Roberts: ok, I'm convinced. It was tour de force performance --with him utterly in command the entire time, no matter what they threw at him. Specter did a fine job moderating --it's the kind of thing he's good at. And Sen DeWine was serious and actually raised some interesting questions that showed a mind thinking about the good of the Republic. Lindsay Graham used his question time to deliver a lecture to Senate Democrats which was entertaining.
The Dems were to a man and one woman preposterous. They all read from "gotcha" memos prepared by their staff --totally inadequate instruments for tripping up Judge Roberts, who seems to have an encyclopedic memory of the precise circumstances of every case and memo he was ever involved with. So they'd nit-pick some little thing and he would politely, gently and exquisitely hand them their heads.
"Actually, Senator, that's a serious misreading of the Court's holding in that case, where the issue was "x," the Administration argued "y," and the Court found in our favor.
Stumbling and astonished Senator: "Sputter, sputter, huff, Well. Let's move on."
And I loved his Roe answer. All 57 times he had to give it. I think he said something educational for both sides. He made the nod to stare decisis and the need not to unnecessarily create public upheaval --which I think is important for pro-lifers to understand. He can't just decide when he gets up in the morning, "I think I'll overturn Roe today." He has to be presented a case which raises the right issues and calls for the Court to actually revisit its decision. At the same time, he had the guts to bring up the overturning of Plessy and Dred Scott. That was bold; he basically told the Senators to their faces that overturning was a possibility.
Most of the MSM seems to either have missed the import of what he said, or else to want to deliberately twist it. Chris Matthews called today "a great day for abortion rights." And Ed Whelan has a great take on the NYT story:
“Roberts, Pressed on Abortion, Cites Respect for Settled Law”This is the New York Times’s misleading headline. I guess that “Roberts, Pressed to Discuss How Stare Decisis Applies to Abortion, Discusses Stare Decisis Generally” wouldn’t make a good headline, but it would have the virtue of accuracy.
Update: Ooh, lookie, the Times must read Bench Memos. Click on the link to the NYT and see how they updated their headline.
