Reid Announces His Vote Will Mean Nothing
Tuesday, September 20th, 2005In a move that must be making lots of people scratch their head, Democratic Senator Harry Reid, leader of the minority, announced today that he is going to vote “No” on Judge John Roberts’ confirmation as Cheif Justice of the Supreme Court.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid announced his opposition to Chief Justice-nominee John Roberts on Tuesday, voicing doubts about Roberts’ commitment to civil rights and accusing the Bush administration of stonewalling requests for documents that might shed light on his views.
At the same time, two other Democrats edged toward expressions of support for Roberts, and Reid signaled he would not support any effort by die-hard critics in his own rank-and-file to block a vote on the nomination.
“I have reluctantly concluded that this nominee has not satisfied the high burden that would justify my voting for his confirmation based on the current record,” the Nevada Democrat said on the Senate floor.
“The question is close, and the arguments against him do not warrant extraordinary procedural tactics to block the nomination,” Reid said.
First of all, it isn’t like anyone thought that Reid was going to vote to approve Judge Roberts’ nomination before now. It has been obvious that most of the hard-line Democrats in the Senate, including Kennedy, Reid, and Biden were going to vote against confirmation strictly on the basis of political ideology ever since the President announced the nomination. For Reid to now claim that he is voting no “reluctantly” is disingenuous in the extreme.
“No one suggests that John Roberts was motivated by bigotry or animosity toward minorities or women,” Reid added. “But these memos lead one to question whether he truly appreciated the history of the civil rights struggle. He wrote about discrimination as an abstract concept, not as a flesh and blood reality for countless of his fellow citizens.”
Reid also said Roberts followed a “disingenuous strategy” at last week’s confirmation hearings of suggesting that the views in the memos were not his own.
Reid must be completely clueless. As a member of the Reagan Administration, it was Judge Roberts’ job to advance the position of the Administration, not his own beliefs. Instead of realizing this, as almost everyone else has, he simply implies that Roberts was being less than honest in a bid to justify his vote. I guess that Reid doesn’t know that to the people who agree with his decision, no justification was necessary, and to the people who do not agree with his decision, they know he’s not being honest.
Bottom line on this whole deal is that Judge Roberts is going to be the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and America will be the better for it.
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