Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: Judging the judge

Friday, July 22, 2005 | 5:01 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

WEEKEND EDITION

July 23-24, 2005

Here comes the judge ... ment.

I think both the Republicans and the Democrats are approaching President George W. Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court with a reasonable amount of decorum. So far. But there is a long way to go, and before we get too far down the roads that the interest groups on both sides would have us travel, it seems to me there are a few things we should get straight.

First, no matter what the GOP talking points say about the fact that this is the president's choice to make, and only his, that is not a fact. The "advice and consent" role that the U.S. Constitution places in the hands of the United States Senate is real in that the 100 members of that body not only should give their advice to the chief executive, but that they should also give their consent.

Second, no matter how much the Democrats claim that President Bush has to appoint a person who is in touch with the majority of Americans as they view issues like abortion, government involvement in religious activity and corporate power at the expense of the individual, the fact is that our president is under no such obligation.

Everything else you are going to hear about the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be the next Supreme Court justice is beside the point.

Well, not everything.

That is why it is important that responsible people conduct the hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee and reasonable people pay attention to what is asked and answered in those hearings and not just what the talking heads on cable news channels tell us has been said. If ever there were a time when people should really pay attention to C-SPAN or whatever other channel will be televising the live hearings, this is it. A first-class American government tutorial is about to be broadcast across this country and all Americans will be well-served to pay attention. The truth is that so few people have a clue about what this process is all about, choosing instead to accept what others tell them as fact and act accordingly, even when most of what they are told comes from the talking points of one group or another, which are completely biased and in almost all c ases wrong.

So who is this fellow Roberts and does he deserve to sit on the Supreme Court for the next 30 years or so, telling the rest of us how we have to live and act in this society? The simple truth is that I don't know, but I expect to have a much better idea once the hearings start and the senators are allowed to ask probing questions. We will know a lot more, of course, if Roberts is a man of good character who actually answers the questions rather than plays the charade that will be urged upon him by his well-paid public relations handlers.

I have already reached out to some friends in the Bush camp who were very much relieved that Roberts was the choice rather than what they claimed were some "ideological nuts" who would have done more to create a belief that injustice rather than justice emanates from the highest court in the land. It is no secret that many people believe politics and ideology have crept into and co-opted too many matters that have been decided by the court in recent years, so the prospect of another vote to offset what became the reasonable rationality of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is an issue of great concern.

The Supreme Court has always been viewed as the last and best chance for the little guy, the American without the kind of resources to protect himself from the oppressors in society and the individuals who need a government institution on their side to stave off the natural inclinations of political power. In other words, most of us.

We have the Constitution, which is designed to limit the excesses of government and we have a Supreme Court that determines where government can go and where it can't. When it makes decisions that tip too far in favor of the government and the people who wield the power, regular Americans always get hurt. When it goes the other way, in favor of the individuals at the expense of civilized society, chaos can result. It is not an easy job, and that is why intelligent men and women are supposed to be chosen by the president. When he fails to do that, the Senate is supposed to advise him properly and withhold its consent.

It is no secret that in recent years an ideological struggle has been taking place in America between those who believe that God should determine the direction of the United States and those who believe that Americans -- some of whom believe in God and some who don't; some who believe that God says "do it this way" and some who believe that God says "no, do it that way;" some who believe that God is a Republican who has no use for those who aren't and some who believe that God cares not about politics but about how all his children live together on the planet Earth; etc., etc. -- should make those decisions based on many reasons, not just religious ones.

And recently that struggle has been focused on the Supreme Court and whether the president would try to play politics or whether he would act like the president of the entire nation and choose wisely based on the teachings of the Founding Fathers and the highest expectations they had for this fledgling democracy.

Enter John Roberts. He is conservative. No kidding and no surprise. Nobody in this country has any right to expect that President George W. Bush would nominate anyone who didn't profess to have conservative bona fides. For years the Supreme Court has come up as an issue in presidential elections and the American people have responded in polling that who is appointed is a matter of concern to them. But, they vote differently.

Last election, the soccer moms went for security and the working men and women went for the tax breaks. They de-prioritized the Supreme Court issue for the obvious reason that it wasn't a front and center question and that was that. Now that the question of whether Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land, the issue of church interfering with matters of state becomes the new law of the land and the trumping of individual rights by a government and its power brokers faces a supreme vote too close to call, now the people who didn't care must care. And it may be too late, at least for the next generation.

The voters in America gave the ideological right the White House, the House of Representatives and a huge leg up on the Senate. That they are trying to impose their will should come as no surprise. And if people don't like what is happening, they have no one to blame but themselves because whither goest the political direction of the United States is in the hands of the people. And so far, the people have directed that a fundamentally conservative president nominate a fundamentally conservative Supreme Court justice.

So now we as a people must decide whether John Roberts is a decent person who cares about this country, its institutions and the Constitution. That is the question that I believe the Senate will try to answer as it moves toward hearings later this summer. And that is the question that all Americans should want answered before anyone takes the oath of office to the high court for the rest of his life.

From what I have heard from those who know him well, the answer is clear. Roberts is a brilliant legal mind, a decent person and someone who will not allow his personal views to interfere with established precedents of prior Supreme Court decisions.

And that is the real issue that surrounds Roberts' nomination. Will the Senate, by consenting to the president's nominee, be providing the fifth vote needed to compel government-organized prayers in schools, the criminalization of abortions performed by doctors acting in the best interests of their patients, the legalized intrusion of government into the lives of all Americans at a level never before countenanced in our history, the reversal of decades of environmental laws designed to conserve what nature has provided us rather than squander it, and many other issues that have nothing to do with being conservative and everything to do with consolidating power in the hands of fewer and fewer people?

This isn't just about whether a conservative or a liberal judge is appointed to the Supreme Court. It is about whether a responsible and decent American is elevated to a status that should be reserved only for the best among us.

So let the hearings begin and if Roberts is who my friends tell me he is, let him take his seat on that high court and act in the highest traditions of the great jurists who have helped preserve this democracy. But first, let him answer a few questions designed to tell us he is who he is attested to be.

archive