Column/Legend
1 - Prefix  - L-Life,  H-Homosexual Behavior/Perversion, R-Religion/Legal Persecution/ACLU, E-Education, M-Media Bias, O-Other
2-7 - Yr, Mo, Dy
8 - L -Letter to Editor, C-Commentary, O-Op-Ed, M-Metro

Hotlink Index of this weeks's family values related news:  [Supreme Court Battle]   [Life]   [Homosexual Behavior/Perversion]   [Religion/Religious Persecution]   [Education]   [Media]   [Other]

SUPREME COURT BATTLE
S050723       Liberals wary of Roberts' charm
S050723C    Supremely selected
S050725      'Souter-phobia'
S050725       Roberts' response
S050725       Roberts' 'sensitive' papers withheld
S050725C     In the tradition of Justice Holmes
S050725E    Roe vs. Wade vs. Technology
S050726       Democrats to delay Roberts hearings
S050726       Durbin disputes column on Roberts
S050726      Question of timing
S050726C    Impeccable choice
S050726E    Character assassination
S050727      Suspicious behavior
S050727      Democrats dismiss Roberts documents
S050727C   Detractors beware
S050727L    The role of a Supreme Court Justice
S050728      Democrats seek view on Roe from Roberts
S050728      Faith's role in rulings scrutinized
S050728      Prayer bills 'bad policy,' Roberts wrote in '85 memo
S050728      Strategy backfires
S050728C   Geared for a fight . . . over 'views'
S050729     Senators demand Roe be upheld
S050729C   Right focus on the law
S050730L   Twisting the confirmation process

LIFE
L050725       New warning ordered for abortion pill label
L050726       Roberts' wife

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
 

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050724Md Christian group vows to counter religious right
R050727       Political lobby
R050729       CONNECTICUT   Bishops take cleric to church court

EDUCATION

MEDIA
M050723L    Theaters and churches
M050725C   Rove's new challenge
M050725E   Liberals, conservatives and PBS
M050726      Johnson's record
M050726      Pushed too far
M050726      Truly conservative
M050726E    More misinformation on Wilson-Plame
M050729      Target A

OTHER
O050725      CALIFORNIA   Notebooks detail child molestations
O050725Md Huge cache of child porn seized in Montgomery
O050727       Attacking Santorum
O050727       COLORADO   Mom pleads guilty to holding sex parties
O050727       Family upheaval stabilizes
O050727Va  Kaine-Kilgore debate in Fairfax set for TV
O050728       Hillary's ties to DLC rankle left
O50726         Hillary courts centrists

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S050723   Liberals wary of Roberts' charm

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 23, 2005

Wade Henderson, a civil rights leader who wields influence with Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats, lamented yesterday that U.S. Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. appears headed for a "coronation."
    "He has friends on both sides of the aisle." said Mr. Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "As a general matter, he is moving not so much toward a confirmation but what appears to be a coronation."
    The comments reflect a wariness among liberal lobby groups that Judge Roberts -- viewed by them as extremely conservative -- may garner broad support from not only Senate Republicans, but also from the Democrats with whom the groups are most closely aligned.
    At last count, 44 senators -- all Republicans -- have expressed support for Judge Roberts. Another 15 -- including 10 Democrats -- have made positive statements about the nominee but declined to take a position until after Senate hearings.
    And in recent days, even some of Judge Roberts' toughest critics have been barely short of effusive after meeting with him in private.
    "He went on to say that like most of us he hates bullies and he believes that the rule of law gives even the powerless their day in court and their chance," Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, reported after meeting with Judge Roberts. "I liked that answer."
    Still, many questions remain, said Mr. Durbin, who was one of three Democrats to vote against Judge Roberts in the Senate Judiciary Committee two years ago when he was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Judge Roberts subsequently was confirmed by the full Senate's unanimous consent.
    Seated beside Mr. Henderson at a breakfast yesterday for reporters was Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat and a veteran of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
    "There is always a honeymoon period for the nominee," said Mr. Kennedy, who has witnessed 18 Supreme Court confirmations and two more for chief justices. "That's the way it always has worked in the past and it's working this time."
    Mr. Kennedy, who met privately with Judge Roberts earlier this week, said yesterday that "Roberts is an honest man of considerable integrity."
    But he also raised many questions -- as he has in the past -- about Judge Roberts' commitment to issues such as civil rights and pro-choice rights.
    "What side is this nominee on?" Mr. Kennedy wondered at the breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. "What we know is he is a wealthy Republican lawyer. The real issue is how is he going to come out on issues that are going to involve families and the people of this country."
    But Mr. Kennedy also said that all the recent speculation about Judge Roberts' wife and her political views -- particularly regarding religion and abortion -- have no place in the debate over her husband's nomination.
    "I think it ought to be out of bounds," Mr. Kennedy said when asked whether he thought Mrs. Roberts' opposition to abortion was fair discussion of the nomination.
    The senator also said that while he and his colleagues want to see any relevant material written by Judge Roberts while he was deputy solicitor general, he is not necessarily interested in getting everything.
    "I think it's only the documents that are related to the time that he served," Mr. Kennedy said. "I'm not interested in a fishing expedition, but I think there are related documents."
    While Mr. Henderson -- who has been among those involved in advising Democrats about judicial filibusters -- worried about a "coronation" for Judge Roberts, he also said that liberal groups can declare partial victory already over Mr. Bush's selection.
    "The first phase of this was to try and encourage the selection of someone not on the fringes of judicial thinking but toward the center," he said. "And to some degree, we may have already helped encourage that process because I do think that while John Roberts is certainly a core conservative ... he doesn't have the sharp edges."
    Mr. Henderson added that President Bush's nominee to the high court has "a very attractive record."
    Nevertheless, he said, he and others are worried that Judge Roberts' judicial philosophy is "a threat to core values and civil rights."
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S050725   Roberts' 'sensitive' papers withheld

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 25, 2005

The Bush administration does not plan to surrender all of federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s papers from when he was deputy solicitor general, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday.
    "This is, of course, very sensitive, very deliberative information that you're talking about," Mr. Gonzales told Brit Hume yesterday on "Fox News Sunday." "Generally, that's not something that we, the administration, or anyone in the White House would be inclined to share."
    The refusal sets up a showdown between the White House and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who have said they want to see some of the documents from the time when Judge Roberts worked for previous Republican administrations.
    Specifically, Mr. Gonzales said the White House does not want to reveal any documents that are subject to attorney-client privilege. Doing so, he said, would "just chill communications between line attorneys and their superiors within the Department of Justice."
    Some documents, however, might fall outside the privilege and will be handed over on a "case-by-case" basis, said Mr. Gonzales, adding that the administration would "be as accommodating as we can."
    Former Sen. Fred Thompson, the Tennessee Republican assigned to shepherd Judge Roberts through the confirmation process, said yesterday that all living solicitors general -- both Democrats and Republicans -- have urged the White House to keep the lid on those documents.
    "We hope we don't get into a situation where documents are asked for that folks know will not be forthcoming and we get all hung up on that," Mr. Thompson said yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
    Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the privacy claims a "red herring."
    "There is no lawyer-client privilege. Those working in the Solicitor General's Office are not working for the president; they're working for you and me and all the American people," Mr. Leahy said on ABC's "This Week."
    Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, said Friday that he wants to see all the documents pertaining to Judge Roberts' time working in the Solicitor General's Office under the first President Bush and his time in the Reagan White House counsel's office.
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said last week that he thinks Democrats are looking to "Estradify" the nominee -- a reference to D.C. attorney Miguel Estrada, whose nomination to the federal bench was filibustered and ultimately thwarted over Democrats' unmet demands for privileged information.
    "Senator Kerry, for one, has already made a comprehensive request in setting potentially the gamesmanship we saw with Miguel Estrada and even to some extent with John Bolton in a game of gotcha," Mr. Cornyn said yesterday on Fox.
    One Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said senators "have a right to know" Judge Roberts' views on abortion rights.
    "It's a question about the values and principles that guided Roe v. Wade," Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said on "Meet the Press." "I think we have a right to know where John Roberts stands when it comes to fundamental issues of privacy and personal freedom."
    Another Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, said he would "like to vote for" Judge Roberts' confirmation, saying the nominee "made a good first impression," but added that he had given the judge a list of "60 or 70 questions" and expected answers.
    "We simply want to determine if Judge Roberts is a mainstream thinker," Mr. Schumer said. "This is not a game of gotcha," he said, calling the questions a "means to simply determining Justice Roberts' judicial views."
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L050725   New warning ordered for abortion pill label

July 25, 2005

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Federal health investigators have ordered a reworking of the warning label on the abortion pill commonly known as RU-486 after the baffling deaths of four California users from bloodstream infections.
    "On the surface, this appears unusual," said Dr. Marc Fischer, a medical epidemiologist at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "That's why we're investigating."
    Two of the deaths, one this year and one last year, were reported last week by the Food and Drug Administration. The other two deaths occurred in 2003. All were caused by sepsis, a bloodstream infection, although the women didn't have all the usual symptoms for sepsis, such as fever, health officials say.
    The new warning label on Mifeprex, also known as RU-486 or mifepristone, will be updated to alert women and doctors in more detail to unusual, dangerous infections that are not always accompanied by fever. The FDA has not officially blamed Mifeprex for the deaths and says the drug is safe enough to stay on the market.
    The drug's maker, New York-based Danco Laboratories LLC, agreed to change the warning label, but has defended the pill's record, saying there is no evidence Mifeprex caused the bacterial infection and sepsis.
    Mifeprex is taken as two pills at different times. None of the women who died had followed FDA-approved instructions for taking the drug, and authorities are looking into whether that may have played a role in their deaths.
    More than 460,000 women in the United States have used Mifeprex since it was invented in France in the 1980s. The pill contains a "black-box" warning highlighting the risk of bacterial infection, sepsis and death. Reports of fatal sepsis among the pill's users are rare, occurring in one in 100,000 cases.
    The FDA calls for both pills to be swallowed, but the agency says it is aware that many abortion clinics and doctors recommend that the second pill be inserted vaginally based on studies that have shown its effectiveness in ending a pregnancy.
    Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president of medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc., said she thinks vaginal insertion is safe. Abortion clinics counsel women on making sure their hands are clean before they insert the pill to avoid infection, Dr. Cullins said.
    Federal drug regulators are not sure whether this so-called "off-label use" might have contributed to the deaths, but it is one of the areas being investigated.
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S050725   Roberts' response
    Supreme Court nominee Judge John G. Roberts Jr.declined to call himself a conservative or to accept any other political label, Sen. Arlen Specter writes in the New York Times.
    "In my discussion with Judge Roberts last week, I asked him if he would feel comfortable with any of the customary labels -- liberal, moderate, conservative," the Pennsylvania Republican and wrote in an op-ed piece.
    "Rejecting those categorizations, he said he would strive for modesty. His goal was to be a modest jurist on a modest court that understands its place in the balance of powers inherent in our Constitution.
    "He also emphasized the importance of stability. His focus on modesty and stability provide comfort that he would not be an activist but would respect congressional action and judicial precedent. Whatever assurances may be inferred from those statements, our history is filled with Supreme Court justices who have provided big surprises once confirmed."
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S050725     'Souter-phobia'
    "In the days before President Bush picked a Supreme Court nominee, the White House was gripped by Souter-phobia," Fred Barnes writes in the Weekly Standard.
    "Bush and his aides desperately wanted to avert the disaster that befell his father's White House in 1990. The elder Bush, on the advice of his chief of staff John Sununu and Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire, picked an unknown judge, David Souter, for the Supreme Court, thinking he was a conservative. Souter turned out to be a flaming liberal, so much so that Sen. Ted Kennedy now regrets having voted against confirming him.
    "In naming Souter, Bush had passed over another judge he'd interviewed for the job, a real conservative from Texas named Edith Jones. The reason: Confirmation of Souter looked easier and probably was. For conservatives, however, his elevation to the high court was a mistake for the ages," Mr. Barnes said.
    "Fear of another Souter led George W. Bush to seek the answer to a single question when he interviewed five potential nominees. All five were deemed to be conservatives. The question was whether they'd be the same 25 years from now as they are today -- in other words, just as conservative. The interviews lasted from one hour to nearly two. Bush found John Roberts the most impressive. He decided Roberts would not lurch to the left as Souter had or even drift in that direction as other Supreme Court appointees of Republican presidents have. A White House official said Bush doesn't expect Roberts to 'grow in office.'"
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O050725       CALIFORNIA   Notebooks detail child molestations
    SAN JOSE -- A man who authorities say could be the nation's most prolific child molester was crafting a lengthy memoir about his sexual exploits with boys when he was arrested, police said.
    Authorities also said they have cracked "99 percent" of the detailed code that Dean Schwartzmiller used in notebooks he kept, apparently to chronicle crimes both real and imagined.
    Schwartzmiller was arrested in May after investigators said they discovered notebooks with 36,700 handwritten entries of boys' names, descriptions of their anatomies and codes for suspected sex acts.
    San Jose Police Lt. Scott Cornfield said investigators seized a typed memoir that Schwartzmiller had been writing about his exploits with boys.
    Schwartzmiller is being held without bail on one count of aggravated sexual assault on a child younger than 14 and six counts of lewd and lascivious conduct on a child younger than 14 involving two 12-year-old cousins. He faces two life sentences if convicted.
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M050726       Pushed too far
    Marc Morano, senior staff writer for CNSNews.com in Washington, reports that the California State University professor who bore Jesse Jackson's illegitimate child has made her first public comments on the subject, including harsh criticism of the black community for "scapegoat[ing]" her.
    "I was attacked by friends, strangers and the black press without mercy," Karin L. Stanford writes in a new multi-authored book, her chapter titled "Wolves at the Door." "Black religious leaders and congregations prayed for him (Jackson) and his 'family,' but not for our daughter [Ashley] and me."
    After a story about his love child was published in the National Enquirer, Mr. Jackson admitted in January 2001 that he was indeed the father of the then-20-month-old girl.
    At that time, Miss Stanford recalled, the former director of Mr. Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH office here in Washington, the "black media" and "black establishment" turned on her. She said she was immediately labeled "a political stalker," "gold digger" and "opportunist" -- even though she refused financial offers to publicly reveal her relationship with the civil rights leader.
    "Coming at a time when [former] President Bill Clinton was being crucified for lying about his affair with a White House intern, my partner was praised by the media for his honesty," Miss Stanford writes in the book, "Because I Said So: 33 Mothers Write About Children, Sex, Men, Aging, Faith, Race & Themselves."
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O50726    Hillary courts centrists

By Mike Glover
ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 26, 2005

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday said the nation has "gone off track" in Republican hands since the prosperous years of her husband's presidency, making her case along with other potential 2008 Democratic candidates to a group that helped Bill Clinton win the White House.
    Speaking to the Democratic Leadership Council, Mrs. Clinton, New York Democrat, said the party must adopt a hard line on national security and back an increase in troop strength, echoing the centrist group's stance. She also called for expanded health care, increased jobs, better education and an end to fissures within the party.
    "It's high time for a cease-fire. It's time for all Democrats to work together," said Mrs. Clinton, whose core message was a need for Democratic solidarity.
    "After four years of Republican control, our country has not only gone off track, it has reversed course," she said. "Let's start by uniting against the hard-right ideology."
     Mrs. Clinton talked tough on combating terrorism, calling for "a unified, coherent strategy focused on eliminating terrorists wherever we find them" while arguing that more can be done to bring other nations into the fight.
    The speech was coupled with the announcement that Mrs. Clinton had been chosen to head the DLC's "American Dream Initiative," described by the organization as a national conversation with business, political, labor, civic and intellectual leaders on an agenda for the country and party.
    The chairmanship will allow Mrs. Clinton to travel the country next year, when she is seeking another term in the Senate. The job will be an opportunity to burnish an already high-profile image that frequently energizes Democrats while also helping anti-Clinton Republicans raise campaign cash.
    Among other possible 2008 candidates, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack assumed the chairmanship of the DLC, and Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh spent the weekend courting activists before delivering speeches yesterday at the group's annual meeting.
    • Mr. Vilsack said Democrats must have "a positive, progressive, practical agenda. We can't afford to be anti, against everything."
    • Mr. Warner made a pitch for expanding the Democratic electoral map. He said, "I am here today to tell you how important the heartland strategy is for the Democratic Party and the future of the country. ... We as Democrats neglect the heartland at our own peril."
    • Mr. Bayh said the party's future lies in the Midwest: "Our success as a party will largely be determined by how well we do here in the heartland."
    Mr. Bayh described Mrs. Clinton as a "very strong front-runner" for the Democratic nomination three years from now. Polls show the same thing, though there also are many voters who have a negative view of the former first lady.
    Mrs. Clinton's speech also focused on domestic issues and improving the lot of average Americans, harking back to her husband's presidency.
    "I know we can do all this because we've done it before," she told the nearly 400 activists gathered for the DLC's annual meeting.
    Mrs. Clinton has taken a course toward the political center as the speculation about 2008 has grown.
    In January, she used an appearance before pro-choice advocates to call for "common ground" on the issue and recently joined with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Georgia Republican, to push for health care legislation, such as a single system for medical billing that all insurers and providers would use to save time and money.
    In a nod to the political calendar, Pat Gerard, vice mayor of Largo, Fla., said a lot can happen between now and 2008.
    "Star power doesn't always mean everything," Mr. Gerard said. The early star gets the most criticism, he noted.
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S050726   Democrats to delay Roberts hearings

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 26, 2005

Senate Democrats want to draw out the confirmation of federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court as long as possible, but they expressed little hope that they can prevent him from reaching the high court.
    The White House has called for hearings to begin in late August, according to Judiciary Committee sources, while the panel's Democrats want to postpone them until September to give them and their supporters time to build a complete dossier on Judge Roberts.
    President Bush has said he wants retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement confirmed by the Oct. 3 start of the Supreme Court term.
     "We're not going to be rushed into rubber-stamping anything," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. "The committee needs time to carefully review the nominee's background and writings."
    Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said last week that he is "flexible" but that "September is a preferable time."
    Specifically, Democrats want to learn more about Judge Roberts' judicial philosophy, especially on whether he will defer to precedent or seek to undo modern American jurisprudence that many conservatives say has been wrongly settled.
    The most hotly contested example is Roe v. Wade, which made abortion a constitutional right.
    Among the more than seven pages of written questions that Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, has asked Judge Roberts is: "Do you believe that Roe v. Wade (1973) was correctly decided? What is your view of the quality of the legal reasoning in that case? Do you believe that it reached the right result?"
    Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, asked a similar question last week -- specifically what the judge, who is Catholic, would do if the law required him to do something that his church teaches as immoral, according to a column that appeared in yesterday's Los Angeles Times.
    But when the column drew criticism as a religious litmus test, Mr. Durbin's spokesman said the column was wrong, prompting writer Jonathan Turley to say he learned of the exchange from Mr. Durbin.
    Late last night, the Associated Press reported that the White House will deny the Senate Judiciary Committee documents from Judge Roberts' 1989-1993 service as deputy solicitor general -- the government's No. 2 courtroom lawyer.
    "They will not be released," a senior Bush administration official told AP on the condition of anonymity because the decision has not been made public. The move risks a clash with Senate Democrats who blocked appeals court nominee Miguel Estrada over a similar demand for unfettered access to administration working papers.
    Also yesterday, the Drudge Report quoted "a top Hillary source" as saying that "Sen. Hillary Clinton has confided to associates that she intends to vote for Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts."
    Her office said yesterday that the New York Democrat has not made a decision and won't do so until after the confirmation hearings.
    Liberal groups also are demanding to know whether Judge Roberts is now or ever has been a dues-paying member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.
    The White House has repeatedly said that although Judge Roberts has attended events at the Federalist Society and has delivered speeches for the group, he has no memory of ever joining. The White House has demanded corrections in The Washington Post and other news organizations that had assumed that Judge Roberts was a member because so many of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees have been.
    But the liberal Institute for Democracy Studies found a leadership directory from 1997-98 that lists Judge Roberts as a member of the society's steering committee. The group gave a copy to The Washington Post, which put the story on its front page yesterday.
    Still, the White House stuck to its story.
    "He doesn't recall ever paying dues or being a member," said spokesman Scott McClellan.
    Judge Roberts, who met with senators on the Judiciary Committee again yesterday, declined to answer reporters' questions.
    "I don't think he wants to take any questions," observed Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, who met with Judge Roberts yesterday.
    Asked about the matter after Judge Roberts left, Mrs. Feinstein said she did not ask whether he had ever joined the Federalist Society.
    "It's not a dispositive question, in my view," she said. "It would be interesting to know what the answer is because he said he can't remember."
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said too much is being made of the issue.
    "Obviously it wasn't central in his life, but it's not like being a member of the Communist Party," said Mr. Cornyn, who added, "I don't think I am or have been a member."
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S050726   Question of timing
    "Now that the president has given us the name of his nominee as the next associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the most important question is timing," Manuel Miranda writes in the Wall Street Journal.
    "In any Supreme Court confirmation, the timing is first and foremost controlled by the retiring justice, as we saw this month with the announcements of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and (the non-retiring) Chief Justice William Rehnquist. But in the days after Justice O'Connor's announcement, the timing baton was firmly in the president's hand and he ran with it, holding everyone in suspense until he went before the prime-time cameras last Tuesday night.
    "Timing was a key question even before Justice O'Connor announced her retirement. On April 4, about 200 leaders of libertarian, conservative and nonpartisan religious groups wrote Senate Republicans to prod them into action on ending judicial filibusters before the Supreme Court term ended in June.
    "The coalition opened its letter with this clear request: 'We write to ask you to end the judicial filibusters at the earliest possible moment and well before a Supreme Court vacancy should occur.' They added: 'This president must have the freedom to nominate ... Supreme Court justices.'
    "Why the press? Two reasons. First, the aim was to shake up those Senate Republicans who seemed willing to fight to end judicial filibusters only if Democrats obstructed a Supreme Court nominee. The coalition wanted the filibuster threat ended well before there was a vacancy on the court. It feared that introducing the 'constitutional option' -- a Senate rule change declaring judicial filibusters out of order -- in the heat of a Supreme Court confirmation would taint the confirmation in the way that Bush v. Gore tainted the president's first term."
    "The second reason was all about timing -- in particular, fear of the August recess. This concern was rooted in the past. Both Robert Bork, Ronald Reagan's failed nominee in 1987, and Clarence Thomas, George H.W. Bush's embattled choice, had been announced on July 1, the same date that Justice O'Connor announced her retirement. Both were left to twist in hot summer breezes without a hearing until September."
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M050726       Johnson's record
    "On Saturday, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson gave the Democratic party's weekly radio address and excoriated President Bush for not having fired Karl Rove and others in connection with the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's name to the press," Gary Schmitt writes at the Weekly Standard's Web site (www.weeklystandard.com).
    "This followed Johnson's appearance before a panel of House and Senate Democrats on Friday, where he made similar criticisms of the president. A self-described Republican, Johnson argued that the failure of the president to fire Rove and anyone else supposedly involved in the leak had severely damaged national security and would certainly hamper future efforts to recruit informants in the war on terror," said Mr. Schmitt, executive director of the Project for the New American Century.
    "Well, it's good to see that the former CIA employee is now worried about the war on terror. But it's a bit late. On July 10, 2001 -- two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon -- Johnson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times ('The Declining Terrorist Threat') in which he argued that Americans were 'bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism' and, in truth, had 'little to fear' from terrorism. And, in turn, he rebuked his former colleagues in the national security bureaucracy for using the 'fiction' of the terrorist threat to pump up their budgets."
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L050726       Roberts' wife
    The Senate's top pro-life lawmaker said yesterday that the free legal work Supreme Court nominee Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s wife does for a pro-life group should not be a factor in his confirmation.
    Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, said Jane Roberts' work for Feminists for Life is irrelevant to the process and to how her husband might decide cases if seated on the high court.
    "My wife has opinions on things that may or may not conform with mine, and I think most couples are in that situation," Mr. Santorum, who is a pro-life Catholic and the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said on NBC's "Today" show.
    "And so I don't think your wife's activities should have any impact on what a judge is going to do," he added. "I certainly would think that he would tell you they don't, nor should they. It's the facts of a case and the law of a case."
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M050726       Truly conservative
    "NPR's Nina Totenberg, who last week tagged Supreme Court nominee John Roberts as 'very, very conservative' and 'very, very, very conservative,' on 'Inside Washington' over the weekend described him as merely 'very conservative,'?" the Media Research Center's Brent Baker writes at www.mediaresearch.org.
    "But she couldn't resist adding a modifier every time she applied the conservative label, also dubbing him 'a really conservative guy,' 'a hard-line conservative' and 'a clear conservative.' Plus, she emphasized how he's 'a conservative Catholic.'"
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S050726   Durbin disputes column on Roberts

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 26, 2005

Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s rounds on Capitol Hill have resulted in a "he said/he said" spat between a senator with whom the judge spoke on Friday and a law professor's account of how that conversation touched on abortion.
    In a column in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Judge Roberts told Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, that he would recuse himself from deciding cases where the Constitution conflicted with Catholic teaching.
    "According to two people who attended the meeting, Roberts was asked by [Mr. Durbin] what he would do if the law required a ruling that his church considers immoral," Mr. Turley wrote. "Roberts is a devout Catholic and ... the Catholic Church considers abortion to be a sin, and various church leaders have stated that government officials supporting abortion should be denied religious rites such as communion."
    "Roberts appeared nonplused and, according to sources in the meeting, answered after a long pause that he would probably have to recuse himself," wrote Mr. Turley, who added that it was "the wrong answer."
    Both sides of the confirmation fight leaped on the exchange.
    Mr. Turley and others said it showed that Judge Roberts is unable to divorce himself from his religion while making rulings. Others viewed it as proof that Democrats such as Mr. Durbin -- who also is Catholic -- have a religious litmus test that would prevent them from supporting any devout Catholic to the federal bench.
    The exchange "smacks of a religious test for judicial office, which is offensive to all Americans -- whatever their religious beliefs," said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network.
    But some of the outrage came from Mr. Durbin's office.
    "Jonathan Turley's column is not accurate," Durbin press secretary Joe Shoemaker said, adding that his boss never asked that question and Judge Roberts never said he would recuse himself in such a case.
    "Judge Roberts said repeatedly that he would follow the rule of law," Mr. Shoemaker said.
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, met with Judge Roberts yesterday and said he asked him about the column.
    "There is no conflict for Judge Roberts," Mr. Cornyn said later. "He assured me that he would not have any difficulties ruling on such issues."
   Disagreement also came on who leaked the exchange.
    "I don't know who was his source," Mr. Shoemaker said. "Whoever the source was either got it wrong or Jonathan Turley got it wrong."
    Mr. Turley, contacted by The Washington Times yesterday, said his sources were Mr. Durbin and Mr. Shoemaker.
    According to Mr. Turley, he met Mr. Durbin in NBC's makeup room Sunday between the senator's appearance on "Meet the Press" and Mr. Turley's appearance on another program. According to the professor, Mr. Durbin told him the story while Mr. Turley took notes, adding that he called Mr. Shoemaker and read back his account of the meeting "word for word."
    "I specifically confirmed Senator Durbin's account with his press secretary," Mr. Turley said.
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R050727   Political lobby
    "As funding from its member denominations continues to decline, the National Council of Churches (NCC) is increasingly relying on support from liberal foundations and polemical direct mail campaigns," Mark Tooley writes at the Web site of the American Spectator (www.spectator.org).
    "A recent fundraising letter from NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar blasts 'Jerry Falwell and his friends,' 'hard-right fundamentalists,' libertarians, President Bush, Rush Limbaugh, the Heritage Foundation, and the organization for which I work (the Institute on Religion and Democracy)," Mr. Tooley said.
    "Preoccupied with its political purposes, Edgar's letter never once mentions what is officially still the NCC's purpose: to foster ecumenical unity within America's churches. Talking too much about Christianity might sound too 'fundamentalist.'
    "So, seemingly writing for a largely secular audience, who are expected to react viscerally to the mere mention of names like Falwell and Limbaugh and Bush, Edgar hacks away at hard-core political themes. In so doing, he seems to want to confirm the worst allegations of the NCC's critics: that the NCC has ceased to be a church organization and has instead become a political lobby of the Left. Indeed, to remove all doubt, Edgar mentions that the NCC works closely with the far-left MoveOn.org, which, though unmentioned by Edgar in his letter, also has provided funding to the NCC."
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O050727   Attacking Santorum
    The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is using Sen. Rick Santorum's book to attack the Pennsylvania Republican and raise money.
    "Rick Santorum has crossed the line. His new book It Takes a Family manages to offend women on nearly every page," DSCC Executive Director J.B. Poersch wrote yesterday in an e-mail to Democratic donors and the press.
    "It just proves that Santorum has a worldview wildly out of step with mainstream America and underscores how important it is to defeat him in 2006. This week Santorum is all over the airwaves pitching his book and his right-wing views."
    Mr. Poersch added: "As the executive director of this organization, I ordered the DSCC's Media Response Project to produce a hard-hitting new video that will counter the right-wing spin and show America that Rick Santorum's values are way outside the mainstream. ... Please make a contribution today and give the DSCC the resources to produce more videos like this and, ultimately, to defeat Rick Santorum and other Republican incumbents in 2006."

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S050727       Suspicious behavior
    "The reasons to worry about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts continue to accumulate," the Wall Street Journal says in an editorial.
    "First we learned he attended Harvard, which is always suspicious. Then the New York Times informed us that his wife, who is also a Catholic lawyer, not only worked pro bono for Feminists for Life but has in the past 'attended Mass several times a week.' Holy Mackerel.
    "Then [Monday] brought The Washington Post's scoop that Judge Roberts may once have been a card-carrying member of the Federalist Society. Mr. Roberts has said that he doesn't recall belonging to the lawyers' outfit. But in the best tradition of Woodward and Bernstein, Post reporters dug through the society's 'secret' enrollment lists and -- there it was, in black and white, the name of John Roberts, member 1997-98. This news actually made page one.
    "The Post's expose continues: 'The Federalist Society was founded in 1982 by conservatives who disagreed with what they saw as a leftist tilt in the nation's law schools. The group sponsors legal symposia and similar activities and serves as a network for rising conservative lawyers.' That's a subversive group if there ever was one," the Journal said.
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S050727   Democrats dismiss Roberts documents

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 27, 2005

Senate Democrats yesterday dismissed an offer by the White House to hand over up to 75,000 pages of documents pertaining to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s tenure as a lawyer in the Reagan White House.
    "This in no way satisfies any potential document request," said one Democratic aide, generally reflecting the sentiments of Senate Democrats. "The White House has artfully made it look like they are saying yes to our requests, when they are actually saying no."
    Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote President Bush late yesterday saying they are "disappointed" in the decision to cut off access to "important and informative documents written" by Judge Roberts. Those documents, they said, may be necessary to "evaluate Judge Robert's judicial philosophy and legal reasoning."
    The White House has refused to release federal Judge Roberts' papers from his time as deputy solicitor general in the first Bush White House, saying that doing so would violate attorney-client privilege and set a dangerous precedent for judicial nominees. The Solicitor General's Office is the federal government's lawyer in cases that come before the Supreme Court.
    "Future solicitor generals might as well put up a 'need not apply' sign if people believe that they may someday go through a Senate confirmation process, and it would stifle the candid, honest, and thorough advice that solicitor generals depend on from their attorneys if that privilege was not protected," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday.
    Mr. McClellan said the documents the White House will provide is more than the Senate needs to do its job.
    Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, responded to the offer by saying the Senate -- not the White House -- will decide what it needs.
    "If the White House announcement is intended to begin a dialogue about documents, I welcome it," he said. "If it is intended to unilaterally pre-empt a discussion about documents the Senate may need and is entitled to, then this is a regrettable beginning."
    Later in the day, Mr. McClellan responded directly to the complaint by Mr. Leahy.
    "We hope Senator Leahy is not demanding to see documents as part of their lines of attack against the president's nominee -- something that they said they were going to engage in even prior to the president making a decision," Mr. McClellan said.
    Republicans yesterday released a letter signed by all seven living solicitors general -- both Democrats and Republicans -- urging the White House not to comply with such requests.
    "Any attempt to intrude into the Office's highly privileged deliberations would come at the cost of the Solicitor General's ability to defend vigorously the United States' litigation interests -- a cost that also would be borne by Congress itself," they wrote in the letter that was drafted in 2002.
    The letter was written after Democrats demanded the same records during the confirmation hearings of D.C. lawyer Miguel Estrada, who had been nominated to the federal appeals court. The White House refused to release those papers, and Democrats filibustered Mr. Estrada until he withdrew his nomination more than two years later.
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee, said he's concerned that Democrats want to "Estradify" Judge Roberts by asking for documents they know they won't get and then use that as an excuse to stall the confirmation.
    "If they're asking for more documents before they've reviewed the 75,000 documents that will be produced, it sounds like this is not in the end going to be a particularly productive debate," Mr. Cornyn said yesterday.
    "If the request is always for more, even after the administration has been enormously forthcoming, then it sounds more like the debate we got into on Miguel Estrada ... where we keep moving the goal posts."
    People for the American Way, a liberal group that has worked to defeat some of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees, issued a press statement yesterday asking: "What are they trying to hide?"
    "John Roberts was at the epicenter of debates on the most critical civil rights issues of our times," said Ralph G. Neas, the group's president. "Those documents could tell the Senate and the American people whether John Roberts will be a Supreme Court justice who will protect our most fundamental rights, or roll them back.
    "The White House should release all the documents to the Senate and to the public as appropriate as quickly as possible."
    The White House is working with the National Archives and Reagan library to expedite the process for the release of all documents related to Judge Roberts' time as a staff member in the White House Counsel's Office under President Reagan, "a process that typically takes months to go through," Mr. McClellan said.
     The library already has about 10 percent of those documents available publicly, and Mr. McClellan said, "We're working to make sure that the rest of that information is made available publicly, with the exception of issues where there might be national security concerns or privacy concerns."
    Meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans continued negotiations over a schedule for holding Judge Roberts' confirmation hearings.
    Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, hinted yesterday that if an agreement isn't reached, he would schedule hearings to begin August 29. Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, argued for hearings in September after Congress returns from its August vacation.
    "Unless something untoward comes up," Mr. Reid said, "I see no reason that we couldn't finish this by the first of October."

    Joseph Curl contributed to this report.
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O050727   COLORADO   Mom pleads guilty to holding sex parties
    GOLDEN -- A woman who told police she wanted to be a "cool mom" pleaded guilty to sexual-assault charges Monday for having sex with high school boys at parties where authorities said she supplied drugs and alcohol.
    Silvia Johnson, 40, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of sexual assault and nine felony counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors dropped two counts of distribution of methamphetamine.
    Police said the investigation began after one of the boys told his mother about the encounters, and she reported it to authorities.
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O050727   Family upheaval stabilizes

By Cheryl Wetzstein
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 27, 2005

Almost three-quarters of the nation's children lived with two parents in 2001, a figure that is not much different from a decade ago, census data show.
    "A lot of the really big changes [in family trends] happened a couple of decades ago," said Rose M. Kreider, co-author of the Census Bureau report on the living arrangements of children 17 and younger.
    But since 1990, things have been "pretty stable," she said.
    The new data, compiled from the bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation and released yesterday, shows that 71 percent of the nation's 72.5 million children lived with two parents in 2001.
    Two-parent families included biological parents who are married, stepfamilies, adoptive parents and unmarried couples.
    Another 22 percent of children lived with their mothers only. Three percent lived with their fathers only and 4 percent lived in homes with no parent present. Most of the children in the latter group lived with their grandparents, Ms. Kreider noted.
    In many ways, the 2001 data are virtually unchanged from 1990 and 1996, which suggests that "the changes in children's living arrangements have leveled off," Ms. Kreider wrote.
    However, historical census data capture the great upheaval that American families underwent in the 1970s and 1980s.
    For instance, in the 90 years between 1880 and 1970, roughly 85 percent of children were raised in two-parent homes.
    Between 1970 and 1990, sweeping social changes -- such as women entering the work force, no-fault divorce, and an increase in premarital sex, cohabitation and unwed childbearing -- led to a doubling of single-parent homes and subsequent decline of the traditional nuclear family.
    Now, the only figure that looks like it did 100 years ago is the small number (3 percent) of children who live only with their fathers, the census report said.
    Other highlights of the report, "Living Arrangements of Children: 2000":
   • About 2.1 million children lived with two parents who were not married to each other.
    • About 11 million children lived in "blended" stepfamilies.
    • About 1.4 million children were adopted, which is not statistically different from the 1996 estimate of 1.5 million adopted children.
    • Of 18.5 million children who lived with a single parent, 16.3 million lived with their mothers and 2.2 million lived with their fathers.
    • In the 12 months before the census survey was taken, 3.1 million children saw their mother or father marry; in more than one-quarter of these marriages, the biological parents married each other.
    • During the same 12-month period, 1.5 million children saw their parents divorce.
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S050728   Strategy backfires
    "Who says President Bush isn't brilliant?" Dick Morris writes in the Hill newspaper.
    "His maneuver in appointing Judge John Roberts has completely throttled the Democrats in the highest-stakes game of his second term," Mr. Morris said.
    "The key is that Bush has used the Democrats' opposition to his district and circuit-court judicial appointments against them and made it a ratification of the Roberts candidacy. Simply put, by choosing a judge whom the Democrats confirmed unanimously when he was nominated for the D.C. Circuit Court — and whom they did not filibuster — Bush has made the Democrats impotent.
    "The Democrats thought they were preparing for the Supreme Court battle when they hit on their strategy of filibustering Bush's judicial nominations. ... [But] by lending such a high profile to their opposition to Bush's lower-court appointments, the Democrats have effectively denied themselves the ability to filibuster anyone of whom they have approved in the past.
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S050728   Faith's role in rulings scrutinized

July 28, 2005

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    John G. Roberts Jr. would be the fourth Roman Catholic on the Supreme Court, if confirmed, an all-time high that is focusing attention on how faith might influence law on the high court.
    From abortion to capital punishment to physician-assisted suicide, the upcoming term offers plenty of issues in which the Catholic Church has strong interest. But history shows a justice's religion does not provide a road map for rulings. Abortion, the main religious matter swirling around Judge Roberts' nomination, provides a telling example. The Catholic Church thinks abortion is wrong in every instance.
    Two of the Catholics on the court -- Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- are pro-life. Justice Scalia, whose son Paul is a priest, and Justice Thomas are sometimes seen walking together to the court after attending Mass on holy days of obligation. But the third Catholic -- Anthony M. Kennedy -- voted with the majority in a 5-4 ruling in 1992 reaffirming the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, despite some apparent inner turmoil. Justice Harry A. Blackmun, who died in 1999, said Justice Kennedy worried "about the attention he would get as a Roman Catholic reaffirming Roe."
    The lone Catholic on the Supreme Court when Roe was decided in 1973, William J. Brennan Jr., supported liberal access to abortion.
     Many would like to hear Judge Roberts' position on abortion: An Associated Press/Ipsos poll released last week found that 52 percent of Americans want him to reveal his stand before the Senate's confirmation vote.
    Judge Roberts has not spoken publicly since he accepted his nomination, but has been meeting individually with senators on Capitol Hill.
    Writing in the online edition of the liberal magazine the American Prospect, Roberts foe Adele Stan said Mr. Bush was "playing the Catholic card" by nominating Judge Roberts, who would be the 10th Catholic in the court's history.
    "Bush is betting he's bought himself some insulation -- any opposition to Roberts, particularly because of his anti-abortion record, will likely be countered with accusations of anti-Catholicism," she said. For that reason, she added, Catholic senators should take the lead in grilling Judge Roberts.
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S050728   Prayer bills 'bad policy,' Roberts wrote in '85 memo

By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 28, 2005

Supreme Court nominee Judge John G. Roberts wrote that Congress should not be able to strip federal courts of jurisdiction in cases involving school prayer, according to a previously undisclosed document obtained by The Washington Times.
    The document contradicts newspaper and wire-service reports that suggest he favored legislation aimed at barring federal courts from reviewing school prayer cases.
    "Such bills were bad policy and should be opposed on policy grounds," he wrote in a May 6, 1985, memo to his boss, White House Counsel Fred Fielding.
    A source with access to such undisclosed documents said news organizations on Tuesday misrepresented a publicly available memo by Mr. Roberts, written when he worked at the Justice Department in the early 1980s, by suggesting he took the opposite stance.
    "He was doing a devil's-advocate piece when he was assistant attorney general," the source explained. "Here in this later document, he references that, but he says: 'My conclusion was that this was terrible policy.'?"
    The source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, blamed the news media misrepresentation on "the breathless reporting of liberal newspapers."
    Mr. Roberts wrote the 1985 memo in response to a request from the White House Office of Management and Budget, which sought a legal opinion on the proposed Voluntary School Prayer Act of 1985.
    "This bill would divest the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to hear any case involving voluntary school prayer," he wrote on White House stationery.
    Mr. Roberts then noted that he had already looked into the issue when he was an assistant attorney general. Although he concluded such bills were "bad policy," he acknowledged they were not expressly prohibited by the Constitution.
    "After an exhaustive review at the Department of Justice, I determined that such bills were within the constitutional powers of Congress to fix the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court," he explained.
    The Justice Department rejected this opinion and concluded that such bills were indeed prohibited by the Constitution.
    "My views did not carry the day," Mr. Roberts wrote. "The bills were, accordingly, opposed on constitutional grounds."
    Although Mr. Roberts believed such bills should be opposed on policy, not constitutional, grounds, he suggested it might be better not to revisit the issue.
    "I would recommend that we adhere to the old misguided opinion and let sleeping dogs (an apt reference, given my view of the opinion) lie," he concluded.
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O050728   Hillary's ties to DLC rankle left

By Donald Lambro
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 28, 2005

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's political alliance with the centrist-leaning Democratic Leadership Council, which once saw her as an adversary, will not weaken her support on the party's left because of her liberal voting record, a close adviser to the New York senator said yesterday.
    Mrs. Clinton's new agenda-setting role with the grass-roots organization that helped her husband launch his presidential campaign in 1992 has sparked attacks from liberal activists who say her embrace of the DLC will draw opposition from the left if she runs for president in 2008.
    But supporters dismiss such criticism, saying her relationship with the DLC should not concern Democratic activists on the left. They say those on the far left should pay more attention to her voting record, which has earned her a near-perfect 95 percent approval score from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action.
    "It's much more important to look at what she does and how she votes, and not that she has associated herself with the DLC," said Harold Ickes, who was deputy chief of staff in the Clinton White House and is now one of Mrs. Clinton's top campaign advisers.
    Mr. Ickes said that like Mrs. Clinton, her husband also came under fire from party liberals for his more centrist rhetoric, but they stuck with him because "his record in totality was extraordinarily progressive."
    A comparison of her political rhetoric and her voting record appears to bear out Mr. Ickes' claim. Earlier this year, she called for seeking out "common ground" on abortion rights, an appeal that suggested a much more moderate approach to the issue than the pro-choice movement was known for.
    In a move that will give her an increased role and visibility in national party affairs as she prepares for her Senate re-election campaign in 2006, the DLC asked Mrs. Clinton to be the chairwoman of the "American Dream Initiative," which is aimed at developing "a positive agenda" for Democrats to run on next year and in 2008.
    Mrs. Clinton, a featured speaker at the DLC's summer meeting earlier this week in Columbus, Ohio, was seen by DLC officials during her husband's presidency as the group's chief liberal adversary in the White House. It denounced her health care plan as a costly "big government" idea that dealt the party a severe setback in the 1994 congressional elections.
    But some of the party's leftist groups are unhappy with Mrs. Clinton's cozy relations with the DLC, a group founded in the 1980s to wrest control of the party from its liberal leaders.
    "By aligning herself with the DLC, it is pretty well guaranteed that there will be somebody running for the nomination to her left," said Roger Hickey, co-director of Campaign for America's Future, a liberal activist group that has been playing an increasingly influential role in the party.
    "She is going to have to choose between the DLC and the progressive activist base of the party," he said.
    But Mr. Ickes dismisses such talk, saying, "It's hard to characterize her as an extreme liberal. She has a lot of progressive and liberal support, but Hillary is moderate in many of her positions."
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S050728   Democrats seek view on Roe from Roberts

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 28, 2005

Two key Senate Democrats yesterday said that federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr. will have a hard time being confirmed to the Supreme Court if he doesn't publicly state his position on past court cases such as the one that established abortion rights.
    Vermont Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he doubts that Judge Roberts can be confirmed unless he agrees that Roe v. Wade -- the 1973 abortion case -- is "settled law."
    And in a speech yesterday at the National Press Club, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and committee member, listed three "troubling" pitfalls that could upend Judge Roberts' nomination. The No. 2 pitfall was Judge Roberts' reluctance to discuss specific Supreme Court cases -- even ones that might resurface before the court.
    Republicans responded that the statements were hypocritical and called the comments proof that some Democrats are using a single-issue "litmus test" to determine Judge Roberts' fitness for the bench.
    The Republican National Committee (RNC) issued a press statement accompanied by several quotes condemning litmus tests made by Mr. Leahy when President Clinton, a fellow Democrat, was in the White House.
    "Senator Leahy's eagerness to embrace the very litmus tests he has opposed in the past is the height of hypocrisy," RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman said. "It is clear that Senator Leahy is more concerned with appeasing the left wing of his party than giving John Roberts a fair confirmation hearing."
    In an interview broadcast yesterday on Vermont Public Radio, Mr. Leahy said he would vote against Judge Roberts if he determines that the nominee would pursue the same "active" agenda as conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
    "I want to find out if he's going to be as active as this -- as people like Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas, who have almost willy-nilly overruled things," he said, according to an Associated Press report from Vermont.
    Specifically, Mr. Leahy said, Judge Roberts will have a hard time being confirmed if he doesn't pledge to uphold Roe v. Wade, which declared abortion a constitutional right.
    "I don't see how somebody who said they didn't consider Roe v. Wade settled law ... I don't see how they get confirmed," he said. Mr. Leahy compared the primacy of Roe to Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed racial segregation.
    During his speech yesterday, Mr. Schumer worried about "Judge Roberts' continuing concerns about answering questions, particularly answering his views about decided Supreme Court cases."
    "Most opinion leaders and scholars think that asking a nominee to answer questions about a specific, already decided Supreme Court case is an appropriate line of questioning," he said. "It would go a long way to creating a smooth and quicker-moving process if Judge Roberts were to decide to answer those questions."
    Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Judiciary Committee, said yesterday that requiring Judge Roberts to answer questions about Roe v. Wade or other cases would force him to prejudge future cases that will come before the court. He cited Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, a case already on the docket for the next term that involves the constitutionality of a New Hampshire law requiring a minor to notify her parents before having an abortion.
    "It is nearly certain that some party in that litigation ... will ask the court to revisit or overturn Roe v. Wade because one party does so in nearly every abortion case that reaches the U.S. Supreme Court," Mr. Cornyn said. "Thus, whether Roe v. Wade should be overturned is not only an issue likely to come before the court during Judge Roberts' tenure, it is already before the court."
    Republicans also dug up a trove of quotes from sitting justices who cited the same reason in declining to answer such questions during their confirmation hearings.
    One quote was from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: "A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process," she said during her 1993 confirmation hearings.
    Justice Ginsburg, a pioneering feminist lawyer who had founded Women's Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, was confirmed by a 96-3 Senate vote less than two months after President Clinton nominated her.
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R050729       CONNECTICUT   Bishops take cleric to church court
    HARTFORD -- Nine conservative Episcopal bishops said yesterday that they will take Connecticut's bishop to religious court over his suspension of one priest and threat to remove five others.
    The conflict stems from Connecticut Bishop Andrew Smith's support for Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, the church's first openly homosexual bishop. Bishop Robinson's 2003 consecration has divided the U.S. Episcopal Church. Dubbed the "Connecticut Six," the priests had asked to be supervised by a different bishop because they disagreed with Bishop Smith's support of Bishop Robinson.
    Earlier this month, Bishop Smith used his power to "inhibit" one of the six, the Rev. Mark Hansen, and appointed another priest to lead St. John's Church in Bristol. The inhibition prevents Mr. Hansen from leading any congregation in Connecticut for up to six months. Diocesan officials said Mr. Hansen was suspended because he took an unauthorized sabbatical.
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S050729   Senators demand Roe be upheld

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 29, 2005

A group of female Democratic senators said yesterday that they will vote against Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. unless he vows to uphold abortion rights.
    Yesterday's comments exceed previous posturing by Democrats calling on Judge Roberts to state his position on settled cases, a practice that previous high court nominees have avoided. They also come closer than ever to establishing a single-issue "litmus test" for his confirmation.
    "Thousands of women a year died in back alleys," Sen. Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, said of the days before Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established abortion rights.
    "For more than 20 years, Sandra Day O'Connor has been an important vote in upholding Roe v. Wade," she said. "Will Judge Roberts be that same important voice?"
    Sean Rushton, director of the conservative Committee for Justice, groaned when he read the comments.
    "This is a single-issue litmus test that strikes at the heart of an independent judiciary," he said. "It proves that the Democratic Party is increasingly focused solely on the issue of abortion on demand. Their greatest fear is a nonpolitical judge who will read the law as it's written."
    At a press conference yesterday, the women were asked whether any of them could vote in favor of Judge Roberts if he said Roe was wrongly decided. None spoke up. Mrs. Boxer said she would find it "impossible" to vote for him.
    Asked specifically, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, clarified that she would wait to hear Judge Roberts' answers during his confirmation hearings.
    "I'm not going to be speculating," she said.
    Also on stage were Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, and Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington. Although Miss Mikulski did not say that she would support Judge Roberts if he opposes abortion, she said the coalition of female senators cared about more than just abortion rights.
    The remarks came on a day when Rep. Henry J. Hyde, Illinois Republican and the dean of his state's congressional delegation, sent a pointed letter to Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, scolding him over a report that he asked Judge Roberts about his Catholic faith. In recent years, "Catholic faith" has become code for opposition to abortion rights.
    "As Catholics, we certainly share a common experience, including the awful legacy of anti-Catholic bigotry that permeated American politics well into the 20th century," Mr. Hyde wrote Mr. Durbin, both of whom are Catholic.
   "?'Irish Need Not Apply' signs were common in the storefront windows of Chicago's neighborhoods until a few years ago, a bias driven largely by the Catholic faith shared by most Irish-Americans," Mr. Hyde continued. "I want to believe that you do not wish to turn back the clock to that ugly period of our history, and that's why these comments attributed to you concern me."
    The letter stems from a column earlier this week based on an interview with Mr. Durbin. According to the column, Mr. Durbin asked Judge Roberts how he would handle a case that touched on his religious faith, and Judge Roberts said he'd recuse himself.
    Mr. Durbin has since disavowed the claim, and Judge Roberts has told Republican senators that he said no such thing.
    Although Judge Roberts' confirmation process continues to go more smoothly than many anticipated, yesterday's comments likely will roil the Senate's hottest political passions.
    Mrs. Cantwell said that it isn't "good enough" to only ask about a nominee's allegiance to Roe. They also must establish that the nominee believes in an earlier court decision that found "privacy rights" in the Constitution.
    "I want to hear a nominee say that it is the basis for their philosophy," she said. "If an individual says that, then I will be convinced that they truly believe in the right to privacy and will not be a member of the Supreme Court that will unsettle Roe v. Wade."
    Mrs. Cantwell, a former member of the Judiciary Committee, did not dispute that such a standard amounts to a "litmus test."
    "Some of you may think that that is a litmus test," she said. "Well, I can tell you this, that over 60 percent of the American public believe that it is the job and role of the Senate to advise and consent on nominees, and it is very appropriate to ask nominees about their judicial philosophy."
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M050729      Target A
    "Karl Rove certainly doesn't act like a guilty man," Byron York writes in National Review.
    "Caught in the middle of the 'Plamegate' leak investigation, accused of 'smearing' Bush critic Joseph Wilson and 'outing' Wilson's CIA-agent wife, Valerie Plame, Rove has been going about his normal duties at the White House; people close to him say his daily schedule is packed, as always, with matters like judicial nominations, Social Security, and general White House stuff," Mr. York said.
    "His lawyer tells National Review that Rove has been assured by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he is not a target of the investigation. Rove has testified before the grand jury three times. And he has released any reporter who talked to him about the Plame/Wilson affair from any pledge of confidentiality.
    "It's not exactly the profile of a man with something to hide. Yet in spite of it all, Rove has emerged as Target A of the coalition of Democratic lawmakers, liberal pundits, and left-wing activists who have decided that Plamegate is their best shot — for now, at least — at the Bush administration. And they've been taking that shot, over and over and over. Harry Reid, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Kerry, Paul Krugman, MoveOn.org — they're all in the fight.
    "At times, the rhetoric has become slightly surreal. 'The bottom line is, there's a traitor in the White House who betrayed America and the war on terror right under George Bush's nose,' former Al Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway said on CNN recently. He was referring to Rove. Executives at the liberal radio network Air America liked the phrase 'traitor in the White House' so much that they created an anti-Rove fundraising campaign around it. And one of the network's hosts recently asked New Jersey Democratic senator Frank [R.] Lautenberg, 'Karl Rove is guilty of treason, isn't he?' Lautenberg said, 'Yes, I think so.' "
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S050723C   Supremely selected

By Debra J. Saunders
July 23, 2005

It looks as if all the interests groups and nattering nabobs outside the White House have conspired to make placing his first U.S. Supreme Court nominee on the bench easy for President Bush. The Left certainly has done its part.
    For five years, Senate Democrats on the far Left have hurled invectives at hot-button conservatives -- especially female and minority judges. They've only got so much mud left -- and they can't afford to waste it.
    Nonetheless, they will hurl more at Bush nominee John G. Roberts Jr. and waste it. It's the only play they know.
    Moveon.org quickly dismissed Judge Roberts as a "right-wing lawyer and corporate lobbyist" who should not be confirmed. That's the best that they can do: Attack Judge Roberts for being conservative and having worked for a D.C. law firm.
    Feminist Majority Foundation President Eleanor Smeal was reduced to complaining she is "dismayed" Mr. Bush nominated a man and demanding the Senate not confirm Judge Roberts unless he promises not to overturn Roe v. Wade.
    Push that line, and the White House can push back. Abortion rights advocates want more than support for Roe -- they want a pledge to find that the U.S. Constitution reserves the right for 15-year-olds to get abortions behind their parents' backs. Not much support for that.
    Senate moderates cinched the Roberts nomination in May. That's when the so-called Gang of 14 -- seven Republican and seven Democratic senators -- announced they would not go along with judicial filibusters. They promised to engage in this stalling tactic -- that prevents a full vote -- only under "extraordinary circumstances."
    Translation: They will vote for a solid conservative who is not overly ideological.
    And here he is. The Legal Times' Stuart Taylor described Judge Roberts as "a good bet to be the kind of judge we should all want to have -- all of us, that is, who are looking less for congenial ideologues than for professionals committed to impartial application of the law. If the Senate buries Roberts -- again -- it would be an outrage."
    Mr. Taylor wrote those words in 2002, when Judge Roberts was a nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals. The Senate did bury Judge Roberts by preventing a Senate vote, just as they buried him earlier after former President George H.W. Bush nominated him in 1992. In 2003, when President George W. Bush renominated Judge Roberts, the Senate confirmed him unanimously.
    If not one Democrat objected to Judge Roberts two years ago, how can the Democrats filibuster now?
    Conservative groups had threatened to walk away from Mr. Bush if they didn't get a conservative judge. If Mr. Bush won't battle for them, they argued, he wasn't worth electing.
    Mr. Bush was clever: He gave the Right a conservative, but -- barring unexpected news -- the activists won't get their battle. Judge Roberts is known more for his brains than his ideas.
    The right-leaning Progress for America has pledged "an initial $18 million to combat dishonest attacks on Judge Roberts." But it's not clear this pricey campaign is even necessary.
    No fight. No fun. So flashy conservative Ann Coulter complained Mr. Bush picked "a Rorschach blot" and a "Souter in Roberts' clothing." The more the far Right complains he might be a centrist, the better Judge Roberts looks.
    Besides, the more accurate description would be: He is a jurist who knows how to write laws from a conservative angle without using loaded language. I read what I thought might be Judge Roberts' most controversial decision: It upheld government actions in a public-relations disaster of a case. As Judge Roberts wrote, authorities handcuffed, searched and detained a 12-year-old girl "all for eating a single french fry on the [Washington] Metro."
    Because Metro police cited adults but detained children, the girl's family sued, citing unequal treatment. Judge Roberts wisely noted the Constitution discriminates by age -- it lists minimum ages for members of Congress and president -- and added that while there is reason to object to discrimination based on old age, "The concern that the state does not treat adults like children surely does not prevent it from treating children like children." "No one is happy about the events that led to this litigation," Judge Roberts began the opinion. But the law was constitutional.
    For months now, news shows and opinion writers have been mishandling the next-nominee story. There was the scoop that Chief Justice William Rehnquist will resign. No, he's staying. (And why not? His brain is sharp, and his will is strong.) It turns out Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was retiring.
    Then, pundits were sure Mr. Bush would pick a Latino. He didn't. Next, President Bush will pick a woman. Laura Bush is pressuring him to do so. (As if.) And he didn't.
    Tuesday, the scoop was Mr. Bush will pick Edith Brown Clement. Oops. Wrong. No, he'll pick Edith Jones. Oops. Wrong again.
    John G. Roberts is the real nominee. Mr. Bush looks brilliant for picking a conservative nominee who already passed through the Senate without a "no" vote. What Mr. Bush did was so obvious -- picking a popular conservative -- that everyone missed it.
 
    Debra J. Saunders is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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M050725C   Rove's new challenge

By Donald Lambro
July 25, 2005

White House political strategist Karl Rove has been crucial in recruiting successful Republican Senate candidates during the last four years and has even bigger plans for 2006.
    But all is not going well for Mr. Rove. In at least two pivotal races his campaign hopes, and perhaps the GOP's 55-seat majority, are in deep danger of being whittled down by two conservative challengers who have balked at White House pressure to abandon their Senate ambitions.
    The first is in Republican-heavy Florida where Mr. Rove and Sen. Elizabeth Dole, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, have made freshman Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson their No. 1 target.
    Despite a heavily conservative home-state constituency who handed President Bush an easy victory last year, Mr. Nelson has carved out a starkly liberal voting record that has won praise from MoveOn.org, making him one of the Democrats' most vulnerable incumbents. He won his seat by a narrow 51 percent five years ago and Mrs. Dole thinks he's beatable if the right candidate runs against him.
    Florida Rep. Katherine Harris thinks she is that candidate, but Mr. Rove, Mrs. Dole and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush do not agree. They think she remains a lightning rod because of her role as secretary of state in charge of the bitter ballot recount in the 2000 presidential election George W. Bush won by the skin of his teeth. And they have a thick sheaf of polling data showing, while popular among Republicans, Mrs. Harris is still hated by Democrats and many swing voters, who would turn out in droves to defeat her.
    In recent weeks, Mrs. Harris has reportedly met privately with Mr. Rove and, separately, with Mrs. Dole to press her case and argue she has been underestimated in statewide races before, only to prove wrong both polls and the Republican establishment. "I know I can win this," she told party officials.
    But the polling data Mr. Rove and others have shown her suggest otherwise. A Quinnipiac University poll last month showed Mr. Nelson leading Mrs. Harris by 12 points (his 50 percent to her 38 percent). She runs especially poorly among independents, a large and growing force in a state of political transplants.
    Mr. Rove, Mrs. Dole and Jeb Bush believe someone else will be needed to beat Mr. Nelson -- someone who doesn't reopen the political wounds of the Bush-Gore electoral battle. That candidate, they say, is Florida House Speaker Alan Bense, who is solidly conservative but, unlike Mrs. Harris, has little name recognition statewide.
    Mr. Bense has had meetings in Washington, D.C., recently with Mr. Rove and other top Republican officials who say they will give him the funding needed to make him a household name by next year's elections. The problem, though, is that just about every poll shows Mrs. Harris winning a party primary she has every intention of entering. Moreover, she has put together a cadre of heavyweight campaign advisers, including Ed Rollins, who managed Ronald Reagan's landslide 1984 campaign.
    That sets up a vexing scenario for Mr. Rove's team, who fear a divisive party primary could help the Democrats hang on to this seat. Harris supporters, though, think Mr. Rove and the party bigwigs should stay out of this election and allow Florida Republicans to decide on their candidate.
    The other race that has become problematic for Mr. Rove is in Rhode Island, where Sen. Lincoln Chafee, the party's liberal maverick, faces a likely challenge from conservative Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey.
    Unchallenged, Mr. Chafee wouldn't have much trouble holding his seat in the absence of strong Democratic opposition. But it's unlikely liberal, Democratic-leaning Mr. Chafee could survive a primary dominated by the GOP's conservative rank and file.
    Mr. Rove has been pressuring Mr. Laffey not to run, urging him instead to try for lieutenant governor next year, which would put him on sure track for a future governorship race. But Mr. Laffey, articulate and politically ambitious, wants "a bigger challenge," he tells senior Republican officials. "Definitely a race to watch," says veteran congressional elections tracker Stuart Rothenberg, who now ranks Mr. Chafee a "tossup."
    Elsewhere, the senatorial lineup being put together by Mr. Rove and Mrs. Dole looks promising, with a good shot at picking up an open Democratic seat in Minnesota, where Rep. Mark Kennedy is the likely Republican nominee and the Democrats face a primary fight. In Washington state, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, who won with a 48.7 percent plurality in 2000, looks vulnerable and could be challenged by another Rove recruitment, Safeco Chief Executive Officer Mike McGavick.
    But with the GOP's troubles in Florida and Rhode Island, plus Sen. Rick Santorum's tough re-election battle in heavily Democratic Pennsylvania, Mr. Rove won't get any free rides in this election cycle. "Republicans appear likely to maintain control of the Senate. But Democrats have a good chance of netting Senate seats, shrinking the GOP majority for the president's final two years," Mr. Rothenberg predicts.
 
    Donald Lambro, chief political correspondent of The Washington Times, is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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S050726C   Impeccable choice

By Bruce Fein
July 26, 2005

I have known Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts for 25 years. I had the privilege of working with the Mozartlike prodigy at the Justice Department during the Reagan administration.
    To ask what school of jurisprudence inspires Judge Roberts would be like asking Shakespeare what school of drama gave birth to his genius. He sports a trenchant and original legal mind, combining the profundity of Socrates, the wit of Alexander Pope and the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln. He will be a Justice who lives for the ages, an appointment that should be recorded as one of President Bush's finest hours.
    Mr. Roberts is no political partisan. His loyalty is to the Constitution, simpliciter. His votes will be uninfluenced by whether they bring cheer to Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals. As President Theodore Roosevelt voiced consternation over his acclaimed appointee Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, President George W. Bush will assuredly prove equally dismayed over some votes of Justice Roberts. Presidents are preoccupied with results, not process, failing to recognize the history of liberty is a history of procedural protections and strict adherence to rules of the game.
    Unlike Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and several of her colleagues, Judge Roberts believes the Constitution delimits the power of judges every bit as much as it does Congress, the president and the states. Article III confines the Supreme Court to exercising "judicial power," i.e., the power to interpret the Constitution and laws according to the text and purpose of the Framers. That lodestar does not eliminate all interpretive ambiguities. Whether freedom of speech was intended to include encouragements of suicide bombers, for example, is not self-evident. But text and purpose sharply narrow the range of predictable and legitimate interpretations -- the essence of the rule of law within the judicial branch.
    Accordingly, nominee John Roberts balks at the proposition Supreme Court Justices, like God in Genesis, are omnipotent over the Constitution, a usurpation achieved through such extraconstitutional blather as "penumbras and emanations" or "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Chief Justice Earl Warren was notorious for asking advocates whether a practice under scrutiny was "fair." Associate Justice Roberts will confine himself to the less utopian domain of the Constitution, a restraint consistent with the Founding Fathers' assurance that the federal judiciary would be the "least dangerous branch."
    Limiting the Supreme Court to interpreting rather than improving the Constitution does not mean its architects thought the nation's birth certificate flawless. They saw and anticipated shortcomings. Thus, Article V provides for amendments by a two-thirds vote of Congress coupled with ratification by three-fourths of the states. The Bill of Rights, a virtual codicil to the Constitution, was passed by the very first Congress. No contemporary believed the first 10 amendments, despite their importance, could have been legitimately incorporated by inventive Supreme Court edicts.
    Justice Roberts can be expected to look askance at intellectually flabby Supreme Court precedents that beset abortion, the death penalty, racial preferences, congressional power under the Commerce Clause and section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, the establishment clause, campaign contribution and expenditure limitations, and unenumerated rights of privacy. But he should neither be asked by senators nor should he respond to questions about his judicial views on particular issues, a reticence that also characterized exchanges between the White House and Judge Roberts. Justice requires the appearance of justice. That appearance is stained if a Supreme Court nominee has prejudged an issue during confirmation hearings outside the customary adversarial process and with an incentive to abandon sound constitutional viewpoints to propitiate Senate detractors.
    In hindsight, nominee Robert H. Bork regretted answering a battery of case-specific questions posed by his Senate interrogators, including the current chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican.
    The Constitutional Convention rejected a proposal for the Supreme Court to advise on proposed laws before their enactment to avoid skewing the justices' views on the constitutionality of statutes they recommended or opposed.
    Justice Roberts will give statesmanlike deference to Supreme Court precedents to honor settled expectations and to avoid inconstancy in the law. He eschews a Robespierre-like zeal to remake the world. Deference, however, is not slavish obedience. As Justice Louis Brandeis advised, stare decisis should bow to the lessons of experience and superior reasoning, recognizing that trial and error has a proper role in the judicial function. The longevity of a precedent confers no shield against an overruling. The odious "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was reversed 58 years later in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). The alarming holding in Olmstead v. United States (1928) that conversations are outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment was reversed 39 years later in Katz v. United States (1967).
    A delicate balance of prudential considerations is likely to inform Judge Roberts' inclination to overrule a precedent, including egregiousness of the constitutional error, its tendency to breed additional mischief and the opportunity of the political branches to correct the error by constitutional amendment.
    Where that leaves Roe v. Wade (1973) is indeterminate.
 
    Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with Bruce Fein & Associates and the Lichfield Group. He has prepared an "Advice & Consent Handbook" on Supreme Court appointments and the judicial filibuster.
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S050727C   Detractors beware

JACOB SULLUM
July 27, 2005

Critics of negative campaigning say attack ads reflect poorly on the candidates they're intended to benefit. That's not necessarily true, but I do find attack ads often reflect well on the candidates they're meant to hurt.
    When an announcer gravely warns me someone running for public office opposes gun control and wants to cut spending, I think, "Hmm. He sounds pretty good." So it is with Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, whose detractors seem intent on accentuating his positive points.
    The main complaint about Judge Roberts is that he might vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. "We continue to believe that [Roe] was wrongly decided and should be overruled," said a 1990 brief he co-authored as a deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration. "The court's conclusion in [Roe] that there is a fundamental right to abortion and that the government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy finds no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution."
    Assuming Judge Roberts agrees with the argument he made as the government's lawyer, I see no cause for alarm. Given how weak the reasoning underlying Roe is -- so weak many abortion-rights supporters are embarrassed by it, which they consider a legal and political mistake -- it would be alarming if Judge Roberts didn't think the case wrongly decided.
    The law has to draw a line after which a fetus becomes a person with a right to life, whether at conception, birth or somewhere in between. But that line's location cannot be determined by constitutional analysis, and under our federal system, it's a decision properly left to state legislatures.
    Speaking of federalism, the other major objection to Judge Roberts is he may harbor some sympathy for the idea. In a 2003 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit involving the Endangered Species Act, the New York Times notes, Judge Roberts "seemed to throw in his lot" with "advocates of the new federalism, that is, judges and scholars who believe Congress is limited in the laws it may enact, leaving some issues to the states."
    The mainstream view, apparently, is that Congress is not limited in the laws it may enact and the Constitution reserves no issues to the states. But the Constitution's basic structure describes a federal government limited to explicitly enumerated powers, as reflected in the 10th Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
    A New York Times editorial said a judge who applies the Constitution as written is trying to "resurrect ancient, and discredited, states' rights theories," while a judge who perceives no limits on state abortion laws in a Constitution that is silent on the issue is "an extreme ideologue with an agenda of stripping away important rights." I hope Judge Roberts is guilty as charged.
    One aspect of Judge Roberts' record I do find troubling (aside from the possibility he won't live up to the rap against him) is his position on legal treatment of accused terrorists. This month he signed on to a D.C. Circuit ruling allowing the Bush administration to try people accused of terrorism before military commissions that lack the procedural safeguards of both civilian courts and standard courts-martial: Unsworn statements can be used as evidence, the defendant has no right to be present, and both the right to avoid self-incrimination and the presumption of innocence are contingent on ad hoc rules written by the Pentagon.
    For the time being, these tribunals are used only for noncitizens captured abroad. But nothing in the D.C. Circuit's decision would prevent the Bush administration from using the same streamlined procedures for people arrested in the United States, including U.S. citizens.
    The Supreme Court, in a plurality opinion written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, has said, "Due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker."
    Much will depend on the meaning of "meaningful," and Judge Roberts, as Justice O'Connor's replacement, will be in a position to fill in the details.
 
    Jacob Sullum is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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S050728C   Geared for a fight . . . over 'views'

By Thomas Sowell
July 28, 2005

Preliminary indications are both we and Judge John G. Roberts may be spared the ugly food fights that confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee can become. However, if Judge Roberts has ever been guilty of jaywalking, you can believe some shrill special-interest group will dig it up and try to make him seem a threat to the republic.
    Even if all goes well and Judge Roberts is confirmed, there are virtually certain to be liberal senators trying to get his "views" on all sorts of issues and probably demanding confidential government documents nobody is titled to get, in order to dig deeper into his "views."
    What makes all this a cheap farce is the very senators who demand to see confidential memoranda from Judge Roberts' days in the Justice Department know in advance no administration of either party is likely to release such confidential material -- not if they ever expect people to speak candidly in the future when their advice is sought.
    How important are a judge's views? The great Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes did not hesitate to express his views. In the case of Abrams v. United States, Holmes referred to the beliefs of the people on one side as "a creed which I believe to be the creed of ignorance and immaturity."
    But that was the side he voted for. He understood the difference between his views and the law of the land. Too many other judges and politicians, and too many in the media, do not.
    Justice Clarence Thomas has likewise expressed views contrary to the views of the side he voted for, both on the Circuit Court of Appeals and on the Supreme Court. He too understands he is not there to impose whatever policy he prefers but, in Holmes' words, "to see that the game is played according to the rules whether I like them or not."
    It is a disservice to the country to promote the idea that a judge's "views" on particular policies are what matter.
    The idea that conservative judges will vote for conservative policies and liberal judges for liberal policies is the antithesis of what a judge is supposed to do. While some judges in fact vote largely on the basis of their own ideology or policy preferences, that is neither what they are supposed to do nor what all judges have done.
    Justice Holmes became a hero to many liberals because his judicial votes on the court were in several landmark cases in favor of many of the policies and practices liberals believe in.
    But this was not necessarily because these were what Justice Holmes believed in. He was at least as conservative as anyone on the Supreme Court today.
    What the senators and the country are entitled to know is how a judicial nominee regards his duty to respect the law as it is written -- especially the Constitution -- rather than vote according to his own "views," whether on abortion, religious symbols, or whatever.
    Ideally, judges should respect both the Constitution and the legal precedents, for the same reason -- people rely on the law as it exists when they make decisions and commitments.
   Telling people after the fact the law is now different from what it was when they made their decisions creates problems for people who acted in good faith. Even a justice who thought the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided is unlikely to want to overturn two centuries of precedents based on it.
    On the other hand, some precedents created by judicial activists more recently have so completely countered the Constitution that it is a judgment call whether all of them should continue to be followed. Judges take an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to regard all precedents as set in stone forever.
    Respect for separation of powers should apply to all three branches of government. Senators have no right to try to extort a pledge from a judicial nominee to vote a particular way on cases he has not heard. And that is what senators are doing when they talk piously about a "right to privacy" or other buzzwords.
 
    Thomas Sowell is a nationally syndicated columnist.
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S050729C   Right focus on the law

By R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
July 29, 2005

With the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush, Democrats and liberals -- usually one and the same -- again fasten their attention on a national organization mainly of libertarian conservative lawyers and judges called the Federalist Society.
    The Society is not open solely to adepts of the law. Others too can join. I myself have been a member in good standing for some years and can report the Society exerts no secret demands on its members. I have not had to learn any secret handshake or attend late-night meetings in any sacred groves. We learn no mumbo jumbo save for the usual legal terms known by many other Americans -- for instance, malum prohibitum, quid pro quo, dormio ergo sum.
    Nonetheless, the Federalist Society fetches Democrats' curiosity and occasional indignation. Professor Erwin Chemerinsky of Duke Law School says, "I only want the left to have its own Federalist Society." He is of the left, and I hope his aspirations are realized. Such groups are vital to the life of the mind and to the commonwealth, whether they adopt secret handshakes or wear funny hats like the Shriners and the Elks.
    The handshake has proved a particular sudorific for Democrats along with the frequent appearance of Federalist Society members among the president's judicial appointees.
    Applying his stethoscope to Judge Roberts, the Hon. Richard J. Durbin, Democratic minority whip, has observed, "As we try to monitor the legal DNA of President Bush's nominees, we find repeatedly the Federalist Society chromosome" -- another of the Hon. Durbin's literary flights. "Why is it," he asks, "that membership in the Federalist Society has become the secret handshake of the Bush nominees?" I repeat: There is no handshake. There is is an intelligent interest in the law.
    Since its beginning in 1982, the Federalist Society, a discussion group focusing on the law and promoting certain principles of judicial behavior, has grown to include more than 25,000. Professor Chemerinsky and Sen. Durbin are welcome to join.