Roberts Confirmed.

[yesthattom]

wotw said it best: 28 votes is not a margin of victory; it’s a margin of failure... the President will learn from this that he can go 28 votes farther to the right next time around.


Here are the Democrats that voted yes and no.


Jeffords? Byrd? Feingold? Dodd? LEAHY????

55 Republicans and 23 Dems voted yes. 22 Dems voted no.

Democrats voting Yes:

Max Baucus of Montana
Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico
Robert Byrd of West Virginia
Kent Conrad of North Dakota
Russ Feingold of Wisconsin
Tim Johnson of South Dakota
Herb Kohl of Wisconsin
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Bill Nelson of Florida
Mark Pryor of Arkansas
Ken Salazar of Colorado
Christopher Dodd of Connecticut
Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut
Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
Carl Levin of Michigan
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Tom Carper of Delaware
Patty Murray of Washington
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
James Jeffords (I) of Vermont
Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia

Democrats voting no:

Evan Bayh of Indiana
Joseph Biden of Delaware
Barbara Boxer of California
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York
Jon Corzine of New Jersey
Mark Dayton of Minnesota
Dick Durbin of Illinois
Dianne Feinstein of California
Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts
John Kerry of Massachusetts
Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Barack Obama of Illinois
Harry Reid of Nevada
Charles Schumer of New York
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
Jack Reed of Rhode Island
Tom Harkin of Iowa
Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
Paul Sarbanes of Maryland
Maria Cantwell of Washington
Daniel Akaka of Hawaii

Comments

[practicallyfame.livejournal.com]

My only problem with Roberts is his shaky stance on the implied right to Privacy in the Constitution. My compromise - propose an amendment to the Constitution which GUARENTEES privacy, no questions asked. Then allow Roberts in. That's seriously my only issue with the man.

If right-wingers want to say there is no privacy implied in the Constitution and shouldn't be, I ask them to line up and register their guns. And let the gov't take control of their healthcare. And let the gov't search their homes. Aside from that, they're welcome to interpret the Constitution as strictly as they wish.

The next nominee will be of the Thomas or Scalia persuasion. Give praise for Roberts, for he was Bush's "moderate" choice.

[cos]

Byrd is fairly conservative. We've been viewing him as on our side because he's also sensible, honest, straightforward, and smart. He doesn't fall for idiocy like invading Iraq. But our problem with Roberts is that he's too conservative on important - truly "conservative", not a crazy corrupt right-wing power-grabber like most of the Bushies. It's not surprising that Byrd would grudgingly be okay with him.

Jeffords is pretty much a moderate too, he's an old school Yankee Republican who left his party in disgust but retains some conservative leanings. I don't know as much about him as Byrd.

Feingold is one of those, like Lincoln Chafee, who strongly believe the president should get his way on nominations, and the Senate shouldn't block someone for honest political disagreement, except in extreme cases. The Bush administration has given us a number of extreme cases, and Feingold will hold with a Democratic filibuster when those come up. But remember that Feingold was also the only Democrat on the judiciary committee who voted in favor of confirming Ashcroft. He then turned out to be the only one in the entire Senate with the courage to vote against the Patriot Act (well, the USA Act). Clearly he and Ashcroft are political opposites, but that wasn't enough to get him to vote against confirmation.

Leahy is the most interesting. I honestly want to know why he decided the way he did. I think there has to be some backstory, or some back channel communication that this is part of.

[petdance.livejournal.com]

Could Bush have done anything with this nominee that would have made you happy?

I mean, he had to put someone in there, right? I think that asking for Roberts to not get confirmed was just a pipe dream. Were you expecting a left-winger?

[wotw]

Watch those ellipses. I did not say the President will
learn; I said I expect that he will fail to learn.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

At the risk of putting words in Tom's mouth, I think you misunderstand the point.

Bush isn't the issue: of course he nominated a conservative judge, that's what conservative presidents are supposed to do.

The issue is our spineless, undisciplined, self-serving "opposition" party, which can't even get their act together enough to make a purely symbolic (and basically risk-free) show of defiance.

It's been over a decade since the Contract on America, and the Democratic Party still doesn't understand why they keep losing. Based on the evidence available here, they probably never will.

[aguynamedwill.livejournal.com]

Could that BE any more red state/blue state? Sheesh.

[cpj.livejournal.com]

You (and wotw) assume that a hard-line conservative is going to get 100% of the conservative vote, ie 55 Republicans.

There are hard line right-wing judges that will probably be declined by some of those Republicans, especially ones that have presidential ambitions.

[pyffe.livejournal.com]

I'm about as left as I can get and I'd have voted for him. He's the best we're going to get from this admin and a symbolic "no" vote would serve no purpose IMO.