Betsy's Page
Gloria Bolger has some smart advice for the Democratic senators who are pondering how to vote on Roberts. Basically, she advises them to ask some tough questions, but then let the nomination go through. Demonstrate how their views on how the Court should function in society is different from Roberts' views. Put that contrast out there so that it is clear what the differences are between the Democratic and Republican views of the Court's role. Then go to the electorate and try to convince them to elect Democrats because of their views. After all, that is what the Republicans did with Ginsburg and Breyer.
Here's the question: What's the difference between the
nomination of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by President Bill
Clinton and the nomination of Judge Roberts by President
Bush? Answer: nothing. Ginsburg appeared as liberal as
Roberts does conservative, yet she was approved 96 to 3.
The GOP decided it would not be a party of useless litmus
tests or panderers to special interests. And in the next
election, Republicans made it clear she would not have
been their choice. That is, after all, what elections are
about.
The problem is that the Democrats can't or won't do this. Bolger blames the liberal base that is crying out for harsh partisanship.
Yet this is the sad news about the Democrats: For
liberals, that won't be enough. In fact, Democrats who
are polite to Roberts--and may even vote for him--will no
doubt be considered a bunch of appeasing Neville
Chamberlains. "We have lost our brains," one Democratic
pollster confides. "The left wing controls all of the
dialogue." Just last week, when Sen. Hillary Clinton
called for an ideological truce within the Democratic
Party, she was shellacked by liberal bloggers. Her crime:
agreeing to come up with a more positive--and inclusive--
party agenda. Imagine that.
The other problem, which Bolger doesn't go into, is that the Democrats can't win an honest debate about principles on many important issues, like diversity quotas, partial-birth abortion, property rights, the role of the federal government, or the role of religion in the public arena, and so they must misstate conservative positions and demonize judges with harsh assessments of their positions. All that is left to them is the rhetoric because they're not winning the debate using just logic.
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