# Nominee Roberts Helps the Good Guys **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 5, 2005, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764 "2005-08-05T19:35:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/81 "2005-08-09T15:49:24Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > **Polycarp** , O’Connor’s \*stated \* commitment to judicial restraint may well be admirable, but I think we all know what decision is the only one she’ll be generally remembered for - the \*Bush v. Gore \* opinion she was too ashamed of to even sign her name to. I don’t think that’s true. She’s more likely to be remembered for Casey. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/82 "2005-08-09T16:18:21Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Umm, the stuff I’ve read says that _Bush v. Gore_ resembles a Kennedy opinion in writing style more than any of the others. Perhaps, but they were the only 2 left after the other 7 weighed in. O’Connor shares equal responsibility with Kennedy, and it’s too late to change. > [@](#): > > Nonetheless, though I disagree strongly with it, I _can_ see equal protection justification underlying it. (They rescinded my Liberal card for saying that! ;)) The point was about her committment to judicial restraint. If you don’t follow a principle when it matters the most, it isn’t a principle. That’s how she’ll be remembered - “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances”. ( **Captain** , with all due respect for the _Casey_ decision, it hasn’t affected nearly as many people as the Bush presidency, nor does it go to the heart of the meaning of democracy the way BvG did.) > [@](#): > > **Bricker** , as irritated as I get at some of his _obiter dicta_, is firmly on record as seeing that equal protection may justify results (supposedly “victories for the Left”) that he would object to if they were founded on SDP grounds. There **is** a distinction between ends and means to get there that I can grasp and accept. One would hope so, EP being actually in the Constitution in black and white with SDP being only in the “penumbra”. It would be beyond perverse to take the opposite view. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/83 "2005-08-09T16:23:49Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Please…Mather was a New England intellectual who who argued in favor of science and civil rights. You think the Bush administration would nominate him? Christian fundamentalism doesn’t mean what it used to, does it? Time was, the Biblical literalists used the Sermon on the Mount as the basis for radical populism - a hardcore believer like William Jennings Bryan was expected to be not only a committed creationist but a bitter opponent of the capitalist oppressors. The most committed fought the hardest for civil rights as well. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/84 "2005-08-09T17:42:00Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Time was, the Biblical literalists used the Sermon on the Mount as the basis for radical populism - a hardcore believer like William Jennings Bryan was expected to be not only a committed creationist but a bitter opponent of the capitalist oppressors. Well, yeah, although Bryan is really a bad example to use as a “model fundamentalist”, first because he was much more of an evangelical than a fundamentalist, he was a postmillenialist, and politically, he was a lot further to the left than mainstream fundamentalistm. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2005, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/85 "2005-08-09T23:46:44Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > Well, yes and no. Yes, it’s true that no-one was going to jail in the _Romer_ case, but I’m not sure that I’d characterise the difference between civil and criminal pro bono as starkly as this. Oh, I absolutely agree that Romer v. Evans contains a fair bit of the State leaning on a segment of the population. I was drawing a contrast between pro bono criminal work and **Blalron** ’s hypothetical abortion case, which I think would be governed by rather different considerations not only from criminal cases but civil rights cases like Romer v. Evans as well. I actually expected **Bricker** to make exactly this point if he responded to that question. As to what we can conclude from Roberts participation, my considered opinion is “Not a whole bloody lot.” ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/86 "2005-08-10T01:19:35Z")
Well, [Public Advocate of the United States, a Northern Virginia based hate group](http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/) said that “if” the story is true, Bush should withdraw the nomination. The group is led by Eugene Delgaudio, a two-term Loudoun County Virginia Supervisor. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/87 "2005-08-10T04:05:03Z")
> [@Homebrew](#): > > Assuming, I think correctly, that the “not” is misplaced, then, yes. In fact, that’s why I started this thread. It is possible, and I’m even hopeful, that Bush has nominated someone who at least respects the 14th. It has brought me back from total dispair to only mostly dispairing. Yeah, “not” was a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/88 "2005-08-10T06:47:10Z")
> [@Homebrew](#): > > Well, [Public Advocate of the United States, a Northern Virginia based hate group](http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/) said that “if” the story is true, Bush should withdraw the nomination. The group is led by Eugene Delgaudio, a two-term Loudoun County Virginia Supervisor. link doesn’t work? ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/89 "2005-08-10T07:05:15Z")
> [@Northern Piper](#): > > link doesn’t work? Try [this](http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/news/article.php?article=782). Not sure if it’s the same article, but it seems likely. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2005, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/90 "2005-08-10T12:01:07Z")
Their front page, [http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/](http://www.publicadvocateusa.org/) , is announcing a press conference today to official withdraw support for Roberts. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/91 "2005-08-11T15:45:07Z")
Just to update this, Public Advocate has officially withdrawn their support, as this amusing column by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank shows: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081002353.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081002353.html) ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2005, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764/92 "2005-08-11T17:14:03Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Well, yeah, although Bryan is really a bad example to use as a “model fundamentalist”, first because he was much more of an evangelical than a fundamentalist, he was a postmillenialist, and politically, he was a lot further to the left than mainstream fundamentalistm. However, Bryan did not avoid the Fundist label because then, it just meant someone committed to the basic doctrines of C’tian faith- the Bible as God’s Word, and the Deity, virgin birth, atoning death, bodily resurrection & personal return of Jesus. Welfare-statism/Progressivism & Appeasement/Non-militarism were noble ideals held by many Fund’ists. However, fear of the economic statism predicted as the Beast System & of Communism did tilt many more to the Right. However, issues such as abortion, gay rights & secularism sealed the Rightist-Fundist marriage. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nominee-roberts-helps-the-good-guys/315764.md?page=4)