The Larch

Am watching the Roberts confirmation hearings.

There’s simply no way this man won’t get confirmed, and he probably should be.  After all, he’s never held any controversial views; he’s only worked for folks that have held controversial views.

Boy missed his calling.  Should have been a politician.

Mostly it's all just the usual speechifying by senators.  By God, I hate Orrin Hatch.  And Kennedy is no better.  My old senator, Joe Biden – who I like quite a bit – started off by saying that they shouldn’t be playing “Gotcha!”... and is now spending the bulk of his time doing just that.  He’s even getting some laughs, saying that Roberts is “filibustering” and telling him to go on by saying, “Go ahead and continue not to answer.”

Everyone’s latching on to Roberts’ baseball analogy – that he’s there to call balls and strikes, not to hit or pitch – because it’s one of the simpler things to grasp, here.  But nobody’s pointed out that no one ever likes the umpire.  “Heightened scrutiny” vs. “Intermediate scrutiny” vs. “strict scrutiny” features a whole lot of shifting of knees and elbows.

I’m feeling plenty stupid.  The questions are five minutes long – Hatch especially enjoyed hearing himself talk – and my eyes glaze over before Roberts even answers.  My attention span has been infotained into uselessness.  What I really need is Billy Bush asking Judge Roberts, “Johnny, if you were a tree...”

UPDATE:  I'm taking up a collection that'll go towards hiring a hit man to off Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions.  I'm sure it'd fall under self-defense.  "Judge Roberts, is it true, in fact, that you are a judge?  And that you are a very, very good judge?"  It's nice that the short bus makes a stop on the hill.  And one other senator, I forget which one, brought up Hurricane Katrina... and thought that somehow the Supreme Court should, um, fix that.  Gah dang.

tags: john roberts  

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