MyDD :: My Final Comment on the Roberts Hearings (For Now)

I have posted around 150 updates on the hearings over the past four days, and this is the final one. As I type, the hearings are winding down, and the focus will shift away from the committee, where we should get a 10-8 vote with all eight Democrats opposed, and to the Senate at large, where the goal is to get 41 Senators to vote "no." That is a number that will make it clear we will not tolerate another stealth candidate who ducks and dodges endlessly. That is a number that will make it clear that we will not tolerate someone in the mold of Rehnquist, Thomas or Scalia in replacing O'Conner. The general right to privacy must be protected. The march of progress must not be reversed. The Congress must be allowed to engage in social investment.

Although everything I wrote during the hearings were my own views rather than those of any organization, I would like to give mad props to People for the American Way. They are fighting the good fight here, and you can continue to take part and stay updated on the fight against Roberts at Save The Court. There are, of course, many other good organizations you can work with on this, including The Alliance for Justice. A wide number of progressive groups have come out in opposition to Roberts, and whether you prefer to work with environmental, civil rights, women's rights, legal, labor, religious or other groups, you can find the campaign that is best for you. There really should be a website that lists all of the organizations that come come out in opposition to Roberts. This Google search, for Stop John Roberts, isn't a bad place to start looking for such groups.

For a complete summary of the witnesses who testified today, visit the Campaign for the Court blog at the Washington Post.

When it comes to the blogs, we did a good job with the Googlebomb, as the dkosopedia entry on John Roberts is now third in a Google search for his name, behind the wiki on John Roberts and the webpage for CBS reporter John Roberts. There was also a lot of good writing on Roberts on some progressive blogs, and I have tried to link to much of it here. Unfortunately, there were also a lot of blogs, including a lot of very highly trafficked progressive blogs, that paid little or no attention to the hearings. To them, I can simply say this: you suck. On the first Supreme Court nomination in the era of the blogs, you completely dropped the ball on the two most important roles blogger help play on a regular basis: helping to shape the national discourse any politics, and agitating the Democratic base into action. Dailykos, where Armando has done some very good work on Roberts, almost single-handedly drove national Katrina coverage. We could have made a real dent into Roberts as well. However, many still felt it wasn't worth their time to discuss, and thus the Republican Noise Machine went pretty much unchallenged on this one. Given that, it is hardly surprising that while Republicans have fallen into line behind Roberts, Democrats remain more divided and undecided than they have been on any issue since the run-up to, and early days of, the war in Iraq. What a joy it is to revisit those dark days where we failed to offer an alternative to conservatism, especially when, like in Iraq, this was one of our best opportunities to show America what progressivism really stands for. This might have been even better than Iraq, because it was a chance to lay out the general progressive philosophy before the nation, rather than just our opinion on a single issue or a set of issues. I just can't believe people decided to take a pass on an opportunity like that..

But enough self-righteous rants against some bloggers on my part. At the very least, I should have done more to try and organize a progressive judicial hearings blog ring as a counter to Confirm Them. Such a ring would be far better suited to deal with important events like these than eiehter myself or a series of disorganized bloggers could ever hope to be. That is an important project for the future.

Anyway, I am going to take a couple of days off and enjoy our nation's capitol for a while. I will be back to blogging on Sunday. Scott and others will continue their great work in the meantime. It looks like we may have suffered a blow here but, as always, we go on and our fight continues. Excelsior!