll have enough leadership backbone this time to force the dems to play the game the way it's supposed to be played. If you can't get enough votes to block something legally then you should try getting more seats in Congress instead of trying the "My GI Joe" syndrome.