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Anti-Life Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid Pushes Gonzales For Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 7, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In comments on Wednesday anti-life Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid highlighted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. But he also added, “I don’t know if he’d have an easy way through.” Reid’s spokesman confirmed that the senator “feels that [Gonzales] obviously has the credentials and he is worthy of consideration for all the reasons he did cite.”

The comments from the Senate Democratic leader have served to increase already strong conservative fears that Bush may cave and nominate Gonzales after all. The more Democratic support a candidate has in the Senate the less chance that there will be a long and bloody battle to prevent Bush’s nominee from being confirmed. And Democratic senators are already making it clear that nominees that aren’t completely acceptable to the left will be given less than a warm welcome: “If [Bush] wants to pick a judge, we want to be able to support him. But if he wants to have a fight about it, then that’s going to be the case,” said Democratic Senate point-man Edward Kennedy.

In a series of remarks over the last several days Bush has criticized conservatives for their anti-Gonzales rhetoric, pointing out that Gonzales is a personal friend of his, thereby giving Democrats the fodder they need to fling at the “far-right”. 

Sun-Times Columnist Robert Novak, in an article entitled “Bush is biggest obstacle to a conservative court”, criticized Bush’s remarks, pointing out that “Bush is a stubborn man, who sounded like he might really nominate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in the face of deep and broad opposition from the president’s own political base,” adding that “so much is at stake in these Supreme Court nominations that surely the president must realize this situation transcends loyalty to a friend.”

Although conservatives have consistently demonstrated more faith than that in the powers of discernment of their president, Democrats and social liberals have leapt on the opportunity to criticize conservatives for trying to trump up their favourite candidates. Referring to a statement given yesterday by Bush, where he defended Gonzales, Reid lamented that “I think it’s too bad the president has to respond in Denmark about statements from the far right.” “People here have gone a little too far.”

The so-called “far right” has on the whole largely attached itself to the strongly pro-life and constitutionally faithful judge Garza as the prime Supreme Court candidate. However, despite Reid’s concern that people have “gone a little too far”, he did not mention the fiery rhetoric from the ‘far left’ criticizing Garza, including a website set up by Pro-Choice America dedicated to collecting donations and stopping the conservative judge from being nominated.

This website claims to be collecting the funds in order to “Help mobilize pro-choice Americans -- to press their Senators to stand against confirming any Supreme Court nominee who doesn't meet the basic criteria to which the American public is entitled” especially “commitment to rights of privacy and a woman's right to choose as embodied by Roe v. Wade.”

The future of Roe v. Wade has in many ways taken an unofficial centre-stage in the Supreme Court battle, and it is unsurprising that the main criticism levied at Emilio Garza is that he has spoken out against the abuse of judicial authority that led the Supreme Court to discover the ‘right’ to abortion in Roe v. Wade. Gonzales, on the other hand, has demurred from any criticism of the ruling, stating that the ‘right’ to abortion is the law of the land.

JJ

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