Andrew Sullivan digs into the DailyKos archives and comes up with Barack Obama's defense of not filibustering John Roberts. "A majority of folks," wrote Obama, "including a number of Democrats and Independents, don't think that John Roberts is an ideologue bent on overturning every vestige of civil rights and civil liberties protections in our possession. Instead, they have good reason to believe he is a conservative judge who is (like it or not) within the mainstream of American jurisprudence, a judge appointed by a conservative president who could have done much worse (and probably, I fear, may do worse with the next nominee). While they hope Roberts doesn't swing the court too sharply to the right, a majority of Americans think that the President should probably get the benefit of the doubt on a clearly qualified nominee." To be clear, Obama voted against Roberts. But he believed him suboptimal, not a radical. Sadly, Obama -- like many informed folks -- was dead wrong on this. Every court reporter I know has been stunned by the way Roberts has run the Court to the right. He has indeed been trashing civil liberties and overturning civil rights. Hell, the Court has literally attacked the legacy of Brown v. Board of Education. As Simon Lazarus put it in this magazine, Roberts has been running one of the most conservative, activist courts in history. "In 5-4 decision after 5-4 decision, Roberts has scorned the kind of 'modest,' 'consensus'-seeking course he charted in his hearing." In giving Roberts the benefit of the doubt, Obama and the rest of the Democrats got badly burned. Sullivan, reading Obama's old post, says, "[Obama]'s not quite the knee-jerk liberal base-pleaser some want us to believe." Well, he wasn't then, at least. But his good faith was not rewarded, and the base pleasers were, in spirit, exactly right. It would be surprising if Obama hasn't noticed.
