Does Kos Think Senator Johnson is a Traitor?

Last night, when Montana Democratic Senator Max Baucus said he'd vote to confirm Judge Roberts, the people at Daily Kos attacked him as a traitor.  Now Senator Johnson has announced he's voting for Roberts:

Johnson Announces Position on Judge Roberts

Washington, DC—U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) today issued the following statement of his position on the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court:

After careful and diligent review of the testimony provided by Judge John Roberts during hearings recently conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee, it is my belief that Judge Roberts should be confirmed by the Senate as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  I will cast my vote accordingly.

There are few decisions of greater consequence that I will ever be asked to make than whether to approve an individual for a lifetime appointment as Chief Justice to our nation’s highest court.   While it is impossible for any Senator to know with absolute certainty how a nominee will conduct himself in this high office, it appears to me that Judge Roberts is a thoughtful and respected jurist who possesses integrity and great legal skills.  I see no reason to believe that the nominee is an ideologue or otherwise outside the broad mainstream of contemporary conservative legal thinking.

While I have voted against President Bush’s nominees to the lower federal courts a modest number of times, I have voted over 200 times to confirm judicial nominees who I believed were conservative Republicans of great legal skill and who deserved bipartisan respect.  By my vote for Judge Roberts, I signal to President Bush my hope that his nominee to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will similarly be a distinguished jurist or scholar who can win broad bipartisan support. 

Our nation is in need of healing and coming together, and choices for our highest court ought to further that goal rather than serving to polarize a country that is at war and still struggling with an immense natural disaster.

The proper legal foundation for

America

is found in the broad mainstream of contemporary jurisprudence and not in the extreme agendas of the political far left or far right.