The chances of a filibuster on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts now look as small as John Dean’s or John Kerry’s chance to win the Presidential nomination — and avoiding one almost as big as Ann Coulter’s Adams’ Apple. (How’s THAT for a sentence offending partisans on both sides?):
The possibility of a filibuster against John G. Roberts, President Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, appeared to recede today, as several Democrats emerged from a meeting of swing senators to say they did not envision their party trying to block the nomination.
The New York Times piece basically underscores the point that although Roberts is believed to be a staunch conservative he is not a fiery, divisive ideologue. And note the swing Senators:
“This is a credible nominee, and not one that – as far as we know now – has a record that in any sense could be described as extremist,” said Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, after a breakfast session with the Gang of 14, a bipartisan group that helped broker a deal in May to avert a Senate showdown over judicial nominees.
While Mr. Lieberman and his Democratic colleagues were careful not to rule out a filibuster – “There’s a lot I don’t know about John Roberts,” the Connecticut senator said – their remarks after the meeting suggested that, barring any surprise developments, they expected Judge Roberts to be eventually confirmed.
“At the end of the hearings we do not anticipate anything that would be a stickler, that would rise to the level of extraordinary circumstances,” said another Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, invoking the criteria that the group had agreed would warrant a filibuster. “But you can’t come to that conclusion until the end of the entire process.”
The 14 senators, seven Democrats and seven Republicans, met for about an hour in the office of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a member of their group. The meeting was their first since President Bush named Judge Roberts, who has served for two years on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, as his Supreme Court choice.
So the filibuster isn’t being ruled out — but it seems unlikely. The Democrats will now face a difficult dilemma, unless something dramatic surfaces about Roberts or his views. It’s a fact that George Bush ran for election twice making no bones about his intention to appoint conservative judges. This was no stealth agenda item. Even without the Senate Swingers (so to speak) it will be a tougher sell opposing Roberts just because he is conservative. Things DO happen when one side triumphs in an election; there are shifts. And this one was well-advertised by Bush.
See our post here about chickens coming home to roost.
ADDITIONAL STORIES ON THIS SUBJECT
–Roberts is a judge without an all-encompassing approach
—AP reports Roberts has gained ground in his confirmation drive.
–Democratic Senator (and rising star) U.S. Sen. Barack Obama undecided on Roberts.
—Nomination vexes women and liberals
UPDATE: An interesting observation by Ezra Klein:
One interesting subtext of the Roberts nomination has been the repeated, repetitive, even obsessive conservative declarations that conservatives know this guy and this one, he ain’t no Souter.
Well, fine, he may not be. But what’s odd is that Democrats are saying something similar, though completely opposite. Roberts’ many friends across the aisle are assuring the papers that Bush just nominated a nonideological, intellectually honest guy. Conservative, sure, but conservative in the way Democrats can respect, which is to say not very conservative at all.
That’s a weird contrast. Both sides think, deep down, very secretly, that he’s the sort of conservative they like, either an extremist or an impostor. Sounds much like Clinton, where New Democrats thought he was their boy, liberals though he was their boy, and he ended up being circumstance’s boy.
Indeed, Klein has nailed part of it here. Another part may be: so far the Democrats seem to view him as an opponent but not a bitter enemy who parrots Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. He seems to be coming across to them more like the good neighbor next door who you may totally disagree with, but get along with. More from Klein:
Whichever direction his true feelings lie in, Roberts seems spectacularly adept at convincing everyone around him that his true self lies on their side of the conservative spectrum. Where it truly is, I have no idea, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that if Cass Sunstein and Orrin Hatch both love the guy, neither has any idea who he truly is. Update: Turns out he’s not a member of the Federalist society either, conservatives just thought he was. Huh.
The confirmation hearings — and his seemingly inevitable decades on the court — should be, no matter what, interesting to watch.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.