Quote Of The Day
Here’s a startling revelation…
Democratic presidents nominate very centrist justices to the Supreme Court. The Republican presidents over the past 10-15 years have nominated very extremely conservative justices and that’s why the court has eschewed to the right.
And the role of the Democratic judges – justices – has been to play the middle… And that is, I think, at a larger ideological point, a discussion we should have, because Democratic presidents have been hesitant to put really liberal justices on the court.
— Eliot Spitzer, former New York governor on MSNBC
And why does anyone care what Eliot Spitzer has to say? Eliot Spitzer played the middle and look where it got him…
June 29th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Another really stupid comment by a Democrat. Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer….nope none of them are surely really liberal…..it’s just their decisions that are really liberal! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain….
June 29th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Another really stupid comment from Love Client Number Nine, that is…
June 30th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Let’s look at the current court, including party of president who nominated and leanings:
Stevens – R – liberal
Scalia – R – conservative
Kennedy – R – center-center-left
Souter – R – liberal
Thomas – R – conservative
Ginsburg – D – liberal
Breyer – D – liberal
Alito – R – conservative
Roberts – R – conservative
Republican presidents have nominated 7 of the 9 sitting justices.
-4 conservatives
-1 liberal-leaning moderate
-2 liberals
Let’s go back further, to the Nixon-era appointments of Rehnquist, Powell, and Blackmun
-1 conservative
-2 liberals
Not to mention O’Connor, who was a little to the left of Kennedy but still enough of a centrist on some issues to avoid the full liberal label.
Now, let’s look at the last 4 Democratic appointees (2 for Clinton, 2 for LBJ, Carter was shut out and beyond that we’re with Truman in the 40s so it’s irrelevant to today’s politics):
Ginsberg
Breyer
Abe Fortas
Thurgood Marshall
In the last 60 years, Democrats are batting 4-for-4 with 4 Liberal home runs.
Republicans, in the last 40 years, have had 11 at-bats, and have a record of 5 conservatives, 4 liberals, and 2 “moderates” that voted liberal more often than not.
Please, do not deride Eliot Spitzer with ad hominem attacks based on his indiscretions. Instead, use facts and logic to make him appear to all as the mental midget he shows himself to be in this utterance.
(Bob, for the record, count me among the people that internet duelists hate lining up against…)