Just when I think you can’t get any more ridiculous, you surprise me yet again.
This is an invalid comparison. The senators opposing Estrada are saying they need X amount of information about ALL candidates, and that they have < X information on Estrada. The argument put forth by Enderw24 is thus: “even if in the past we’ve settled for Y quantity of information, we should on a going-forward basis require X quantity of information.”
Your literacy example, on the other hand, goes like this: “we will require X of black voters and Y of white voters in the same election.”
For your example to track the point made, it would have to be thus: “Even though we’ve not required literacy in past elections, we will require literacy tests of ALL voters in current and future elections.”
N.B.: Even that sort of literacy test would be problematic constitutionally for essentially historical reasons, but it’s a far cry from the way you phrased your analogy.
Judges are appointed sequentially, so a perfect analogy is not possible. Nevertheless, I assert that the Democrats have erected a new hurdle that applies to Republicans only. Recall that Bush re-nominated as judges two Clinton nominees who had been pending. They were promptly confirmed. The Democratic Senators did not require any similar amount of information about these nominees.
Judges are appointed sequentially, so a perfect analogy is not possible. Nevertheless, I assert that the Democrats have erected a new hurdle that applies to Republicans only. Recall that Bush re-nominated two Clinton judicial nominees who had been pending. They were promptly confirmed. The Democratic Senators did not require any similar amount of information about these nominees.
I think the problem here is that we’re using different definitions of “standards.” I took standards to mean the qualifications they look for in an appointment. You seem to be using standards as in the way they conduct the process.
In that case, I will agree with you. There do seem to be different standards. It doesn’t make it right, but there are differences.
I’ve read this three times and the only thing I can gleem from it is that it is indeed written in English.
I’m truly at a loss in determining what, if anything, this has to do with the argument I’ve presented.
The two arguments might be similar, but they aren’t congruent.
You made a claim, Polycarp and now I have both called you on your claim. Your response cannot be “but you didn’t answer this argument.” That argument is a seperate issue and doesn’t need to be decided before we determine what the role of a judge is.
Funny, it seemed quite straight forward to me. What does it matter what political party your representative comes from if his job is to serve the will of the people?
If you’re saying that they have in fact recieved X quantity of data, but are falsely claiming < X, fine. That’s a factual question in issue that can be raised in good faith. On the other hand…**
…is not, because it isn’t. The argument “we have been slipshod in examining past nominees, and thus are going to require more disclosure from here on” is very different from the argument “we should require different quantities of disclosure from different candidates on the basis of skin color (or whatever).”
December, I think we’ve been arguing at cross purposes since day one of this thread. As simply stated as possible, my contention is: Candidates for a federal judgeship, at any level but with ascending degree of inquiry between District, Circuit, and Supreme Court levels, should be expected to demonstrate their capacity for serving as a judge in some way, shape or form. As a part of this, they should provide responsive, affirmative statements of their jurisprudential philosophy, as distinguished from its application to specific cases. Whether a candidate is a member of a minority does not and should not make any difference. Within the bounds of reason, what his philosophy might be is not grounds for rejecting him, save as a matter of conscience for individual Senators – but refusal to state it is. If any of these criteria have not been followed through on in the past, that is unfortunate, but should not affect present or future nominations. And the Senate has the affirmative duty to advise and consent – or refuse consent – to nominations; just because a given President thinks that a candidate is a good nominee is not cause to rubberstamp the nominations. That bit of checks and balances is in the Constitution for a reason, and IMHO an excellent reason.
I personally would like to see an absolutist like Hugo Black nominated. I am fairly confident that GWB will not make such a nomination. If I were to find that Mr. Estrada’s philosophy resembles that of Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Stevens, or Ms. O’Connor, I would be fairly happy to vote in confirmation if I were a Senator. If it were that of Mr. Scalia or Mr. Rehnquist, I would vote against him. If all we know or can know about it is that he respects three particular judges for two of whom he clerked, then I know less about how he thinks than I do of how dewey and minty think, as regards constitutional interpretation – and that IMHO constitutes buying a pig in a poke, no matter how good a lawyer he is. I have not bestowed my conscience nor my right to form opinions on either Mr. Gonzalez nor the letter writers who think he’s a great lawyer who might make a good judge. I’m not opposed to him or in support of him because he’s a Republican, a Hispanic, an immigrant, a person who has overcome a speech defect, or anything else; I’m opposed to him because he is not and has not been forthcoming on something I think is an important criterion for selecting a Federal judge. If and when I see something of how he thinks in terms of constitutional interpretation, I may or may not change my stance, depending on what he has to say – but I would definitely rethink it in light of what he has said.
And IMHO for you to insist that he be confirmed on the basis of the evidence provided to date is tantamount to insisting that he be confirmed because he is a Republican lawyer of some skill who has been nominated by a Republican president. I have no problem with moderate Republicans; I even like John Corrado. (“Some of my best friends are Republicans…” ;)) But IMHO he should not be confirmed because there is not sufficient evidence to justify naming him to an effectively lifelong judgeship, and because he has refused to provide such evidence. I don’t care if senators should have asked him more and did not – if I want a job, it’s my responsibility to convince the hiring authority that I’d be good for that job; It’s not their responsibility to take two letters of recommendation and watch me evade their questions, and hire me anyway because they failed to ask the questions that might have shown me as good for the job or not.
Those nominees had existing judicial records from which their judicial philosophy could be gleaned. The senate could get X from alternative sources in those cases.
It is, of course, entirely possible that the Dems are acting in bad faith and would not require this level of disclosure from future Democratic nominees. The problem is, that’s all conjecture. It ain’t objectively provable unless you’ve got a crystal ball tucked away somewhere.
Let me reiterate: I support Estrada’s nomination, for reasons listed earlier in this thread. I just hate the sloppy reasoning I’m seeing from december. If you want to vent and accuse the Dems of abject bad faith, take it to the Pit; if you want to address the substance of the arguments the Dems are putting forth, I think you should address them on their merits.
You wrote, “they don’t take quite as long to confirm an appelate court judge as they do to confirm a supreme court justice,” I presume you agree that not quite as long understates the difference in time taken. Anyhow, thanks for acknowledging that there are differences.
I agree that the claims are not congruent. Your claim is interesting, but my claim is central. It shows the bad faith of Estrada’s opponents. Democrats claim this unique filibuster is warranted because they have inadequate information. If that charge is false, then they are mistaken or they are lying about their true reason for opposing Estrada. You can guess which from the fact that they are demanding SG internal memos which they know ought not be provided, and they are criticizing Estrada for failing to provide information that he has provided.
Can you re-state your point without ignoring the difference between the role of judges and legislators?
No, what I am saying is that the idea that the Democrats are establishing some sort of new standard that they intend to apply evenhandedly to all candidates, unrelated to their presumed ideology, is bogus. What they did is establish a standard for the purpose of opposing this particular nomination.
I’ve said this before. The Democrats are NOT opposing the nomination because they don’t have enough evidence about what his views are. Anyone who thinks so is extraordinarily naive. They are opposing it because they do have enough evidence to sense what his views are but that evidence is telling them that he is a conservative. If the same amount of evidence that they currently have would be indicating that he is a liberal or moderate they would confirm him.
It is not a great crime to oppose a judicial nominee based on ideology, and the Democrats have certainly done it before and will do it again. The reason they aren’t being forthright about their reasons for opposing Estrada is because they don’t have enough hard evidence to wave about and rouse the rabble with. If you want to make speeches about Miguel Estrada’s America, where women lie dying in the streets from back-alley abortions, you need to point to something specific to back it up. So the gambit has been to either lure Estrada into making some “incriminating” statements during questioning, or to find some “smoking gun” in the form of the memos. Having failed at these, they are falling back on the notion that they don’t know enough etc. This is nonsense.
Well, as a Democrat, I’m sure as Hell glad to know exactly how I think, as promulgated by one of the pundits on whom december seems to depend for his view of the world.
If I wanted this crap, I could sign off SDMB and subscribe to WorldNetDaily. It is quite possible that some Democrats have political motivations that transcend the good of the country, just as some Republicans IMHO clearly do – at least one of present company emphatically included.
I want a judge whom I know to be competent to do the job of a Circuit Court Judge and whose judicial philosophy I know and can accept as one acceptable to most Americans, even if it’s not necessarily one I agree with myself. I don’t care if the candidate is male, female, Hispanic, white, black, young, old, or covered with green polka dots. I want somebody I can trust to do the job.
If the Senate has lain down on the job and rubber-stamped nominees in the past, pre-Bork, that is no justification for them continuing to do so today.
December, the North Carolina Supreme Court, as of the 2002 elections, has a judge who believes that the law should be interpreted in “the light of the Biblical guidelines on which this country was founded.” If GWB nominated him for a Federal District Judgeship, would you favor or oppose that nomination? Why?
What would make you think it’s about you? Unless you are a member of the US Senate or an influential Democratic strategist, it is not.
There is no defining line between “politics” from “the good of the country”. The attempts by various posters to separate the two and claim “the good of the country” as their own position is not credible, IMHO.
December’s long quote from the Volokh Conspiracy says what “the Democrats” think – not specifically Democratic senators or influential strategists. I’m a registered member of the Franklin County, NC, Democratic Party – ergo, it’s talking about me. And it’s typical of right-wing broad-brush slander – if one person has said or done anything at all offensive, obviously everybody on the left side of the political fence must agree with it.
I oppose December’s agenda of supporting the Republican Party in all respects and tarring everything left of William F. Buckley, but I’m not convinced that he is planning to replace the Constitution with a fundamentalist declaration of God’s authority over us, as some extreme rightists are. Nor do I believe that he wants every Democrat locked up as a traitor, as at least one right-wing nut on another board thinks ought to be done.
I resent his quoting with apparent approval someone who refuses to take the same grasp of differing stances on the other side of the fence, that’s all.
I’m sorry, the quote is clearly about the motivations of those who are conducting the fillibuster, not about the rank and file Democrats out there. The guy himself notes that “most people in the country have no idea who Miguel Estrada is or that a filibuster is occurring”, and it is otherwise clear from the context.
If you have a habit of assuming every time someone says “the Democrats” he means every single guy registered in Franklin County, NC and elsewhere, it is no wonder you believe in the “typical…right-wing broad-brush slander”.
You are reading too much into these words and getting worked up over nothing, IMHO.
december, Volokh is not the editor of WND. And the article you are quoting seems to be written by Philippe de Croy, “a man or woman of mystery…[who] is not an alter ego of yours truly [Volokh].”
It is against the rules of the SDMB to falsely attribute a quote.