Senate Confirmation Hearings
I’ve been listening to some (operative word being “some”) of the testimony of the hearings to confirm Chief Justice Roberts (get used to that, for good or ill), and some things strike me:
#1: This is a whole lot of bullshit. Everyone knows that he will be confirmed. Everyone knows that Roberts is not going to answer a single question. Everyone knows that there will be little fits of humour gibes thrown in, as when Schumer makes an analogy on what Roberts’s answers would go if he were asking Roberts about his favourite movies, and he answered “Dr. Zhivago and North by Northwest.” Cue soundtrack.
#2: NPR is functioning as C-SPAN by airing this pretty much 24 / 7. It’s not a good role for them.
#3: Why is Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas proud that his state is the state that was the focus of the court case “Brown vs. the Board of Education”? Hoo-ray … my state was especially segregated!!
#4: Can we just admit that Ruth Breyer Ginsburg was more forthcoming than Roberts, but not as forthcoming as the paradigm of Forthcomingness (whatever that may be), in her testimony and move on with it?
#5: How many ways can you ask about Roe v Wade without asking about Roe v. Wade?
#6: They’re all pompous buffoons, but that’s just the nature of the Senate. It’s a rich lawyers’ hangout.
#7: I always thought Bush’s choice for the “I can nominate a white male here” would be Robert Bork… he surprised me by nominating this Roberts fellow instead. Now that Bush must nominate a woman (to fill Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat), he can nominate Attila the Hun. It’s the right ideology, and we can move Justice Thomas and Scalia into the “court’s moderate wing” camp.
#8: One Senator mentioned looking at blogs, and made reference to what the blog said. Blogs have arrived.