Bullhorn does links

Fort Collins' Rocky Mountain Bullhorn is the local alt weekly. They recently did a nice piece on Colorado bloggers that included a melodramatic account of Stygius' average day.

Anyway, their website has been an unlinkable, unviewable mess for months, making it impossible to blog anything they write. There was a lovely piece on national drilling policy and the effects on (typically Republican) Westerners that ought to have been read outside of the community. But they're finally starting to get the site in order, although little has been archived.

That digression brings me to my original purpose: this week they re-print a superb Geov Parrish column out of the Seattle Weekly, "Borking John Roberts", that capture perfectly my take on the John Roberts opposition:

On Roe v. Wade, for example, Roberts has said in a previous confirmation hearing that he considers that to be settled law. And yet ads are airing featuring the words of a young Roberts calling for its removal. Liberals who know Roberts say that he is a best-case scenario, someone who, given the proclivities of the Bush administration, is a straight arrow, as good (or at least as harmless) a nominee as we could hope for. Why, then, the attacks?

In part, they are purely reactionary. Roberts is being challenged because of who nominated him.

Look, with Roberts, the White House out-flanked you, and are now thrilled to watch you piss away your resources and credibility into the wind.

Comments

[Thomas Nephew]

I think on nonresponsiveness alone, Democrats are entitled to a party-line vote against him. What little light does shine through the peephole shows me a Roberts willing to send a girl away in handcuffs for a french fry, help out with the Florida recount, decry the Voting Rights Act, and generally grease the skids for unquestioned state power and ignore the rights of individuals.

[Stygius]

Well, I think we ought to be entitled to Democratic senators less given to grandstanding, than with crafting good questions. If his answers are elliptical, ask better elliptical questions about the Constitution itself (not specific issues or cases). The strategy was to accuse him of evasiveness, not to puncture his evasiveness. I think it failed, and did us a disservice.

I share many of your same concerns. I'm worried that Roberts is going to uphold the appellate decision keeping Padilla in military custody. I'm worried about an erosion not just or Roe, but of Griswold.

Frankly, Bush/Rove exercised a bit of brilliance selecting Roberts, and the Democrats never got on the ball when it came to response. Instead they've come off the worst for it, and if there ought to be any 'principle of politics' it is: Do self no harm.