I put the over/under line for the number of Republicans voting for Jackson at 3, and it looks like it hit the same number and even the three I figured (Collins, Murkowski, and Romney).
I was wavering regarding Romney; I am really starting to wonder if he has it in the back of his mind that he will try another run for President in 2024, pitching himself as a “normalcy” candidate (while all of the other people who are being anticipated to run try to one up themselves with wingnuttery). Voting for this (and to impeach Trump earlier) would fall in line with that kind of strategy.
This. The first measure that the Senate adopts each session is an “organizing resolution” that does things like determine who sits on what committees and establishes certain procedures. Because the Senate was tied 50-50, eventually the parties agreed to split committees evenly between Rs and Ds. Normally it takes a majority for a committee to report out a bill or nominee. But the organizing resolution included a temporary process just for this session that provides an expedited procedure for the Majority Leader to bring nominees who fail on a tie vote directly to the Senate floor.
Romney’s vote here is certainly the most interesting. He’s had no problem voting against most of Biden’s judges – including Jackson when she was nominated to the appeals court (Collins, Murkowski and Graham were the only three Rs to support her at that time). I’d be interested to hear his rationale for why he thought she wasn’t deserving of an appeals court seat but is worthy of the Supreme Court.
I felt rather the same way about Bob Dole in 1996. I’d have voted for Clinton in any case, and I did, but Dole had a reputation for being a basically honest conservative Republican. (IIRC, the much repeated phrase at the time was “squeaky clean”.) Democrats could have worked with him. Nothing truly terrible would have happened.
BUT for one glaring deal-breaker: The radical Gingrich Revolution Republicans that took over Congress in 1994 and their odious Contract With America. Those Repubs would have spent 4 (or 8) years sending Dole a torrential deluge of radical right-wing legislation – much of which Dole might not have been real happy with, but he would have signed much of it (or let it become law without his signature).
The same if Romney became Prez now, if the radical Repubs take over Congress.
He did speak about it. To paraphrase, he basically said that when he had voted against her earlier he thought she was out of the mainstream, but now that he had a chance to sit with her for an hour and review her congressional testimony he’s decided that she is in the mainstream. Also, he said that she’s smart and qualified and he wishes her well.
So, no major revelations that caused him to change his mind. Just “she convinced me she’s not as crazy as I had previously thought”.
(And, no, I don’t think this is sincere. The theory that he might run for President again as a centrist makes sense. I proudly voted twice for Obama, but I thought Romney would do a good job as President were he elected)
“The last Judge Jackson went to Nuremburg to prosecute the Nazis. This Judge Jackson might have gone there to defend them.”
What a sniveling little weasel. Public defenders don’t get to choose their clients. She had no choice but to defend the Gitmo suspects. But he knows that. He knows that. He’s just an asshole who’s just come out against the very concept of due process.
And what exactly is wrong with providing legal counsel to even the most heinous criminals? It’s a crucial element of the rule of law that defendants be afforded counsel.
This. I think the guy has it in him to be a pretty good president. But I’m afraid he might keep too many promises he makes to the nasty branch of the Republican party.
For someone in the law business (practicing and/or making them) making a mockery of the concept of defense attornies and due process would be an instant disqualification and major scandal in a sane world - here it doesn’t even rate “top 10 political story of the day” because the bar for the republican party has been lowered so much that we all clap when they don’t all shit their pants and smear it on the walls.
Re public defenders, from Ted Cruz’ cesspool of a mouth:
“People go and do that because their heart is with criminal defendants, their heart is with the murderers, with the criminals, and that’s who they are rooting for,” Cruz said on Fox News last weekend. He added that “public defenders often have a natural inclination in the direction of the criminal” and claims Jackson “carried it onto the bench when she became a criminal judge.”
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that! Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
What Sen. Cotton missed is that other Judge Jackson, of Nuremburg trial fame, was insistent that all of the Nazis on trial had full legal representation. He was adamant that the trials not appear to be a kangaroo court.
