AP: AP: Bush To Nominate Judge John C. Roberts

[RED]

This is a SUPER surprising choice IF the AP is right. Roberts was not even in the Senate Republicans' list. Conservatives wanted a conservative candidate? They got it in ABUDANCE!!! Roberts is another Scalia, only younger.

Love, RED

Bush Nominates Judge John C. Roberts

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON - President Bush chose federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. on Tuesday as his first nominee for the Supreme Court, selecting a rock solid conservative whose nomination could trigger a tumultuous battle over the direction of the nation's highest court, a senior administration official said.

Bush offered the position to Roberts in a telephone call at 12:35 p.m. after a luncheon with the visiting prime minister of Australia, John Howard. He was to announce it later with a flourish in a nationally broadcast speech to the nation.

Roberts has been on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since June 2003 after being picked for that seat by Bush.

Advocacy groups on the right say that Roberts, a 50-year-old native of Buffalo, N.Y., who attended Harvard Law School, is a bright judge with strong conservative credentials he burnished in the administrations of former Presidents Bush and Reagan. While he has been a federal judge for just a little more than two years, legal experts say that whatever experience he lacks on the bench is offset by his many years arguing cases before the Supreme Court.

Liberal groups, however, say Roberts has taken positions in cases involving free speech and religious liberty that endanger those rights. Abortion rights groups allege that Roberts is hostile to women's reproductive freedom and cite a brief he co-wrote in 1990 that suggested the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion.

[RED]

Judge Roberts is WITHOUT A DOUBT qualified to be in the court. However, Democrats will fight him tooth and nail.

Roberts graduated magna cum laude in 1979 from the Harvard Law School. He served as Managing Editor of Harvard Law Review from 1978-79. After graduation, Roberts clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, from 1979-80 and for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, U.S. Supreme Court, from 1980-81. From 1981-82 he was a Special Assistant to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith. He served in the Reagan Administration as Associate Counsel to the President from 1982-86 and was the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States under President George H. W. Bush from 1989-93. He was a partner with Hogan & Hartson L.L.P, where he specialized in U.S. Supreme Court Litigation, appellate practice and federal litigation. He's been in the DC Circuit (the most important tribunal in the land after the Supreme Court) for 2 years. Now, that's what I call qualifications.

Is he conservative? YOU BET.

Love, RED

[Donnie]

red said:

Now, that's what I call qualifications.

Is he conservative? YOU BET.

Love, RED

He is so well qualified because he is a conservative. I hope to see Shumer's head explode over this one. Especially after watching him (without throwing up) pontificate at some flaming liberal, anti-Constitution conference last week.

[beej76]

This will be a fun process to watch. I know Liberman, from the well respected "group of 14", had given a prelminary thumbs up to Roberts.

From what I've seen, I haven't seen many comparisons to Scalia or Thomas. I think he's smarter and more flexible than those two. I wouldn't doubt that, while he'll be conservative, he won't an automatic vote on the conservative side of things. Something I found on a CNN article...

"Supreme Court historian David Garrow of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said that while Roberts is a conservative, he is not in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

"I do not think it moves the court at all," Garrow said.

On the other hand, University of Chicago law professor David A. Strauss thinks Roberts will alarm Democrats because of his reputation as a conservative.

As an example, Strauss pointed to a brief Roberts wrote stating public high schools can include religious ceremonies in their graduation programs, a view the Supreme Court rejected. Roberts authored the brief while working with the solicitor general's office, under Kenneth Starr, on behalf of the first Bush administration."

[RED]

Actually, Roberts is more on the mold of Rehnquist. At the end, the result is basically the same, a SOLID conservative vote unlike O'Connor, which was a "soft" conservative.

Love, RED

beej76 said:

This will be a fun process to watch. I know Liberman, from the well respected "group of 14", had given a prelminary thumbs up to Roberts.

From what I've seen, I haven't seen many comparisons to Scalia or Thomas. I think he's smarter and more flexible than those two. I wouldn't doubt that, while he'll be conservative, he won't an automatic vote on the conservative side of things. Something I found on a CNN article...

"Supreme Court historian David Garrow of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, said that while Roberts is a conservative, he is not in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

"I do not think it moves the court at all," Garrow said.

On the other hand, University of Chicago law professor David A. Strauss thinks Roberts will alarm Democrats because of his reputation as a conservative.

As an example, Strauss pointed to a brief Roberts wrote stating public high schools can include religious ceremonies in their graduation programs, a view the Supreme Court rejected. Roberts authored the brief while working with the solicitor general's office, under Kenneth Starr, on behalf of the first Bush administration."

[aka]

Is he another Scalia? Everything I have read about him suggests a future Kennedy. His predicted stance on abortion, for example, is to keep it legal but to allow states to impose restrictions. Isn't that Kennedy's stance too?

[RED]

Not at all. As I said above, he's more like Rehnquist. Kennedy has proven to be "soft" on issues of criminal law, for example. Roberts, on the other hand, holds a much stricter view of of the 5th amendment.

Love, RED

aka said:

Is he another Scalia? Everything I have read about him suggests a future Kennedy. His predicted stance on abortion, for example, is to keep it legal but to allow states to impose restrictions. Isn't that Kennedy's stance too?

[bryan]

WASHINGTON -- Despite his view that death penalty appeals are clogging the courts, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts provided free legal help to an inmate languishing on Florida's Death Row for two decades.

The 25 hours of legal assistance that Roberts reported to the Senate Judiciary Committee are minuscule compared with thousands of hours contributed by other attorneys in the case of John Ferguson, who was convicted in 1978 of killing eight people in one of the worst mass murders in Florida history.


www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-roberts07s1.html

[Chi-Town's Voice]

The more I've read about Roberts, the more I would like him to be a Supreme Court Justice.

[Elric of Melnibone]

I am waiting till he is a justice and starts to vote to execute your little friends...