The LegacyJournal.Info

John Roberts: Student, Candidate, or Winner?

The nominee to replace William Rehnquist as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court is product of a system that allows the cream of the crop to rise to the top of his or her profession.  Dianne Goldman Feinstein is another rich example of what that system yieldsl .  Separated by gender, generation and geography they both parties share qualities of character and circumstance that places them among the nation’s elite leaders.  One is a privileged,proven and tested politician from San Francisco.  The other is a cool and respected legal advocate from Indiana.  Both are graduates of Catholic High Schools.  One school is located in the Flood Mansion atop Pacific Heights in the City.  The other is located in the flat country side not far from the steel mills of Gary, Indiana.

For several days, most of the eighteen Senators on the Judiciary Committee , read their prepared statements and questions.  Roberts’ oral responses were not.  The Elective Politics of Legislators dominated the hot Rhetoric from the heights of the hearing room.  The Roberts responses were those of a quick, measured and mature legal mind. In addition, he supplied humor, humanity and civility without rancor, self congratulatory bombast, arrogance, attitude or flagging attention. He maintained strong eye contact during 16 hours of the televised public proceedings.

* Senator Feinstein seemed to be rationalizing her pending negative vote against Roberts on the grounds that he may be a legal threat to legal abortion,  women’s legal rights and the right of local ,state and federal legislators to decide stake-holder and market place winners and losers by fiat.

* In the first instance, she is fighting a war that has been won.  In the second, her appears to be overreaching with an old and decredited ” Equal Worth”  economic feminist argument.  In the third,  men and women of good heart and sound mind can disagree as to the Constitutional limits granted or implied in the Bill of Rights as to protected speech and to legal rights, protections and restrictions at the beginng and the end of human life.

* Some have written or said that Roberts is pandering for votes in the confirmation process.  However, will Roberts be a wiser or more fair Judge is he is elevated by a Ginsberg like 97 aye vs binary 51 aye vote?  In a country that is politically divided, the fairness of the former is widely favored, but not expected——- even when possible, from courageous but partisan political leaders like Dianne Feinstein.  At the end of the day, as the only woman on the Judicial Committee, she alone among those on her side, shows some degree of softening her opposition. However, her pending negative vote will not, as they say, “be taken personally” by the Judge.  The judgement of history and the national electorate will be less kind.

  We note that the senor senator from California has graciously conceded the Judge up to 40 years on the bench.  If fate and good fortune are similarly kind to Senator Feinstein, she may be in office for the next 17 years.  May the legacy of Dr. Leon Goldman, Surgeon and Gentleman, continue to shine like a beacon for the concerned, conflicted, the confused and the adrift. “L’chaim!”

* Meanwhile, Heartlanders continue to hope for the best, but expect the .....  from the loyal opposition in the forth estate and the Senate.  As expected, the nytimes and other media sources have editorialized against in the pending Judge Roberts confirmation vote.  We know why the Judical Branch of government is held in higher public estime than the Legislative Branch.  No one seem to be on the bridge or at the wheel.  Senator Read and the nytimes are against the Judge.  The Washington Post, the SF Chronicle, Senator Leahey are positive on the nominee.

*  Regardless of how or when Senators Feinstein and Schumer vote in this round, it will be sweaty palms time in the next if the nominee is a clearly qualified, smart, gutsy,unflappable and deferential woman.

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