Jon Kyl hit Roberts with a few more softballs, letting him tell a little about his pro bono work. He asks what a judge’s role is in promoting freedom and progress.
Roberts: “It is a judge’s role to be on the side of the Constitution.”
Herbert Kohl looks more like a Democrat who wants to be president than Joe Biden does. He asked tough questions, demagogued the Katrina issue a bit, but was overall much more respectful of the nominee than any of the other Dems have been. I had to read the captions instead of listening to some of it, so I could be mistaken, but it looked very civil from what I saw.
As a result, I think he got better answers from Roberts than the other Dems, but as noted before, they don’t really want answers. Kohl also allowed Roberts to finish every one of his sentences, if I’m not mistaken. Well done, Sen. Kohl. The whole exchange was pretty interesting, as opposed to cringe-inducing.
Here’s what Roberts had to say about using foreign law in Supreme Court decisions, in response to Kohl.
Some friends in the Senate also sent over this rebuttal to Biden’s and other Dems’ attacks on Roberts with regard to gender equity issues (you know how he hates women, right?).
Senators Biden and others have attacked John Roberts today on gender equity issues. The basic allegation has been that John Roberts “criticized state efforts to battle sex discrimination, calling programs promoting affirmative action and comparable worth ‘highly objectionable’ in his legal advice to President Reagan.”
In other news, Andrew at Confirm Them is not encouraged by Roberts’ answers this morning. And, SCOTUS Blog is liveblogging.
I just read the portions of the manuscript between Sen Kyl and Roberts and to me it seemed that Roberts had ready responses that were concise and well thought out. He seemed to be on his toes and the discourse between the two came off as civil (from what I can tell through simply READING the manuscript). This is a HUGE contrast to Biden’s approach where he was incindiary and spiteful towards Roberts.
IMO Roberts would make a great addition to the Court, but I’m sure on the other side of the aisle they are ravenous and looking for blood. The battle isn’t over yet, but I think Roberts has performed well under the pressure.
By the way, on Mary Katherine’s thread about Cary Grant last month, I said I couldn’t forgive Mr. Grant for thte scurrilous anti-Robert Bork commercial he made for the Democrats. But I was wrong about who made that commercial. It was actually Gregory Peck who made it, not Cary Grant. Didn’t mean to slander the wrong guy.
(I’d rather slander the correct guy…)
Herbert Kohl seemed entirely reasonable. I wasn’t hanging on every word so I certainly could’ve missed something, but the exchanges seemed legitimate and honest. Kudos to Kohl. Biden, in retrospect, seems even more arrogant and trivial.