Analyzing Obama: His Vote on John Robert’s Confirmation

January 13, 2008

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The year was 2005, and the stage could not have been a bigger one. We are talking about the confirmation hearings vote would be revisited, especially if he ran for higher office in the future (that would be now). This was no walk in the park, of John Roberts to become the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Sen. Barack Obama was the new kid on the block, the promising junior Senator from Illinois who was about to cast his first major vote as sitting Senator. It was well known that Sen. Obama’sObama had to calculate everything from his gut instincts to political well being. There was no doubt in his mind that Roberts had the credentials necessary for confirmation and Barack Obama was strong in his belief that ideology should never determine a supreme court nominee’s confirmation or denial:

Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Robert’s intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn’t want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

However at the same time Sen. Obama knew all to well that if in fact he voted in favor of confirming Robert’s that he would be reminded of it every time the supreme court came down with a conservative ruling. This decision was one that Barack Obama knew had a heightened level of significance on his future aspirations in politics, and if he screwed this up the fall out would be damning.

voted ‘nay’. However the vote itself is not what got the attention, it was When it came time to vote each Senator took their turn and cast either a ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ response regarding John Roberts, when it finally reached the junior Senator from Illinois Barack ObamaObama’s brilliant, and passionate explanation of why he voted the way he did, here is a portion if his dissent:

“The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts’ nomination. I do so with considerable reticence. I hope that I am wrong. I hope that this reticence on my part proves unjustified and that Judge Roberts will show himself to not only be an outstanding legal thinker but also someone who upholds the Court’s historic role as a check on the majoritarian impulses of the executive branch and the legislative branch. I hope that he will recognize who the weak are and who the strong are in our society. I hope that his jurisprudence is one that stands up to the bullies of all ideological stripes.”

It is in my opinion that Sen. Barack Obama did something that so many politicians find it impossible to do, that is vote with his heart and soul, while at the same time insulating himself from future political attack. Not only that, but he did it in a way that came across as genuine and not a few sentences that some speech writer in the bowels of the Senate building wrote for him. This folks is just another example of why I am so excited about Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for the White House. He is everything George W. Bush is not, genuine, intelligent, well read, articulate, and most of all one who deeply desires the best for every American not just a select few.