GOP Presses for Timetable on Roberts Vote

I found this off the Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- Senate Republicans, determined to seat John Roberts in time for the Supreme Court's fall term, pressed Democrats Tuesday to agree on a timetable for a vote amid political wrangling over how much of Roberts' past legal writings must be made available.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the Judiciary Committee's chairman, said that if he can't get an agreement for a final confirmation vote before Sept. 29, he may start hearings during the last week of August. That would interrupt the Senate's traditional monthlong summer vacation.

Okay, so let me get this straight. Senate Republicans are pressing the Democrats to agree on a timetable for a vote to confirm John Roberts to the Supreme Court, even as the Bush White House is refusing to release documents that Roberts worked on for the solicitor general's office?

Can you say "rubber stamp?"

Of course, the Post is picking up some real juicy tibits in the documents that have been released. Consider this:

Ironically, in one of the documents released during the day, the young Roberts wrote that beginning "my first day on the job" he was involved in the administration's efforts to secure confirmation for Sandra Day O'Connor.

It was O'Connor's resignation this summer that opened the first vacancy on the court in 11 years and led to President Bush's selection of Roberts to fill it.

In a sentence that could just as easily apply to his own confirmation proceedings as to hers, Roberts wrote on Sept. 17, 1981, "The approach was to avoid giving specific responses to any direct questions on legal issues likely to come before the court, but demonstrating in the response a firm command of the subject area and awareness of the relevant precedents and arguments."

In addition to drafting suggested answers likely to be put to O'Connor by the Judiciary Committee, Roberts wrote that he "participated in the two `moot court' sessions with Judge O'Connor held here prior to the hearings."

Gee....Sounds like Roberts and the Bush White House are using the same strategy here. Continuing on with the Roberts quotes:

Another document provides an example of Roberts offering advice that verged on the political. He was assigned to help prepare material for a speech Attorney General William French Smith was making to conservative groups at a time when they were expressing unhappiness that the Justice Department wasn't carrying out President Reagan's conservative philosophy.

Addressing criticism that judicial nominees weren't "ideologically committed to the president's policies," Roberts suggested something other than a "yes they are" answer. "Rather, we should shift the debate and briefly touch on our judicial restraint themes," he wrote.

"It really should not matter what the personal ideology of our appointees may be, so long as they recognize that their ideology should have no role in the decisional process."

It is a point that the current Bush administration makes in the current case _ that regardless of Roberts' personal political views, he will rule based on the Constitution and court precedent.

The more I read about Roberts, the more I do not believe him to be qualified to the court.