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July 20, 2005
Supreme Court Nomination Provides Media Reprieve from 'Plamegate'
I have to acknowledge that Bush's nomination of Judge John G. Roberts to take Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the Court was strategically brilliant to the point that I'm almost just prepared to give up on my anger with this Administration and just bow down to its political savvy. Roberts is almost certain to sail through the Senate-approval process. And, since he is young, in judicial terms, he might sit on the court until 2040.
I’ll hold off on other comment on this nomination -- at least for now.
That said, one rather deplorable decision Roberts made as a judge was in February, when he decided in favor of the Bush administration, which sought to prevent Gulf War veterans that were tortured under Saddam Hussein's regime from collecting the nearly $1 billion from Iraq previously awarded to them by a federal judge.
The Administration essentially argued that since the U.S. had conquered Iraq, the government that owed our soldiers compensation as per a court order no longer existed.
On the legal side, that may be a sound argument. Quite honestly, I don't really understand how a U.S. court can order a foreign government to pay our citizens compensation for torture in the first place (anyone?), although I suppose that is just part of the spoils of war.
However, the real reasons the Bush administration sought this decision were (1) now that it dominates and funds the Iraqi government, it didn’t feel like ponying up the cash to our troops, and (2) more importantly, the Administration was worried that the original Federal Court decision might set a precedent that could bolster future lawsuits against the U.S. government for mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
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By the way, in case you’re wondering. The pic above is not actually John Roberts, but former Vice President Dan Quayle. But all those conservative white-bred types look the same to me. The big difference, of course, is that John Roberts is no moron.
Posted by MJuhre at July 20, 2005 04:09 PM