A politician intoxicated by his own power can be frightening, but a politician drunk on impotence is mostly comical. Senator Charles Schumer, the leader of a group of 38 Senators at most, effectively declared himself the umpire of the Roberts confirmation process. Indeed, the Senator called two strikes on Judge Roberts yesterday, and warned of a third.
The first alleged strike is the White House’s refusal to provide memos that Roberts wrote when he was advising the U.S. solicitor general. The second strike is Roberts’ apparent refusal to answer Schumer’s questions about the merit of past Supreme Court decisions during their interview session, as well as his refusal to answer these kinds of questions during prior confirmation hearings. Schumer threatened to call a third strike if the Senate majority sets a confirmation schedule that would enable Roberts to take his place on the Court when it re-opens for business in October. Normally, three strikes means you’re out. But in this case apparently it just means delay.
So that’s the desperate Dems strategy. Create procedural disputes by demanding that the White House produce documents that every living former solicitor general has said ought not to be produced. Insist on answers to questions that Justice Ginsburg steadfastly refused to answer. Hope that this gets you enough traction to delay the process. Use the delay time to dig for dirt, as they tried to do with Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
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