"Judge Roberts is a man of integrity. I can only take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda."Interesting. The hearings were full of statements by Democrats that it's not enough to be asked to take Roberts at his word that he's not an ideologue. Leahy sounds like he's admitting that the Senate's role is weak. At the same time, he's preserving room for himself to say later that Roberts deceived the Senators.
Remember what Hillary Clinton said about the vote on Roberts: "They will do what they think is in their interest, however they define it." Did Leahy successfully analyze his interests? Or do you "take him at his word" that he's following his conscience?
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With all respect, the answers to your two questions are not mutually exclusive. Leahy may be voting for Roberts both as a result of having analyzed his own interests, political or otherwise, and of a resolve to vote his conscience.
My guess is that this decision by the ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee to vote for Judge Roberts will stem whatever trend among Senate Dems was gathering steam after Harry Reid's announcement that he will vote against the judge.
Irrespective of his motives, it's a gutty move on Leahy's part, really. That's why I think his statement can be taken more or less at face value.
It might be good to remember that Leahy and Specter have a positive relationship, one apparently characterized by mutual respect. Is it too much to hope that the efforts of the Gang of Fourteen on judicial filibusters was an early warning sign that members of the Senate, at least, are increasingly willing to work together? Maybe.
But I'm also encouraged by members of both parties who are stepping up to volunteer theelimination of pork spending earmarked for their states in order to pay for hurricane relief.
Art --
Senators are not nearly as easy to subject to party discipline as Labor MPs; Bush needs the Democrats to look unreasonable to get his own party to nuke any fillibusters for a Scalia-like replacement for O'Connor.
If the Democrats vote against Roberts, Bush's hand is strengthened when dealing with the seven Republicans of the fillibuster deal. Roberts is highly qualified and hardly likely to be any further to the right than the Justice he replaces.
If the Democrats vote for Roberts, their hand is strengthened if it comes to fillibustering a Scalia-like replacement for O'Connor, because they've shown they can be reasonable enough to vote for a highly-qualified conservative to replace a conservative.
So the question is, do the Democrats want to please their base, or actually have a shot at influencing who gets on the Court?
Meanwhile, Reid & Kennedy will vote no.
While I continue to have reservations about Chief Justice Roberts, you have to hand it to Bush, the nomination is a political masterstroke. Democrats all seem to realize and understand that they can't stop Roberts, which leaves the question of how to use the vote to send a message to the White House. And I think they probably all have a cohesive message in mind: "please send us someone more like Kerry would have nominated". But - and here's the catch - they can't work out how best to send the message!
One school of thought holds that if Democrats portray themselves as reasonable by voting for Roberts, they have more credibility voting against the next nominee. The problem with this theory is that their own rhetoric has been so extreme that there is nothing that they could say about the next nominee that they have not already said about Roberts. Of course, Teddy knows that his complaints are utterly cynical - but the dem base, like the GOP base, believe their own propaganda. Which inevitably begs the question: if Roberts and the next nominee are described in the same terms, how do you justify voting for the former and against the latter?
The other school of thought says that they should vote no, because this will send the message "we're no pushovers". The problem with this is, it will also send the white house the message that there is NO ONE that Bush could reasonably nominate who the dems will vote for.
Will voting yes or no bring them a more moderate second nominee? I think neither strategy will accomplish this. Which leaves their only plausible objective being to play to the base by voting no.
Art:
There are two sides in the fight. Both have zealots with whom they must deal. That's politics. The bottom line is how many senators are really in play, and how many can be peeled off from their party.
To the extent GWB nominates a judge who has demonstrated intelligence, integrity, judiciousness, modesty and fairness, and comes across in the hearings as a decent human being few of the 55 republicans will be tempted to oppose the nominee, and some 5 of the 45 democrats will be hard pressed to support a filibuster. It is all a matter of numbers. But it is numbers that count.
Watch the seven democratic senators who broke the filibuster logjam this summer for clues. That is where the rubber will meet the road.
P.S. Leahy was not one of them.
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