Roberts Wins, 13-5; Durbin Makes Dumb Comment

John Roberts will get a fair Senate vote, after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-5 to send his nomination to the full Senate.

The expected approval came with support from three Democratic committee members -- Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold both of Wisconsin. The remaining Democrats said their opposition was ground in concern about how Roberts might rule on individual and civil rights matters that come before the Supreme Court. Democrats also cited Judge Roberts's unwillingness to answer questions they posed to him on numerous legal issues during confirmation hearings.

But this did not stop Senator Durbin, already recognized for his infamous comments comparing US soldiers in Iraq to Nazis, from making yet another stupid comment:

"When he is confirmed, this will be the Roberts court, and we know the Supreme Court will change dramatically," said Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) who voted against him. "Many of our core rights and core freedoms hang on the balance of one vote."

This is similar to, and probably worse than, Senator Reid's comments a couple of days ago. Both are implying that Judge Roberts' agenda is to roll back civil rights and take away freedoms of the American people. These types of accusations are groundless, false, and accusatory, and require an incredible twist of both fact and opinion to be said.

Both Durbin and Reid are trying to accomplish the same thing: Place doubt in the average American's mind that Judge Roberts is dedicated to upholding the laws of this country, and imply that in fact he is more similar to extremist groups (white supremacist et al) that want to take the United States back to the 1960's. Reid at least had the mind to say he is "unsure"; Durbin has gone one step further and directly implied that Roberts' vote will be the decisive one in rolling back these laws. [NOTE: He also implies that there are four other judges who do not care about the rights of the people.]

There is no place for this type of rhetoric among our Senators and Congressmen: These types of comments are slanderous, and should be recognized as such. If a Senator or Congressman wants to address an issue, they should be required to specifically mention the issue and why they think it is a problem. No more should they be allowed to spew misleading rhetoric such as this. Only then can we truly have honest political debate in this country.

Technorati tags: John Roberts, Senator Durbin, Supreme Court, Vote, Lies.