habeas corpus, one of the foundations of english-american law

and the vote is only 5 to 4?

well, send your congratulatory notes to sen patrick leahy and other dems on the senate judiciary committee who let roberts and alito into the hen house.

they're big fans of senator obama.

I'd wager that Senator Patrick Leahy has done more to defend the constitution than you've ever dreamed of doing.

Tell me, what kind of organizing did you did, Orion, to build support for the kind of stonewall non-acceptance of any Bush SCOTUS candidates did you do?

Are you aware that what you call the OFB would be just as ready to tell you that the reason it was so hard for the Senate Democrats to filibuster was the thinness of their numbers, which got thinner after the 2002 mid-terms, many of them think because of the vote on the AUMF, and the failure of the Dems to mount a critique of the coming Iraq war.

Now it's your turn to bring up Daschle's complicity in allowing the vote before the mid-terms, except we know now it wasn't Daschle; he tried to get it postponed; it was Richard Gephardt who masterminded that.

You see one can play this game of tit for tat endlessly.

We could point out that none of this would have happened if Nader hadn't run in 2000. And what was his argument again? There was no difference between the two parties.

There was no way that any SCOTUS candidate George Bush sent up to be confirmed wasn't going to vote like Roberts and Alito; I still think they should have fought harder to make it harder for Bush to get two guy this young, and with as much legal clout and they've racked up.

about this.

"That's what we get when the Court is stacked with Libs! It means the military won't capture prisoners anymore! Where are my pills! Aaaargh!"

This is very important, thanks for posting on it, Leah.

senator leahy failed to mount a competent or effective effort to prevent roberts and then alito from being on the supreme court.

what i, or you, have or have not done in our lives is not even remotely relevant to the senator's leadership of the senate judiciary committee.

as for this:

"There was no way that any SCOTUS candidate George Bush sent up to be confirmed wasn’t going to vote like Roberts and Alito; I still think they should have fought harder to make it harder for Bush to get two guy this young, and with as much legal clout and they’ve racked up."

is said with great conviction, but is likely false.

harriet mayers very likely would have voted very differently. that is why she was so strenuously opposed.

Thanks for noting this, Leah; can’t speak to it enough.

As much as the SCOTUS argument seems to pain some people, it really is the single most important reason to campaign for putting a Democrat in the White House - ANY Democrat. One more Plutocratic Reactionary on the SCOTUS and there goes the Constitution and the country – Roe is the very least of it. Even worse, Republican presidents since Nixon have been packing the entire federal bench with these radical reactionary clones, setting up a scenario where they are the only experienced judges available for advancement to the Courts of Appeal and the SCOTUS.

Those who would argue now that there is no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats are the same people who argued that way in 2000, and encouraged a lot of people to vote for Nader. We’ve tried that experiment, had seven and a half years to assess the results, and anyone who still argues that way is, oh, what’s the word I’m looking for, ah, yes – a fool.

But don’t take my word for how important it is to elect a Democrat – ANY Democrat – as President. Here’s another analysis, emphasis added; read it carefully:

“There are at least 200 reasons why the next election for President of the United States is going to be a critical one and the most important one that we have in our history. Now I know we say that all the time, that every presidential election is the most important one that we have in our history, but actually, it’s a truthful statement isn’t it? Because every presidential election, the next one is the most important because it determines the future course of this country. There are a lot of issues, there are a lot of differences, but I’m going to give you 200 reasons why the next election is really important. It’s the 200 federal judges that the next President of the United States will likely appoint over four years in the White House. That’s roughly the average that a president gets to appoint.”

Who said that? Rudy Giuliani, speaking to the Federalist Society, promising to appoint more judges like Roberts and Alito. So will John McCain:

Highlighting an issue he plans to use aggressively in the general election campaign, Sen. John McCain on Tuesday decried "the common and systematic abuse of our federal courts by the people we entrust with judicial power" and pledged to nominate judges similar to the ones President Bush has placed on the bench.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee said that Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. "would serve as the model for my own nominees, if that responsibility falls to me," highlighting the gap between Republicans and Democrats on the question of who should sit on the Supreme Court. Both justices have established strong conservative records since Bush appointed them, and the appointment of one more conservative to the nation's highest court could tip the balance on issues such as abortion, discrimination, civil liberties and private property.

The two remaining Democratic candidates, Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), opposed the nominations of Roberts and Alito.

-snip-

He [McCain] added: “Elections have consequences. One of the consequences is the president of the United States gets to name his or her nominees to the bench.”

But as per usual, Rudy only gets it partly right. There will be more judges than that for the next president to select. Right now there are 47 Federal District Court vacancies with 10 more coming soon, while 32 nominations are currently pending in the Senate. There will be a huge push by the White House and senior Senate Republicans to try and fill those positions before Bush leaves office. Harry Reid has held up as many nominees as is practicable, and avoided some of the worst, but there is only so much that can be done by stalling. The Federal Courts are already overburdened, and the vacancies are crippling the ability of the Federal courts to function. At some point, the damage done to the American people by having no functioning courts exceeds the damage from having Bush appointees confirmed. Hard cheese, but there it is; the American people should choose their Presidents more wisely.

To quote myself, and why not, although the total number of Federal court appointments will likely be 250+ over the next four years:

Two hundred Federalist-clone Federal judges, plus two or maybe three SCOTUS seats. That’s what this next election is about, and IMHO the only issue that matters at all right now is winning the presidency and controlling those appointments.

Keep the courts and we can fix everything else.

Lose the courts and we truly will be in deep, deep trouble.

As for the argument that we can just rely on the Senate to block any more radical reactionaries like Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas, I have one question – How’s that working out?

It is, to my mind, the height of absurdity to rely on a method that has so often and so recently failed. That anyone would argue the notion that the very fabric of the nation, the integrity of the Constitution, should not be as fully protected as we can manage to accomplish is, and I choose my words carefully, betraying any concept of responsibility as an American citizen.

Elections have consequences. Anything less than a Democrat in the White House next term will be an unmitigated disaster for America, for democracy, and for the whole of humankind.

Elections have consequences. John McCain and the Republicans understand that. Do you?

[Orion, don’t bother to comment on my comment; not worth your effort, small fish like me. You’ve already introduced yourself several times to Leah, as above, and that is really smart of you to do. Leah is very important here at Corrente, notice that her name is listed first among the Senior Fellows, and she is certainly someone you will want to focus your attention on. Just keep talking to her as you are doing, and I’m sure everything will end up as it should.]

he really is one of the best.

like scott horton, he includes a bit of history and law with his opinion.

leah and bringiton,

you will find a compadre in greenwald's "update".

supreme court restores habeas

The argument that Obama would nominate Alito/Roberts type justices is absurd to me. I've seen zero evidence of this other than an oft repeated rumor that Obama almost voted to confirm Roberts.

Obama on abortion rights: Justices need broad 'vision'

"The Constitution can be interpreted in so many ways, and one way is a cramped and narrow way in which the Constitution and the courts essentially become rubber stamps for the powerful in society. And then there is another vision of the court that says that the courts are the refuge of the powerless because often times they may lose in the democratic back and forth; they may be locked out, prevented from fully participating in the democratic process."

Consider Laurence Tribe on his former student:

Link

"The next president won't be in a position to make this a liberal court, but he can prevent it from becoming reactionary and moving to unreviewable executive power," Tribe said, adding that Obama shares his views on Constitutional law.

Tribe, of course, argued the progressive side of 34 SCOTUS cases, including Bowers v. Hardwick and Bush v. Gore.

And rounding out Obama's legal advisors:
Martha Minow: "Her stated research interests include inequality, human rights, transitional societies, the relationship between law and social change, and the relationship between religion and pluralism" and is a former clerk for Thurgood Marshall.

Neal Katyal: "lead counsel in the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which held that military commissions set up by the Bush administration to try detainees at Guantanamo Bay "violate both the UCMJ and the four Geneva Conventions."

Cass Sunstein: author of "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever"

Lawrence Lessig of Eldred v. Ashcroft, Kahle v. Ashcroft and Golan v. Ashcroft.

Read Obama's remarks on the Roberts nomination here. I've also read that Obama puts a lot of weight in the fact that POTUS has quite a bit of Constitutional discression and authority in nominating judges. Putting the constitution above party divides isn't the worst quality one can have.

Anyway, I haphazardly gathered a fraction of evidence showing that Obama will be progressive with his judicial nominees. Please come back with more evidence if you want to claim little distinction with mccain.

Tell the Washington Post:

It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

"Pete's very good at looking around the corners of decisions and playing out the implications of them," Obama said an interview when asked about that discussion. "He's been around long enough that he can recognize problems and pitfalls a lot quicker than others can."

Gee, you know, it's a good thing he had Rouse around to "recognize problems and pitfalls" in voting to confirm an anti-choice chief justice of the supreme court. Even if he is a fellow Harvard-ie.

Excellent and much appreciated. I didn't have time this morning to round this up. I hope everybody does some thinking about this. There seems to be much lack of information on Obama's constitutional views.

Again, thanks.

You, too Bringiton.

OrienATL, you are right. I should not have challenged you as if you had some direct power to influence how the Democrats responded. I don't agree that Harriet Myers would have voted differently from Alito, for instance. Maybe in the fullness of time, since these are lifetime appointments....

But I think many of the comments recently that assume that all Democrats have to do is stonewall all of a President McCain's appointments to the Federal Bench are rather silly. First, there is a reason not to impose a litmus test - like once you do, then you have no way to complain when that is done to you. Also, it isn't a good thing when vacancies are not filled. Republicans generally don't give a damn, because of their anti-government bias. Also, it would monopolize an enormous amount of time away from the other funcitons of congress.

Let me also point out that it was the group of fourteen or whatever, led by Lieberman that truly undermined all Democratic attempts at holding the line of the SCOTUS appointments. One of the Democrats who let us down then was Robert Byrd. On the other hand, Byrd was a tiger on Iraq. Life and people are complicated.

So Obama mulled it over, listened to advice, and for whatever reasons (not accepting WaPo as the psychic authority here) made the right decision. Isn't that what Senators are supposed to do, and how they are supposed to do it? If all of them got it right, however they arrived at it, I'd be deleriously happy.

As to defending fellow Democrats, well; I'll stand by Obama on this one. When we have 67 Better Democrats in the Senate, I'll start throwing the rest of them under the bus. Until then I need them all, flawed as they may be.

Warm and fuzzy Obama may not be, but he is a long way from a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and that's all we will get from John McCain.

here is big tent democrat's view on how today's supreme court decision on habeas

reflected poorly on senator obama's judgment.

i think the main point is that when it came to supporting or not supporting john roberts for chief Justice, obama really had not a clue on how to approach the issue.

that viewpoint is at the heart of vastleft's cite just above.

btd at talk left:

obama on the scotus

in btd's talk left post cited above

there is a reference to a 2005 post by senator obama himself at the dailykos taking "armando" (another of btd's pen names, actually his real name) to task.

read down to the part about making political judgments thru "an ideological lens"

judgments, that is, like supporting john roberts for chief justice, obama's preferred position.

here is the senator:

sen obama on voting for john roberts

we are one justice away from a torture court, and every Senator who let that happen bears responsibility.

although I myself have trouble with the uncritical love thing, at least with strangers.

Again, I'm not so concerned with the process as I am with the results. (Does that sound familiar? Swear I've heard that somewhere before.)

For me, I see no need to be anything but straightforward about advocating progressive policies and goals. I also see no reason to avoid fair criticism when it is due.

No cause to treat Obama with kid gloves, he won't break. No reason either to just bash on him gratuitously because he failed to lose the primary process. I want to beat McCain, and Obama is the only tool I have to beat him with. Not happy about that, nothing else for it now but to plow ahead.