I've long advocated giving our national legislators the benefit of the doubt. My pals on The Left ran out of patience a long time ago.

Wih the president's numbers in the toilet, will there ever be a better time to stand up politically? Maybe the senator could have the boys and girls on staff check the public opinion polls as they plot the next round of Smith/Wyden bipartisan Dog and Pony Shows.

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I got phone solicitations from Feinstein and Clinton in the last couple of days and told the hapless staffers the same thing:

Not one more cent until you people start standing up!!!! The Bill of Rights is in tatters, the 2000 election has been independently confirmed to have been stolen. The '04 election had massive documentable abuses, and I don't want to hear any more elected officials muttering dismissively about "Conspiracy Theories".

So here's what you do senator:

1) Get an intern 2) Sit said intern in front of a computer and get to googling 3) Pay attention to the results

If I can figure this crap out and you can't, it's time to call on some expert help. Look among recent college graduates who have some ability to understand that 2+2 sometimes actually adds up to 4.

Props to Wyden. I've said before that Roberts is a good pick for the Court, and our good Senator's statement detailing his reasons sounds eminently reasonable to me.

I don't believe that it's standing down to vote for a well-qualified appointee. I do believe that it would be derelict not to vote for a well-qualified appointee just because he's not who you would have picked and he's not just like you. I expect the rabid partisans will sputter at me (and Wyden) for this, but if there's anything we need less of in politics, it's rabies; and if there's anything we need more of, it's reason and practicality.

Anne, I agree with everything you said, and I would have voted against Roberts. Why? Because I think he is emminently qualified, and yet he chose to evade questions and Bush chose not to disclose relevent documents. The process for judicial selection is in bad shape, and nominating young judges with little record, compounded by hiding information, removes the authority of the Senate to advise and consent.

Either Roberts is hiding something, or the executive branch has just made a MAJOR power grab. In either case, the process stunk, and for that reason Roberts deserved a nay.

(Keep in mind that it was Orin Hatch who suggested Ruth Bader Ginsberg for the Court, calling her a "liberal we can live with." Had Senator Leahy been given the same authority, then by all means other senators should have signed up for a principled conservative. But that's not what happened here.)

In my opinion Wyden has now increased his credibility with the public, both in Oregon and nationally. He will need this if Bush now nominates a true clone of Thomas and Scalia and Wyden goes into active opposition.

The problem with voting no on Roberts is that it conveys a totally partisan approach to judges. Saying no to Roberts begs the question of who would be better for a Republican President to select. We lost the election and don't get to nominate the judges. Do we want the selection of every supreme court justice to end up a totally partisan vote every time? I don't like that environment and neither does the majority of the electorate.

The secret papers issue and the avoiding answers is a red herring and everyone knows it. It is a cover for voting against Bush's choice and sounding responsible. All nominees duck the questions and it will be a long time before that changes, Democrat or Republican. A protest vote may make some Democrats happy, but gains no respect from a wider audience, and ultimately accomplishes nothing.

Roberts would not have been nominated by Kerry, but few believe he is rabid-right either. We could have done worse and we may yet. I believe in saving our gun powder for the real fights that might come next. Crying wolf reduces credibility with the public and we will need the public on our side to defeat any nominee while Democrats are in the minority.

Besides there is even hope that Roberts will end up disappointing the conservatives. It has happened before.

Becky and Karl, what can you point to in support of your comments? I hear a lot of paranoia from the left on this, but very little to back it up. Karl's comments about integrity are mystifying; I have heard no one -- not Schumer, not Kennedy, not anybody -- attack Roberts's personal character.

If all you have is a hunch that Roberts will turn out be Darth Vader, you're entitled to that belief, but we have to expect our U.S. Senators to rely on more if they're going to turn a judicial confirmation into a political war. On the basis of what we know (and there are limits to what we can know in appointing someone to a lifetime job), I think Wyden got it exactly right.

What part of "the Republicans control Congress" don't some of you people understand?

"We don't like his political philosophy" is not an objection the voting public is going to swallow as a reason for voting against those who supported Roberts. We lost the election so Bush gets to choose. If there isn't anything that he's done that will disqualify him, then we're stuck with him, no matter how despicable a neocon he is. Clarence Thomas was marginally qualified, there were things that he did that should have disqualified him and even after a big fight, he's on the court anyway.

I hope they investigated the heck out of Roberts. If it turns out there was a smoking gun there and we just missed it and he turns out to be the neocon slimeball some think he is, I will be pissed.

In the absence of evidence that there is something more wrong with the guy than that we don't like how he thinks, this is not a battle we could have won now nor one we could have scored points with for the future. The final battle of this war was lost when W. got elected.

Doretta writes "We don't like his political philosophy" is not an objection the voting public is going to swallow as a reason for voting against those who supported Roberts. We lost the election so Bush gets to choose...

Actually, no. Advise and CONSENT by the Senate is s'possed to mean something. That much of the democratic opposition isn't much of an opposition, well, that doesn't speak well for them.

I guess Ron Wyden really, really likes Steinbrenner's box, and hangin' with celebrities.

Actually, no. Advise and CONSENT by the Senate is s'possed to mean something. That much of the democratic opposition isn't much of an opposition, well, that doesn't speak well for them.

Actually, yes. The Republicans control the Senate, Frank. When we added W. to the equation, it was over.

"Advise and consent" does mean something but is not a synonym for "oppose". Making everything a purely partisan fight when you are in the minority in both houses of Congress and you don't hold the executive is not a viable strategy. You have to pick your battles.

Actually, yes. The Republicans control the Senate, Frank. When we added W. to the equation, it was over.

So let me get this straight...Democrats who oppose Roberts are "making everything a purely partisan fight." Republicans who unquestioningly support the President's pick...that's not partisan? Is it so inconceivable that a Republican Senator might have a question or two, or see the Senate as something more than a rubber stamp for the President?

Swing voters generally recognize he's qualified, you wrote. Based on what, I have to ask. The thousands of pages of documents we --and the Senate-- were not allowed to see? The questions he refused to answer before the Senate during his job interview? Or do you give Roberts a bye based on what you've heard from the Republican Party spin machine?

The government isn't the Presidency. The Congress, and Court are there to provide checks and balances. Giving the president carte blanche to stuff the Supreme Court is a Senate not doing its duty. (But then, when the Senate fails in its duty to decide whether we go to war or not...what's a Supreme Court justice or two?)

As Elliot Ness said to Al Capone (well, at least in the movies) "It's not over until its over. Not over until the fight is won."

Our Senate is starting to look more like ancient Rome's than America's. As long as we keep the campaign contributions flowing, as long as there's money to be made, rich folks to hob nob with, junkets to take, fine women and wine...the fact this country's slipping ever closer to the drain hole...so what?

If you can't make a battle over who will run the Supreme Court for the next two decades, picked by a man who couldn't find his ass in the dark...just what battles are worth fighting?

You apparently missed the part where I said I had no problem with Democrats who voted against Roberts. What I said did not make sense was an all-out pitched battle and that I have no complaint with the ones who voted for him, either.

picked by a man who couldn't find his ass in the dark

See, there it is. You just can't accept that Bush got elected. I'm quite sure you don't hate having him as our President any more than I do but the guy got elected. (Barely and fraudulently, to be sure, but it's legal now.)

I have a robust immunity to Republican spin. The ABA, not a particular friend of the Bush White House, says Roberts is "highly qualified". He has appropriate skills. He's been a judge for a couple of years. If he were WAY off the deep end the evidence of that would be there.

There are a couple of ways to look at the Senate's role.

Are they there to judge the candidate's professional qualifications and his/her willingness to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States of America in a reasonably impartial way or they are there as partisans to try and quash anyone who doesn't share their exact judicial philosophy? Today's political reality is that the Democrats have no leverage to accomplish the latter with the possible exception of someone with a really egregious judicial record or some disqualifying act in his/her past. Even then they may not have sufficient leverage.

I happen to think that if they visibly lean toward the first approach in this case, they will gain some leverage for the next pick. If that one should turn out to be someone as obviously unqualified as a lot of Bushes political appointees, they'll be in a better position to go after that nominee.

Personally, I want this smooth confirmation process available as a counter-example in case the next nominee is an unqualified, incompetent ideologue more typical of the sort of people W. likes to appoint to things. If that happens I want to see a full-court press in opposition and I want the Dems to be as credible as possible when they do it.

Maybe this is just a lame debate, Doretta, but there's little to suggest Roberts isn't an ideologue, or that somehow Bush snapped out of his stupor to pick a truly good candidate.

You suggest that Bush was fraudulently elected. We've had to live with that (as many have died because of that). But I don't think we should have allowed --without much of a protest-- an attorney who participated in accomplishing that fraud, to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.