NYT, Nagourney: Bush's Strategy for Court: Disarm the Opposition

[DeepModem Mom]

Bush's Strategy for Court: Disarm the Opposition
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: July 20, 2005


WASHINGTON, July 19 - With his nomination of Judge John G. Roberts, President Bush moved Tuesday to plant the conservative imprint on the Supreme Court that has been a central aim of his presidency, but with a member of the Washington legal establishment designed to frustrate any Democratic effort to block Mr. Bush's replacement for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

As a judge for just two years on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Judge Roberts has a limited judicial record, which Democrats said would complicate their hopes of building a case against his nomination, even as abortion rights groups cited a brief he wrote when he was deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration in which he noted that administration's opposition to the Roe decision that legalized abortion.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved his appointment to the appellate court in 2003 by a lopsided vote of 16 to 3, and the Senate confirmed the choice in a unanimous voice vote.

The reaction by top senators like Harry Reid, the minority leader, was notably low-key and noncommittal....As often is the case with Mr. Bush, the decision appears almost obvious in retrospect: a choice that is at least good enough for conservatives, who hailed the nomination with a barrage of favorable reaction that went out even before Mr. Bush appeared in the East Room on Tuesday evening, yet someone who is genial and enigmatic enough to confound Democrats as they head into what they had long expected to be a difficult battle.

By suggesting that Mr. Bush was giving serious consideration to a woman or minority even if he did not choose one in the end, the White House may have minimized any political repercussions...."They've artfully threaded the needle," said a senior Democratic leadership aide, who declined to be identified, explaining the challenge that the party now faces....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/20/politics/politicsspecial1/20bush.html?oref=login

[PunkPop]

1. Artfully, schmartfully

Hey Mr. senior Democratic leadership aide, don't give these neocon crooks any more credit than they deserve . They just ran the typical Bushco fraud again. Say one thing while doing the opposite. Remember the Clear Skies Initiative? How about Healthy Forests?

[blm]

2. Nagourney lifting Bush on a pedestal while mocking Dems. I'm shocked....

no...really....shocked.

Nagourney is one of the biggest Bushlickers in the media. He alsways quotes faux Dems anonymously, because they probably are actually working for Rove.