Follow-up: Theology, class, and the Supreme Court

Last week John Roberts--a Supreme Court nominee so outwardly featureless that he might as well be packaged in white with a UPC code on his side--emerged as the Bush administration choice to divert attention away from Rovegate.

Bush was clearly obliged to forward a name that the Theocratic Right would approve of. I directed readers to Juan Cole's list of reasons why Roberts' confirmation would not be good for reproductive rights/privacy issues--and for women's rights in general, both in the US and round the globe.

(On both counts, by the way, the nomination has been less than successful: The attempt to create a diversion from Rovegate, for which they moved the announcement up at least a week, was successful for about one day--not really even a full day.)

And the Theocratic Right isn't very happy, because you can only determine this guy's stand on the ultimate litmus test of abortion if you parse his scant public record with Jesuitical attention to detail. No doubt they would have preferred someone who had "Abortion is Murder" painted on his front porch. But I digress.

It was Sirotablog who reminded us all that there are actually two sharks swimming in the waters of the commonwealth--the Theocratic Right, yes, but also the Corporate Right (whose issues are deregulation, lowering what's left of corporate taxes, and curbing consumer rights--especially our rights to bring corporations to court). The second shark--a quiet shark, not a tub-thumping shark, but he keeps his teeth pearly white just the same--has much to be delighted with in the prospect of Roberts sailing through the confirmation process.

Sirota writes:

At the beginning of the month, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was getting very involved in the Supreme Court fight. Specifically, "the Chamber forwarded to the White House its review of federal judges from each circuit, with ratings of each judge based on rulings that concern business." In other words, Big Business sent their marching orders over to President Bush.

Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles Times today [7/22/05] reports that Roberts is Corporate America's golden boy, handpicked by - you guessed it - the Chamber of Commerce. "He was the go-to lawyer for the business community. They are very comfortable with him," said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who signed a letter in 2002 supporting Roberts' nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "He definitely is a friend of the chamber. Of all the candidates, he is the one they knew best."

As I've said before, the media makes this stuff out to be all "liberal" vs. "conservative" when in fact the real paradigm is Corporate America vs. Everyone Else.

Yup. It's the people on Karl Rove's speed-dialer, and the Rangers and Pioneers, versus the chumps (that would be us). Wake up, Red States.