Anyone following the Judge Roberts thing?

I think he will make an excellent judge.

His beliefs are irrelevant.  The only belief that matters is whether his beliefs should matter, and I believe that he believes that his beliefs will not matter.

Therefore he will be a good judge, regardless of his beliefs.

:)

Ditto.

no

.Ryan wrote: At first I was thinkin hell no, being that he used to be a coroporate lawyer

BTW, corporate lawyers come in all shapes and sizes.  It would be incorrect to conclude that all, or even a large majority, or corporate lawyers are conservative/Republicans.

Are you talking about John Roberts?

If so, I read some horrible things about him, but it was in the Rolling Stone so who knows how accurate that is.

To sum it up the artical clamined a few things about him:

-Pro-life/anti-abortion...he has been quoted as saying "the government has a legitimate interest in protecting the unborn child."...Roe v. Wade decision " was wrongly decided and should be overruled."

-Religious fanatic-supports school prayer, and even school prayer clubs. Quote,"exclusion of religion....sends the clear message that the State favors irreligion."

-Against flag-burning- Quote,"the First Amendment does not prohibit Congress from removing the American flag as a prop available to those who seek to express their own views by destroying it."

-In regards to an endangered species of frog in California- quote,"a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California."

-Supports torture- when asked about the geneva Convention,"(it) cannot be judicially enforced"....and "does not apply to Al Qaeda and its members."

Basically the dude sounds like a total douche from what i've read about him.....I don't want him in any position to make any decision that could potentially seriously affect someone's life.

Zesty -

I didn't read that article, but if your quotes are any indication, the article is a piece of trash, liberally combining incorrect quotes, out-of-context quotes, misconstrued quotes, and unsupported conclusions.

 

I wish he would just lay down his beliefs instead of shutting up like a freakin' butterclam!

The only things I have even read about this dude was in Rolling Stone and this article, so please forgive me!

But from the link, they seem to agree that the guy is side-stepping a lot of the major social and moral issues. He is not being forthcoming with his views and beliefs, which honestly scares me!

He is quoted as saying the roe v. wade ruling was wrongly decided and should be overturned, and now he seems to say the exact opposite, that he accepts it as a set precedent.

It's not even a big deal for me, because I have better things to worry about than this poser, but the only research I've done into it points to the dude as being someone I'm not "down with".

Zesty -

As best I could tell from your post, many of those quotes are from legal opinions that he wrote, and these quotes are twisted out of context.

Example:  -In regards to an endangered species of frog in California- quote,"a hapless toad that, for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California."

The "hapless toad" comment was from a case involving the application of Federal law to what may be a State issue.  The question was whether the Endangered Species Act (Federal law) can apply to a creature that lives only in one state.  The Commerce Clause of the Constution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, but Congress does NOT have the general power to pass laws for intra-state matters.  So the issue at hand in the case was whether this toad counted as "interstate commerce".  Roberts thought that it did not, in part because the toad only lives in California.

So - a very specific and complex legal issue.  There is no cause to conclude that Roberts is against the protection of endangered species - none at all.  He simply favors a more restrictive reading of the Commerce Clause, and he has been pretty consistent about that.  In this particular case it happened to be an environmental issue, but that was happenstance.

The "hapless toad" phrase is a good example of judges who think they are very clever.  US jurisprudence is full of judges using snide comments to make points.  It is unfair to Roberts to infer from this any position on toads.

 

Similarly:  -Supports torture- when asked about the geneva Convention,"(it) cannot be judicially enforced"....and "does not apply to Al Qaeda and its members."

The application of the Geneva Convention to non-nations is unclear at best, and established law probably favors the position that the Geneva Convention does NOT apply to non-nation actors, any more than it applies to treatment of common criminals.  Roberts argued his legal case (which is not an unusual position), and it would be unfair to conclude that he "supports torture".  Based on my reading I tend to agree that the Geneva Convention does not apply to Al-Qaeda - but I certainly do not approve of the administration's practice of torturing them.  Moreover, you have to remember that Roberts was working for Reagan at the time - his JOB was to support the position of the administration, not to be "fair".

Similar criticisms apply to most/all of the rest of your quotes, at least the ones I could track down.  Generally speaking, they take a position on a legal issue and twist it into a position on a substantive/moral issue.  That isn't fair to any judge.  Judges are supposed to judge based on the law, not based on the facts.  And Roberts has, IMO, shown a very good ability to judge based on law and not facts.