If it quacks like a duck....

Geez, I'm so anxious to give Bush's Supreme Court nominee, Judge John Roberts, fair and serious consideration as to the kind of Supreme Court justice we can expect him to be.

We really need another justice 'cause with just eight, 4-4 votes are very likely. In many cases the court may be incapable of deciding anything. Indecisions could be handed down! That'd probably confuse a lot of us Americans. To some we'd look like "a nation divided....." and we know how dangerous that is, especially if you remember the rest of that quote.

Yesterday we discussed Roberts' problems with memory regarding his membership in the conservative legal organization, the Federalist Society. And then there's that case all the media want to mention, i.e. Roberts' upholding a lower court's ruling on the arrest of a 12 year old girl in Washington D.C. who was was booked, carted off, fingerprinted, and held for three hours for eating a single French fry in the subway.

These are probably examples of liberal sourgrapes. I mean, c'mon, let's give Roberts the benefit of the doubt. Serious consideration. And "Yeh, yeh, so what," if he's argued against an affirmative action program, against abortions, against environmental groups' right to sue under the Endangered Species Act or for religious ceremonies at high school graduations and for Cheney keeping his energy task force work secret from all Americans. More sour grapes?

But yesterday, Amy Goodman gave us additional insight into Bush's nomination. And I gotta say, it just looks a little slimy. It may just be we have a duck on our hands. Read the following and ask yourself if this doesn't look, waddle and quack like a duck. From "Democracy Now":

Roberts was also part of a three-judge panel that handed Bush an important victory the week before Bush announced Roberts nomination to the bench. In fact, the day before the ruling was issued, President Bush interviewed Roberts at the White House. The next day, the court released their ruling that the military tribunals of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could proceed. The decision also found that Bush could deny terrorism captives prisoner-of-war status as outlined by the Geneva Conventions.

Okay, I suppose this decision could help the Bush administration if they were ever brought up for international war crimes so I confess, this waddles just a little bit. Add to that Bush withholding some of Roberts' papers written while he worked for earlier Republican administrations because it's "privileged information." It sure doesn't look like the administration is expediting the installation of a tie breaking ninth member to the Supreme Court by stonewalling like that. Maybe, if we listen carefully--we can hear quacking in the background?

Don't you just love the mountains of information buried beneath the cloaks of "privileged information" and "national security"? There's enough buried in that landfill to.....oh, never mind. It's too scary to contemplate.