So, this is for the next Democrat president to sit in the oval office. When the time comes for you to nominate a Supreme Court justice what you should do, is wait until the end of July, right as things are winding down and everyone is going on vacation to announce your choice. Because when you’re on vacation everyone, especially the media, has nothing to report on except how no one is going after your nominee yet, so he must be likable!

Once again Democrats find themselves being bested by a clever marketing campaign by the Bush Administration, just like you don’t sell a new war before Labor Day, why do anything about a Supreme Court justice until after Labor Day, and while on vacation let the media spin him as “not too bad” and a “conservative Democrats may be willing to deal with.”

Look guys, I know vacation is awesome, but we kind of need you to do some work now, ok? I mean who doesn’t think they should get to leave their job for an entire month in August while gas prices rise, a country we invaded is trying to form its government, and the nation faces growing problems every day? I’m not saying I advocate the blocking of Roberts, I’m saying we need to learn a lot about him, and not let a Congressional recess turn this guy into a saint before he’s answered a single question.

Yesterday the Washington Post piece insinuates that we’re not going to put up any fight at all. I really have to take issue with things said in the article, especially some things from our own party:

“No one’s planning all-out warfare,” said a Senate Democratic aide closely involved in caucus strategy on Roberts. For now, the aide said, Democratic strategy is to make it clear Roberts is subject to fair scrutiny while avoiding a pointless conflagration that could backfire on the party. “We’re going to come out of this looking dignified and will show we took the constitutional process seriously,” the aide said.

[Emphasis Mine]

I wish I knew what office this aide works for, because I’d want to see him fired. We have always taken the constitutional process seriously; taking that process seriously requires that we don’t give a rubber stamp to every judge that the President sends over to the Hill, and most certainly not a rubber stamp to a Supreme Court nominee. It is Republicans who haven’t taken the process seriously, demanding nothing but immediate and outright acceptance to nominees with little debate, even to go so far as to attempt to change the rules of the Senate in a completely narrow way to achieve their ends. This aide is completely off base, and I’d like him to tell us just what we’ve done wrong to be undignified and to have disrespected the process.

One person interviewed in this piece does suggest a fight, that’s Lenny Davis, who:

complained that Democrats are avoiding a showdown with Roberts over ideology by fighting over whether documents will be released from Roberts’s time in government. “If they wanted to have a fight on substance they wouldn’t be talking about process,” Davis said. Democrats, he said, have “either folded or procrastinated to the point where it [opposition] won’t have any effect.”

It couldn’t be any more simply stated than that. So back to the lesson, nominate over the summer so people only barely pay attention, and no one in the opposition party forms a response.

At least Senator Reid had some choice words regarding what appears to be Democratic acquiescence.

“All this talk about whether Democrats will support the Roberts nomination is laughably premature. The hearings have not even begun. The White House has so far refused to produce relevant documents, and the documents we have seen raise questions about the nominee’s commitment to progress on civil rights.

John Roberts must still persuade the Senate and the American people that he is a worthy replacement for Justice O’Connor and the jury is still out on that.”

Additionally some Senators, including Kennedy and Leahy have stepped up resistance and responded to the same Washington Post article.

So what’s the bottom line? It’s not that Democrats are ready to simply accept this guy; it’s that we’re taking vacation a little too seriously, you’re still Senators and you have a pretty full time job. Just because Congress is on recess doesn’t mean we get to sit back and let the media and the Republicans paint this picture that we like Roberts. I’m not saying to outright attack him either, well at least not yet The position of the Democratic party should be clear and simple; however, and Democratic senators should support it.

That position should be of detailing what we want to see in a conservative nominee, and where the standards are to be set. It requires us to question every story and document that comes out, always stating that we look forward to the confirmation hearings to learn more about this. Perfect example would be yesterday’s reports of the gender discrimination cases, it’d be great if a Senator on the Judiciary Committee had come forward and said ˜We look forward to letting Judge Roberts clear this up for us, because we have genuine questions on this topic.’ Unless we appear that we’re at least somewhat opposed to the nomination, if for no other reason that our ignorance of the nominee and his positions, well the media can just continue to say that we’re accepting him and not putting up a fight.