Specter Attacking Roberts and Alito
Written by Sam on July 25th, 2007
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation.
Specter, who championed their confirmation, said Tuesday he will personally re-examine the testimony to see if their actions in court match what they told the Senate.
Once again you can count on Arlen Specter to suck up to the far left and spit on the American people. He is accusing Roberts and Alito of not living up to their promise to respect precedent. Well, if that precedent was a bad decision, why should it be held up? Should the Supreme Court have held up Plessy v Ferguson in 1954 so that we would still have segregated schools today?
The idea for a review came to Specter when he said he ran into Justice Stephen G. Breyer at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.
Breyer, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, drew attention last month for suggesting that Roberts and the conservative majority were flouting stare decisis, the legal doctrine that, for the sake of stability, courts should generally leave past decisions undisturbed.
“It is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much,” Breyer said, reading his dissent from the bench to a 5-4 ruling that overturned school desegregation policies in two cities.
Oh, cry about it. This is coming from the man who looks to international laws to base his decisions. Breyer deserves to be removed from the court simply for that. When have we seen conservative Supreme Court justices going around bad mouthing the left leaning ones on the court? Where were the probes into Breyer, Stephens, Ginsburg, and Souter when they upheld eminent domain for nonessential government use? Or how about when they stepped on the First Amendment by upholding CFR?
I sure hope George Bush is still proud of himself for keeping Specter in the Senate.
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Well that just about does it. I will write a letter to Sen. Specter and demand this to be stopped. Then maybe suggest pro-life alliance and other groups to start the supporters of signing petitions to stop this non-sense. I hope he gets a primary challenger in 2010 / or retirement.
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What really scares me is the possibility that Roberts and Alito will be so jolted by this that they’ll turn left to avoid incurring Specter’s wrath. I seriously believe that Specter is unprincipled enough and liberal enough that he’d try to get Roberts and Alito charged with perjury for not siding with Breyer all the time. My hope is that Roberts and Alito will be so disgusted with Specter that they’ll ignore him. But I’m not optimistic about that.
I pray that fire and brimstone will be the main attractions at Specter’s afterlife.
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And what does the learned Senator propose to do about it if he examines their testimony and it is found wanting?
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Ah, yes. NOW Sen. Specter comes around. He was cowed by the Bushies into toeing the party line, but now he is finally showing some backbone. I don’t know how many old school New England republicans I know who are defecting to the Democratic Party–including my parents. Bush and Co. do not reflect the party that our grandparents and great-grandparents respected and supported. Forget Democratic “tax and spend” since Reagan it’s been “don’t tax, but spend anyway!” And forget individual rights! Why not let the corporations rule us? “We Republicans” are all for small government–it allows big corporations to walk all over us!! Great!
I think Sen. Specter is doing too little too late, but at least he’s making some noise for the rights of the little guy.
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He’ll subpoena them and make them explain themselves, probably. The fascist.
The really sick thing is that Specter probably will be around to do this well after 2011, when his current term expires. The Republican base has forgiven Specter for far too many crimes against conservatism, and yet they’ll keep forgiving him. If they renominated him in 2004, they’ll do it again in 2010.
I really don’t understand why Republicans keep doing this, but theres no reason to think they won’t do it again. And there’s probably no hope of getting Specter booted off the Judiciary Committee while he’s still there.