Ralph Neas - Prince of the Moonbats

PFAW's Ralph Neas issued this statement on the Roberts hearings. Shockingly, he's opposed to Judge Roberts' confirmation. Here's the text of his statement, with my translations mixed in for clarity.

Any Supreme Court nominee should be expected to demonstrate a commitment to the constitutional & legal principles that protect Americans’ rights, liberties & legal protections. John Roberts started his confirmation hearing with two major obstacles to overcome: a long record of advancing legal positions that would undermine protections for Americans’ rights & liberties; & the White House’s refusal to release information about Roberts’ role as the powerful second in command at the solicitor general’s office in the first Bush administration at a time when the office worked to undermine legal protections for privacy, civil rights, women’s rights & religious liberty.

CORRECTION: Any Supreme Court nominee should be expected to demonstrate a commitment to the Constitution, its Amendments, the laws of the land & international treaties we're signatories to. PERIOD. It isn't a justice's duty to advance protections for Americans’ rights & liberties. It's their job to adhere to the aforementioned Constitution.

I think Mr. Roberts put it best when asked if he'd side with the "little guy". Mr. Roberts stated that he'd side with the little guy when the laws & the Constitution was on his side.

Roberts had an opportunity, dozens of opportunities actually, to address both his troubling record & the lack of clarity about his role & positions on critical cases. But he chose instead to evade, mislead & stonewall. He refused to answer over a hundred questions posed by Senators from both sides of the aisle, unacceptable obstructionism from a Chief Justice nominee.

TRANSLATION: John Roberts answered with a precision never seen before in confirmation hearings & he answered more questions than any other Supreme Court nominee, too, if my information is right. Even hyper-partisan Chuck Schumer called him the "most brilliant legal mind" to ever come before the Judiciary Committee.

Quite frankly, he manhandled 'Goofy' Joe Biden & 'Angry' Ted Kennedy in such a way that I almost felt sorry for them. ALMOST. Biden's performance was as pathetic as Howell Heflin's in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, which is speaks volumes. Judge Roberts was like that of the well-respected Dean of a law school & Biden & Kennedy were like freshmen law students.

He repeatedly distanced himself from his own record by claiming to have been just doing his job, but often without telling senators what he thought then or thinks now about the positions he was advocating. Silence is normally golden, but in the case of Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, it’s downright ominous, especially given his long record of using his political positions to weaken Americans’ legal protections.

TRANSLATION: Judge Roberts simply pointed out that he was a zealous advocate for his client, whether his client was at the Solicitor General's office or if it was at the Justice Department. There's nothing ominous about that, Mr. Neas. You just don't like that he isn't a reactionary liberal. That's what happens when you can't win elections.

This week we’ve been watching the classic hidden ball trick. John Roberts has spent the last three days trying to hide the ball from senators who are charged by the Constitution with evaluating whether to entrust him with the nation’s most powerful legal job for the rest of his life. No American can expect to be hired for a job if he refuses to answer questions in the interview & Roberts is no exception. As Chief Justice, John Roberts would have a huge impact on Americans’ lives & legal protections, for decades to come. His record, his silence & the power of the position to which he’s been nominated, make John Roberts a dangerous bet, one that senators shouldn’t take.

TRANSLATION: Mr. Neas's cronies in the Senate were stumped the entire time. That doesn't, however, translate into being Judge Roberts being evasive. It just translates into Kennedy, Biden, Leahy & Feinstein being inferior legal minds compared with soon-to-be Chief Justice Roberts.