According to an article in The Hill (HatTip: RealClearPolitics), the “revelation” (my quotes) that Judge Roberts is “conservative” (The Hill‘s quotes) — or at least was when he worked in the Reagan administration — has presented “Democrats mulling a run for the White House with a golden opportunity to build constituencies and raise their national profiles.” Republicans, accordingly, “are bracing for a more contentious confirmation process than previously anticipated.”
In recent weeks, newspapers have closely examined Roberts’s work in the Reagan Justice Department, calling attention to his writings on school busing, affirmative action and women’s athletics.
“I think this guy really is conservative,” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “I think it’s going to come back to haunt any Democrats who vote for him.”
Apparently potential Democratic presidential candidates are worried about offending what pollster Lake calls “fairly big swaths of the Democratic primary electorate” by supporting a nominee who opposes (or at least opposed) race-based busing of school children, race-based voting districts, and racial preferences in hiring and college admissions.
I wonder if there are any prominent Democrats who dissent from their party’s new orthodox substitution of preferential treatment for their former belief in colorblind equal treatment. For that matter, I wonder if there are any Republicans who have the courage, or maybe just the good sense, to take advantage of the gift liberals have given them by identifying as “conservative” the belief that people should be treated without regard to race, sex, or ethnicity.
UPDATE [5 August]
An article in the Washington Post today part of the definition of a “reliable conservative” is to oppose busing and quotas:
The prevailing view of Roberts as a reliable conservative initially emerged from his résumé as a clerk to then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist, aide to President Ronald Reagan, deputy to then-Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr and nominee of President Bush. That view was solidified by the release of forceful memos he wrote while serving in the Reagan administration, during which he helped shape policies opposing affirmative-action quotas and busing of school children to achieve desegregation [emphasis added].
The article also suggests, however, that Republicans may be once again about to reject the gift that liberals have offered them through their continuing support for racial quotas and racial busing:
In recent days, the White House and its allies have grown concerned that the documents released so far have painted Roberts as a rigid ideologue, and they have sought to provide a more complete portrait.
If opposing racial busing and racial quotas makes one a “rigid ideologue,” then I say we need more, not fewer, rigid ideologues. In any event, running away from — or trying to disguise — opposition to busing and quotas is certainly no argument in favor of having more Republicans.
