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
S050718    Left's list for high court seen as setup
S050718    Specter hopes for nominee similar to O'Connor
S050719    Bush meets with court contenders
S050719    Roberts is Bush's choice
S050719E  'Judges are not politicians'
S050720    Bush names Roberts to Supreme Court
S050720    Easy time seen for judicial nominee
S050720    John Roberts 'has the qualities Americans expect in a judge'
S050720    Property decision galvanizes the right
S050721    Breyer, Ginsburg had it easy in '90s
S050721    Conservatives prepared to spend on court fight
S050721    Nominee no stranger to Supreme Court
S050721    'Tar & Feather'
S050721    What a day
S050721E  The Roberts nomination
S050721L  Move to the right
S050722    A defining vote
S050722    Big push for judge surprises liberals
S050722    Democrats demand legal papers
S050722    'Ginsburg model'
S050722C . . and benchmarks
S050722C  Roberts' rules . . .
S050722E  When even Borking might not work
S050722E  Why they fight
S050723    Liberals wary of Roberts' charm
S050723C  Supremely selected
S070520    Nomination will test Senate anti-filibuster 'gang'

LIFE
L050720      Frist tries to juggle stem-cell interests
L050722C   Stem-cell debate solution?

HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR/PERVERSION
 

RELIGION/RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
R050720E  From the pulpit
R050722    TENNESSEE  Church reports membership loss

EDUCATION

MEDIA
M050718C  The Plame facts about distraction
M050718E  Fixating on Rove
M050719    Bush sets threshold for punishing leaks
M050719E  Knifing Rove, whitewashing Wilson-Plame
M050720    Then and now
M050720    What's the big idea?

OTHER
O050717C  Forum: Study snubs teen abstinence

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S050722   Democrats demand legal papers
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 22, 2005

Democrats said yesterday they will demand that the Bush administration hand over internal legal memorandums written by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. while he was a government lawyer -- something the White House has refused to do in the past.
    Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said he broached the topic during a meeting yesterday with Judge Roberts, who replied that any decision about his writings as deputy solicitor general would be made by the White House.
    Republicans on Capitol Hill said the request is not likely to be granted.
    Demands for those same documents -- deemed legally privileged by this and previous administrations -- led to the rejection of Miguel Estrada, an earlier Bush nominee to a lower court.
    Democrats have used this tactic to stall the nomination of John R. Bolton, Mr. Bush's nominee for ambassador to the United Nations.
    Some Republicans said yesterday that the demands may be early signs of a stealth campaign by Democrats to kill the Supreme Court nomination by demanding documents they know they won't get -- a strategy one Republican termed "Estradification."
    "This tactic was first fielded against Miguel Estrada, recently perfected with the nomination of John Bolton, and now some are fully primed to Estradify this fine nominee," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
    Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican and former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said yesterday he doesn't think "Democrats are going to get away with that this time."
    "Democrats know that if they are going to play that partisan game again, in something where the stakes are this large with a person of this quality and who they know who is qualified to be on the court, the American people are not going to put up with it," he said after meeting with Judge Roberts. "And the administration is not going to put up with it."
    The conflict arose on a day that several more members of the Senate -- including Democrats -- said publicly that Judge Roberts appears headed for confirmation without a filibuster, or even a particularly spirited fight.
    "My sense is: So far, so good," said Sen. Mark Pryor, Arkansas Democrat and member of the so-called Gang of 14 senators who earlier this year ended most of the filibusters against Mr. Bush's judicial nominees. The group signed a deal that prohibits Democrats from participating in a filibuster of a judicial nominee except in "extraordinary circumstances."
    "I think no one has seen extraordinary circumstances," Sen. Mike DeWine, Ohio Republican and signer to the agreement, said after a private meeting of the group. "There's no indication so far that there will be a filibuster. I think that was the consensus in the meeting, but I think people are reserving the right to see what comes out of the hearings."
Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska Democrat and deal signer, called Judge Roberts a "wise choice."
    Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and another signer to the deal, called him a "credible nominee -- not one, as far as we know now, who has a record that in any sense can be described as extremist."
    A tally taken by The Washington Times of 100 senators earlier this week found 44 in support of Judge Roberts and another 15 -- including several Democrats -- undecided but who have made positive comments. If these senators keep to these positions -- a big "if" -- there would be enough votes to confirm Judge Roberts, and even to snuff a filibuster.
    Judge Roberts had several more meetings yesterday with senators, most of whom gave generally positive reports.
    "It was a very cordial meeting," Mr. Schumer said of the 55 minutes he spent with the federal judge. "It was a very friendly meeting."
    Mr. Schumer released to reporters a seven-page list of questions he planned to ask the nominee during his confirmation hearing. But Mr. Schumer declined to say what Judge Roberts said to him. "I'm not going to say anything about his part of the conversation because I think we ought to keep that private," said Mr. Schumer, who voted against Judge Roberts' confirmation in 2003 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
    A few minutes later, Mr. Schumer revealed one tidbit: "He told me that he hoped that he could persuade me to win his vote over," he said. "And I said I hope he could, too."
    • James G. Lakely contributed to this report.
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S050722   Big push for judge surprises liberals
By Joseph Curl and James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 22, 2005
 

The White House's heavily orchestrated campaign to quickly define Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. to America and the U.S. Senate -- using the Republican Party's top strategist and a well-respected former senator -- has left Democrats and liberal groups flat-footed.
    Even before President Bush wielded the hefty power of the presidency by making a prime-time, nationally televised announcement, Karl Rove was working the phones. Mr. Bush's top political adviser called such key conservative leaders as C. Boyden Gray, former Attorney General Edwin Meese III of the Heritage Foundation and Leonard Leo, the executive vice president of the Federalist Society and the head of Catholic outreach for the Republican Party.
    Meanwhile, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie -- working out of the West Wing office granted to him to manage Mr. Bush's Supreme Court confirmation battle -- put into action a complex plan to win the early public relations battle to define Judge Roberts, on Capitol Hill and beyond.
    The aggressive early onslaught has worked for these earliest days, said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist with close ties to the White House.
    "The left-wing groups have blinked, and some of them have not gone out with their advertising yet," he said.
    "We knew going in that the left-wing groups had 50 or 60 million bucks to run a public campaign against the nominee. So naturally, our side went out and did planning and raised money to prepare for that kind of fight," Mr. Black said.
    Just 36 hours after Mr. Bush named his nominee, a new Associated Press poll found that Americans favor confirmation of Judge Roberts by a wide margin, 47 percent to 24 percent, with the rest undecided.
    Top Democrats also spent the past two days expressing admiration for Judge Roberts.
    "This is a credible nominee, and not one that -- as far as we know now -- has a record that in any sense could be described as extremist," Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut said yesterday.
    Democrats were hamstrung, said former Clinton pollster Dick Morris, noting that senators unanimously put Judge Roberts on the federal bench in 2003.
    "They can't now flip and vote against him," he said. "The very fact that the Dems ... let this nomination go through shows they didn't have any real objections to him."
    From the beginning, part of the White House strategy was to define the 50-year-old's accomplished record: federal appeals court judge, multimillionaire, summa cum laude graduate from Harvard in three years and magna cum laude graduate from Harvard's law school.
    In his introductory speech at the White House State Dining Room, the president played up Judge Roberts' working-class past -- he worked summers in a steel mill to help pay his way through college and was captain of his high school football team.
    The White House decided -- in an attempt to "humanize him," one senior White House official said -- to let Judge Roberts bring his wife, Jane, and their two children to the introduction. His younger child Jack, 4, made a spectacle of himself with his fidgety flights of fancy -- images replayed on cable news and comedy shows.
    The campaign began shortly after dawn the next day, when the president had coffee with his nominee and sent him to Capitol Hill. Popular former Sen. Fred Thompson shepherded him through the first of two days of photo opportunities with the lawmakers who will decide his fate.
    Mr. Bush and top White House officials had already laid the groundwork on Capitol Hill, reaching out to 70 senators in the days before the president made his nomination.
    "The consultation that the president had with the senators and the White House soliciting our views really made things easier because this place worships process," said Sen. George Allen, Virginia Republican.
    The White House even took the unusual step of employing the services of House members, who have no formal role in the confirming federal judges.
    Skip Brown, spokesman for the conservative House Republican Study Committee, said the group's chairman, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, and several other members "were approached to help in the confirmation fight."
    "The administration is putting more effort into this," said a House leadership source. "We don't get approached for this stuff on a normal basis."
    Senate Democrats -- apparently surprised that the president had not sought to replace the high court's first woman and most notable model with a like nominee -- rushed to announce that they would take a "wait-and-see" approach.
    Although several liberal groups such as NARAL-Pro Choice America and People for the American Way, denounced Judge Roberts, none came forward with ready-made ads.
    But Progress for America, a conservative group with close ties to the White House, began a $1 million ad campaign -- and plans to spend $17 million more. The first ad mentions Judge Roberts' unanimous approval to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
    "Colleagues call him brilliant and praise his integrity and fair-mindedness," the announcer says. "Urge the Senate to give John Roberts a fair up-or-down vote."
    The level of orchestration was such that the White House even dispatched Vice President Dick Cheney's press secretary to Ellicott City, Md., yesterday to script a three-minute public appearance by Mr. Roberts' parents and sisters.
    "The best brother anyone could ever have," gushed sister Peggy Roberts, reading from a prepared statement. "He provides us with his common sense, guidance, support and wisdom, whenever we need it."
    "And sometimes when we don't," added sister Barbara Burke.
    • Bill Sammon contributed to this report.
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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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S050722   'Ginsburg model'
    We can't say exactly what Vice President Dick Cheney discussed with a select group of Republican congressmen when meeting behind closed doors late yesterday in the Lincoln Room of the U.S. Capitol.
    But the "Republican Theme Team," chaired by Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, is obviously playing a role in helping Judge John G. Roberts Jr. get "from nomination to confirmation with the Supreme Court," or so GOP members were advised in writing in advance of yesterday's powwow with the vice president just down the hall from the speaker's office.
    The congressmen were handed four key talking points to help move the nomination:
    1. The Senate should provide a fair confirmation process that will ensure the Supreme Court is at full strength to start its next term Oct. 3.
    2. President Bush has engaged in unprecedented consultation, personally reaching out to more than 60 senators, including every member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and more than two-thirds of the Democratic senators.
    3. Average time it took President Clinton from the start of the nomination process to confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 58 days.
    4. The Senate should use the "Ginsburg Model" for confirmation.
    Justice Ginsburg was nominated on June 22, 1993, and within six weeks' time, on Aug. 3, the full Senate confirmed her nomination by a 96-3 vote.
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R050722      TENNESSEE  Church reports membership loss
    NASHVILLE -- The United Methodist Church, America's second largest Protestant body, reported a net loss of 71,518 U.S. members during the past year, bringing the total to less than 8.2 million. That followed a drop of 69,141 for 2003.
    The denomination has suffered annual declines for decades, but losses appeared to be slowing in the late 1990s, United Methodist News Service reported.
    The church reported membership increases in 14 of its 62 regional bodies, known as annual conferences. Most of the largest increases were in the South, while the largest drops were mostly in the Midwest and Northeast.
    From wire dispatches and staff reports
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S050722E   When even Borking might not work
July 22, 2005
 

Nothing is more infuriating in politics than a clean adversary, a certifiable good guy with real qualifications and no convictions for murder, child-molesting, bank robbery, or kidnapping.
    If you've drawn an adversary who hasn't even inconvenienced an abortionist, the crime of crimes in the lexicon of the defeated left, you're entitled to fight dirty.
    The size of the Democratic dilemma is almost beyond measure. The usual suspects have bankrolled bile against the day when George W. Bush would roll out his first Christian to be fed to the media lions, and the president introduces ... John G. Roberts. The only crime the Democratic forensic analysts can find so far is that he's a regular churchgoer, which is certainly bad, but not yet indictable.
    Now what?
    The organizations that have stockpiled mud, tar, pitch and various lethal toxins -- People for the American Way, the National Abortion Rights Action League, the American Civil Liberties Union and various preachers with pews but no bottoms to sit in them -- are particularly hard against it. They've raised a lot of money and their contributors expect to see somebody's corpse rotting soon in the sun. The bile merchants have got to find something to spend those millions on.
    Charles Schumer, the other senator from New York, complains that Judge Roberts "does not have a long and fulsome record -- he's only had two years as a judge." Indeed, the only "fulsome" record in these judicial matters is that of the senator himself. (Note to the Schumer soundbite-writing staff: "fulsome \ ful-sam \ adj: offensive, esp. from insincerity or baseness of motive; disgusting.")
    Some of our pundits, who confidently expected the president to give them someone who could be tarred, feathered and eviscerated with the gusto of an Islamic holy man, are working themselves in a lather with borrowed soap. "Judge John G. Roberts could turn out to be Antonin Scalia with a Washington Establishment smile," fumes E. J. Dionne Jr. in The Washington Post. Or maybe not: "He is almost certainly a William Rehnquist for the 21st century." Hmmmmm. Maybe not that, either: "And he certainly is David Souter turned on his head -- a stealth candidate whose winning personality disguises intense conservatism, not moderation."
    Somebody clearly has to do something. The Bush administration, writes Mr. Dionne, echoing the panic in the streets of Cleveland Park and the desperation at a dozen Georgetown dinner tables, will sneakily frame the debate "in terms of [Mr.] Roberts' ample qualifications, his bipartisan group of friends, his fine education and his lovely family."
    The only way to stop such a knave is to "lift the argument to the level of principle." In liberalspeak, an appeal to principle means anything goes. Clearly, a-borking we must go. Mr. Schumer, from whom many outrageous and silly things are expected, hinted late yesterday that the Democrats have a stealth strategy in mind. He demanded that the administration turn over reams of legal memoranda written by Mr. Roberts when he was a government lawyer. This sounds reasonable, but isn't, because no administration could agree to such a fishing expedition. Mr. Schumer knows this, of course, and he further knows that if the White House would be so foolish as to agree the demands would only accelerate. Next the Schumer Democrats would demand the Roberts academic records, including whose pigtails he pulled in the first grade, his junior high school report cards and the size of the shoes his mama bought for his high-school graduation.
    The shrewder Democratic pols and their brighter liege men in the media understand what has happened to them. First they lost their domination of the media; the New York Times, The Washington Post and the television networks no longer dictate what Americans read, watch and listen to, and now they're learning what happens when you lose a succession of national elections with no realistic hope of turning things around soon.
    Experience teaches even Republicans a thing or two. Borking won't be so easy this time.

    Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
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S050722   A defining vote
    The nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court means "we'll get to see Hillary Clinton and the other mainstream Democratic presidential hopefuls define themselves," New York Times columnist David Brooks writes.
    "This is going to be the first Supreme Court confirmation battle of the age of the blogger. Already the liberal interest groups, amplified by the blogs, are rolling out the old warhorse rhetoric. Already they've begun distorting Roberts' record, selectively quoting from his opinions and insisting the Senate maintain the balance of the court (which never matters when a Democrat is president)," Mr. Brooks said.
    "I suspect the Democratic elites would rather skip this fight because it has all the makings of a political loser. Anybody who is brilliant during Supreme Court grillings, as Roberts is, will be impressive at confirmation hearings. He is modest and likeable, and has done pro bono work on behalf of the environment, parental rights and minorities.
    "But the Democratic elites no longer run the party. The outside interest groups and the donors do, and they need this fight. It's why they exist. Hillary Clinton and the other Democratic hopefuls will have to choose between the militant wing of the party, important in the primary season, and the nation's mainstream center, which the party needs if it is to regain its majority status. It will be a defining and momentous vote."
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S050722E   Why they fight
    "In the immediate aftermath of Bush's nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court, we witness an unusual dichotomy on the left and right," Dick Morris writes in the New York Post.
    "The Democrats, clearly on the spot because they had voted unanimously to confirm him to the Circuit Court of Appeals, are waiting for the hearings and the negative research to pull up past statements or opinions on which they can oppose the nomination," Mr. Morris said.
    "But advocacy groups on both sides of the life-vs.-choice debate are wasting no time in ginning up their e-mail and postal lists for the coming confirmation battle.
    "Already the National Abortion Rights League and Moveon.org are rallying supporters to do battle, while Newsmax and other conservative groups are circulating petitions in the judge's defense.
    "We must treat the passion of those opposing Roberts with due skepticism. Advocacy groups have been waiting for a fight over the Supreme Court for a decade now and are determined to cash in on the opportunity it affords them to fatten their lists, add to their supporters and pad their revenues."
    Mr. Morris added: "Without a fight, they have no future."
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S050721   Conservatives prepared to spend on court fight
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 21, 2005
 

Conservative groups are eager to spend their $20 million war chest to support Judge John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination to the Supreme Court, but the main liberal groups have not decided whether to wage an all-out fight over the nomination.
    Progress for America, which has raised $18 million to defend the nominee, released its first television commercial yesterday calling for "a fair up-or-down vote" for Judge Roberts.
    "Judge Roberts is really the left's worst nightmare as a nominee because he's an individual we all feel we want as a justice on the court, but just as much as we want him as our neighbor," said Benjamin L. Ginsberg, a lawyer for both of President Bush's campaigns and an adviser to the group.
    Republican strategists had worried that if Mr. Bush had selected a nominee less appealing to conservatives -- such as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales -- the conservative groups would not be willing to spend money defending him.
    But with Mr. Bush's choice of Judge Roberts, the conservative groups "are willing to go to the mat for this guy," one strategist said.
    Progress for America's first television ad will run on national cable news networks and in Washington during the weekend political talk shows. The group will run radio ads and Internet ad banners and plans to target 20 states with a grass-roots program.
    In addition to the group's $18 million bank account, the Judicial Confirmation Network also has raised $3 million to defend the nominee.
    Wendy E. Long, counsel to the confirmation network, said it can go still higher if need be.
    "Some of our big donors have said to us, 'Whatever it takes,'?" she said.
    Most liberal groups, meanwhile, have expressed serious concerns about Judge Roberts, but haven't taken a public stance of opposition.
    If they do choose to oppose him, though, Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way said they can put together a huge coalition of grass-roots organizations including environmental organizations, pro-choice groups, MoveOn.org, labor unions and civil rights groups, much like the 300-group coalition that opposed Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court in the 1980s.
    "I'm not saying there are going to be that many, but if there is a decision by the organizations to oppose John Roberts, then we're probably talking about many more than are currently in the coalition," he said.
   Many liberal groups first opposed Judge Roberts' nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He was confirmed by unanimous consent in the Senate.
    But the Supreme Court is a much bigger battle, and the groups must decide whether it's worth spending their money to fight Judge Roberts' nomination.
    Pro-choice groups were particularly stirred up over the nomination, pointing to some past statements by Judge Roberts about the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Seeing their opponents' outrage, pro-life groups promised to defend Judge Roberts.
    Ms. Long said that if they choose to, there are a number of conservative grass-roots groups that don't focus solely on the courts that could jump into the fray, such as the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.
    Mr. Neas said that for now, his group will raise and spend money trying to frame what's at stake on the Supreme Court itself.
    "What we're going to do more than anything else is share our point of view for what's at stake," he said. "If John Roberts does share the judicial philosophy of [Justice Clarence] Thomas and [Justice Antonin] Scalia and not the judicial philosophy of Sandra Day O'Connor, dozens of precedents are at risk."
    Ms. Long said the entire reason the conservative groups exist is to prevent liberals from blocking nominations.
    "We wouldn't be here if they hadn't waged these wars," she said.
    Memos purloined from Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats' computer files in 2002 showed that the liberal groups pressured Democratic senators to block some of Mr. Bush's nominees to lower federal courts.
    But Mr. Neas said the groups don't matter as much as the nominee's performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
    "I think they play an important role, I think they involve a lot of people, but the roles pale in comparison to what happens before the Senate Judiciary Committee," he said.
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S050721   Nominee no stranger to Supreme Court
By Jerry Seper and Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 21, 2005
 

The Supreme Court is not an unfamiliar place to John G. Roberts Jr.
    The son of a former steel plant manager in Indiana and now President Bush's nominee to succeed retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, he has argued cases in front of the high court 39 times.
    The federal appeals court judge, who clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist after graduating from Harvard Law School in 1979, forged his litigation skills in winning 25 of those cases, earning a reputation -- one that stands today -- as a well-prepared advocate, brilliant writer and aggressive debater.
    Only a few of the more than 180,000 lawyers admitted to the Supreme Court Bar have ever argued more than three dozen cases before the court, but Judge Roberts was a frequent visitor, having served as Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr's chief deputy and being head of the appellate practice group for the District law firm Hogan & Hartson.
    "John Roberts knows his way around the court and is a solid candidate for nomination because of his respect not only for the text of the Constitution but for the role the American people and their elected representatives play in our government," said Mark Levin, former chief of staff to Attorney General Edwin Meese.
    "By all accounts, he does not view himself as a judicial monarch like too many of the current justices," said Mr. Levin, who heads the conservative watchdog law firm Landmark Legal Foundation.
    Judge Roberts, who sits on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, received overwhelming support from the D.C. Bar in 2003 when nominated by Mr. Bush to the appeals court.
    More than 150 bar members wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation process to describe him as "one of the very best and most highly respected appellate lawyers in the nation, with a deserved reputation as a brilliant writer and oral advocate."
    Judge Roberts grew up in Long Beach, Ind., near Lake Michigan -- a community where Bethlehem Steel managers lived. In high school, he was an excellent student and athlete, named as captain of the football team as well as editor of the school's newspaper. He graduated from Harvard summa cum laude in three years and received his law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.
    After graduation, he clerked for Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Henry Friendly and for now-Chief Justice Rehnquist. His public service career includes terms as associate counsel to President Reagan and principal deputy solicitor general.
    At 50, Judge Roberts -- if confirmed -- would be the youngest associate justice currently on the court. He also would be the 11th Catholic to serve on the high court and join with Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy in outnumbering Protestants on the court for the first time.
    According to the Indianapolis Star, Judge Roberts attended a Catholic boarding school in Long Beach, Ind., then transferred to La Lumiere, at the time an all-boys Catholic boarding school near La Porte, Ind. He graduated from there in 1973.
    But Judge Roberts considers his faith "a private matter," said Shannen Coffin, former deputy assistant attorney general during Mr. Bush's first term.
    "He is not going to approach the law as a Roman Catholic, nor as a white male," Mr. Coffin said. "John is a practicing Catholic but like most Catholics, he doesn't wear his faith on his sleeve. He is a man of deep and personal faith, but he'd also say he'd like to leave it at that."
    Judge Roberts' wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, also is an attorney. From 1995 to 1999, she was an executive vice president for Feminists for Life, a 33-year-old pro-life group based in the District. She still serves as legal counsel for the FFL board.
    "She's a brilliant attorney and we're very proud of her service to Feminists for Life," FFL President Serrin Foster said. "She's smart. There's a very Kennedyesque feeling when you look at them and their kids."
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S050721   Breyer, Ginsburg had it easy in '90s
By Guy Taylor
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 21, 2005
 

Legal scholars are citing the easy 1990s confirmations of Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a historical precedent for avoiding a major partisan fight over the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr.
    Deference to the president, along with solid qualifications on the nominees' parts, won favor on both sides of the aisle, although other scholars warn that the political landscape has changed since the mid-1990s.
    Justice Breyer had been a federal judge in Boston and longtime lecturer at Harvard Law School, while key conservatives were similarly won over by Justice Ginsburg's record as a moderate federal appeals judge despite having held liberal positions as an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer during the 1970s.
    "If you look at the positions Ginsburg had taken in her academic writing and her work for the ACLU, they were fairly extreme positions to the left and yet her nomination and Breyer's sailed through with virtually no eyebrows being raised," said Stephen Presser of Northwestern University's schools of law and history.
    Mr. Presser said it won't be a surprise if Judge Roberts is confirmed with similar ease, given his federal appeals judge record and connections on Capitol Hill as a former deputy solicitor general for the first President Bush.
    In a National Review Online column last week, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, noted that he had voted to confirm Justice Ginsburg. He cited a passage from his book "Square Peg" that "one of the consequences of a presidential election ... is that the winner has the right to appoint nominees to the court."
    "In fact, at the same time I was giving President Clinton the input he sought, I also said on the Senate floor: 'The president won the election. He ought to have the right to appoint the judges he wants to,'?" Mr. Hatch wrote.
    But political sands have shifted significantly since the Ginsburg and Breyer confirmations in 1993 and 1994 respectively, and some court observers say Judge Roberts' fate could suffer as a result.
    When President Clinton nominated Justices Ginsburg and Breyer the "Republican Congress had really been whipped by the president and wasn't in a mood to fight him," said Mark Moller, the Cato Institute's senior constitutional studies fellow and editor of the Cato Supreme Court Review.
    "This time around there's really quite a bit of bitterness toward the president," Mr. Moller said. "There's a lot of pressure on the Democratic leadership not to let Roberts go through without at least putting up a fight."
    He added interest groups dedicated to fighting any Bush nominee "have amassed a huge war chest -- over $50 million according to some estimates."
    "No matter how fine a nominee Roberts may be," Mr. Moller said, "the money won't be spent on peaceful bipartisan praise."
    Law-enforcement analysts, meanwhile, note that despite undergoing heavy scrutiny to achieve his current position, Judge Roberts is now the focus of a new round of background checks, because the stakes are higher for Supreme Court nominees.
    "It of course has a profile unlike any other," said Robert W. Knapt, a former FBI official who oversaw such probes during a portion of his 25-year career with the bureau.
    "Every FBI office in the country most likely will be involved," said Mr. Knapt, now a senior managing director for the global investigation and security firm Vance International Inc.
    Mr. Knapt said background probes are objective, although he added a "major oops" in a nominee's past can surface at any time and unexpectedly derail the confirmation.
    That was the case in 1987 when Douglas Ginsburg withdrew his nomination after admitting he tried marijuana in college. The Senate eventually confirmed Anthony M. Kennedy to fill the spot in 1988.
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S050721   'Tar & Feather'
    "Incredibly predictable" is how Progress for America describes liberal special interest groups that started "their premeditated character assassination campaign within minutes of the nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court."
    In fact, the conservative group, which has pledged an initial $18 million to combat "dishonest attacks" on Judge Roberts, had forecasted the attacks in its recent report: "Tar & Feather: The Liberal's 10-Step Plan for Judicial Character Assassination."
    Take Step 1: "Before (and after) a vacancy is announced -- whip your membership into a frenzy with overblown rhetoric."
    Who better in a frenzy than the Rev. Jesse Jackson, president of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition? He told the Chicago Tribune that confirmation of Judge Roberts would set "the court back half a century. ... He will roll back workers' rights, women's rights and civil rights."
    Step 3: "Once a nominee is named, immediately announce that the nominee's record raises more questions than it answers."
    Enter Wade Henderson, of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, who told the Baltimore Sun: "At first blush, John Roberts may not appear to be an ultra-right judicial activist, but his approach to issues of protecting the rights and freedoms of individual Americans is, at best, unclear and, in some instances, deeply troubling."
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S050721   What a day
    "[Tuesday] night George Bush kept his campaign promise that he would name a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. And I for one am ashamed that I ever doubted him," Manuel Miranda writes at www.OpinionJournal.com.
    "I should have understood the president better. In John Roberts, the president got what he wanted, and we conservatives did too," said Mr. Miranda, a former counsel to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, and founder of the Third Branch Conference, which promotes the appointment of conservative jurists.
    "But what a day! From the earliest moments on Tuesday, the Capital's rumor mill predicted with increasing 'certainty' that the nominee was Edith Brown Clement of Louisiana, whom President Bush elevated four years ago to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
    "As sound a judge as she might be, she isn't in the Scalia-Thomas mold and conservatives around the country picked up the phone and got on e-mail to ask, why her? The choice of Judge Clement seemed odd. She would have satisfied no aspect of the GOP base. It seemed for a moment that the White House had opted to take the easy path. And, for a while, it looked as if conservatives had lost the battle to persuade the White House to name a nominee with a clear conservative record.
    "But then, around 5 p.m., the rumor tide shifted. Word spread that it would not be Judge Clement, that it would be neither a woman nor an Hispanic. A few hours before the president made his prime time announcement of Judge Roberts, the news broke, and was met with relief. Not only because it was Roberts, but because it was over.
    "Neither the Washington press corps nor the activists on either side of the great divide could have taken much more. Another rumor might have caused a riot."
    A non-quota pick
    "With the Supreme Court pick of John Roberts, George W. Bush rose to the occasion," Weekly Standard editor William Kristol writes at www.weeklystandard.com.
    "The occasion was an opportunity to reshape the Supreme Court. Bush seized the opportunity, in two ways: He moved the Court a solid step to the right (to speak vulgarly), and he elevated its quality. It's true that Roberts is a Rehnquist, not a Scalia or a Thomas. He'll be a little more incremental, a little more cautious, than some of us rabid constitutionalists will sometimes like. But he is a conservative pick, and a quality pick -- and, to my surprise, a non-PC, non-quota pick," Mr. Kristol said.
    "I had expected Bush to choose a woman. Indeed, I pointed in last week's editorial to several competent and qualified conservative women. But in preemptively yielding to gender quotas, so to speak, I made a mistake -- and earned a well-deserved and well-argued rebuke from Charmaine Yoest at National Review Online, who said I (and others) had 'conceded too easily' to the pernicious claims of identity politics. She was right. And the president, weighing a truly important decision for the country's future, agreed with her.
    "By simply going for the best person, by not worrying about walking out to the podium [Tuesday] night accompanied by a white male, Bush did something important and courageous. He showed that he knows that on really significant matters, one has to ignore political correctness and political pandering, and even political convenience. For this lesson, as well as for an intellectually impressive and politically sound choice, Bush deserves a lot of credit. I unreservedly give it to him."
    Feeling giddy
    "The factor we think most likely to ensure Judge Roberts' confirmation: that the Washington establishment, and the media establishment, know him and like him," ABC's political unit said yesterday in the Note, its daily roundup of political news and opinion
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S070520   Nomination will test Senate anti-filibuster 'gang'
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 20, 2005
 

All eyes are now on the so-called "Gang of 14" -- the bipartisan group of senators who made the deal that ended the judicial filibusters earlier this year -- as the Senate moves toward confirmation hearings for federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr.
    Sen. Ben Nelson, Nebraska Democrat and key leader in the group, said yesterday that he expected members to talk today in order to decide whether to meet now or wait until the Senate Judiciary Committee has had an opportunity to consider the nomination.
    "We don't want to wait too long; we don't want to move too quickly," he said. "I don't particularly want to set any tone that we're going to prejudge anything at this point."
    Two Republican members of the Gang of 14 last night spoke positively of Mr. Bush's pick.
    "It's a good choice," said Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican. When asked whether Judge Roberts could be confirmed easily, Mr. Warner told the Associated Press, "I wouldn't predict anything, but it's certainly a good place to start."
    Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, called Judge Roberts "someone of extraordinary intellect [who] has a brilliant legal mind and received bipartisan support" to serve on the D.C. federal appeals court.
    She expressed a hope to "remove his nomination from the arena of interest-group politics" and focus on "his professional qualifications, judicial temperament and integrity." She said that the Senate should "proceed with a timely confirmation process."
    Meanwhile, Senate Republican sources said Judge Roberts will make "courtesy calls" to key senators today. He also may visit Capitol Hill today to meet with Senate leadership and top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, such as Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking member on the committee.
    Judge Roberts would be joined on Capitol Hill by former Sen. Fred Thompson, Tennessee Republican, who has been assigned as his "sherpa" to guide him through the upcoming confirmation hearings.
    While no schedule has been set, insiders expect that confirmation hearings will not begin until late August or early September, when Congress returns from a monthlong recess. Those hearings -- including witness testimony -- will likely last almost a week.
    In the meantime, investigators will scour Judge Roberts' background and lawyers on both sides of the aisle will comb through every opinion he has written and track down every public comment.
    But even before President Bush announced his nominee last night, Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and influential member of the Judiciary Committee, went to the Senate floor to express his dismay with the process so far.
    "I must admit to some disappointment that President Bush did not do more to consult with the Senate on this pick because, as many of us have said all along, it is such consultation that helps ensure a smooth confirmation process and a unified vote," Mr. Schumer said. "Had we been given some names beforehand, we would have been able to do some due diligence before any announcement, and be able to suggest to the president who might quickly succeed and who might face a tougher road to confirmation."
    Mr. Nelson had a different view.
    "Every Democrat I've spoken to, particularly of the Gang of 14, has been very positive about the president's reaching out," he told reporters. "And I think that speaks well for the Gang of 14 putting the advice-and-consent clause in the agreement to reach out to the president. I think in turn he's reached back, and I think people have been very positive toward that."
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M050720    Then and now
    The TV networks ran 58 stories on the Karl Rove-Valerie Plame-Joseph Wilson flap from July 10 to yesterday, although the special prosecutor has never said Mr. Rove is even the target of the investigation, the Media Research Center's Rich Noyes reports at www.mediaresearch.org.
    "Even though the morning shows often eschew esoteric political stories, there have actually been 32 morning-show segments devoted to Rove, compared with 26 on the evening newscasts," Mr. Noyes said.
    "Flash back seven years ago to the Lewinsky scandal, when the New Yorker ran an article attempting to discredit Linda Tripp by announcing that she had been arrested for shoplifting as a teenager, but hadn't noted the arrest when she applied for a Pentagon security clearance (because the judge had expunged the arrest from her official record).
    "Bill Clinton's Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, eventually confessed to leaking Tripp's confidential personnel file to the New Yorker's Clinton-friendly reporter Jane Mayer, but his 'apology' could be described as less than contrite: 'I'm sorry that I did not check with our lawyers or check with Linda Tripp's lawyers about this,'?" he said at a May 21, 1998, briefing.
    "But when the victim was an anti-Clinton whistleblower, the networks didn't seem to care that a high-ranking government official had used an illegal leak (violating the Privacy Act) to a reporter in an effort to discredit a critic. From March 1998 to November 2003 (when Tripp was awarded $595,000 from the Defense Department), the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening shows ran just 13 stories on Clinton's 'Leakgate' over five-and-a-half years. Much of the coverage was downright hostile to Tripp, not those who violated her privacy."
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S050720   Bush names Roberts to Supreme Court
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 20, 2005
 

President Bush last night nominated staunch conservative John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court, saying the Harvard-educated lawyer and appeals court judge will "strictly apply the Constitution and laws -- not legislate from the bench."
    "A nominee to that court must be a person of superb credentials and the highest integrity, a person who will faithfully apply the Constitution and keep our founding promise of equal justice under law," the president said in a nationally televised, prime-time announcement. "I have found such a person in Judge John Roberts."
    In picking the 50-year-old former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William H. Rehnquist, Mr. Bush rejected much speculation that he would nominate a centrist or a woman to replace the high court's first woman, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who announced her retirement July 1.
    His choice prompted immediate opposition from such liberal groups as People for the American Way and NARAL Pro-Choice America, which criticized a 1990 legal briefing he wrote while serving in the first President Bush's administration that called for the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling legalizing abortion to be "overruled."
    But the president said Judge Roberts is the best candidate to replace the swing vote of Justice O'Connor, who often broke 4-4 ties on issues such as abortion, affirmative action, states' rights and the death penalty.
    "He has a good heart. He has the qualities Americans expect in a judge: experience, wisdom, fairness and civility. He has profound respect for the rule of law and for the liberties guaranteed to every citizen," the president said as he stood side by side with Judge Roberts in the White House East Room.
    Judge Roberts, accompanied by his wife, Jane, and two children, said it was both "an honor and very humbling to be nominated to serve on the Supreme Court."
    The judge served in President Reagan's Justice Department and was principal deputy solicitor general in President George Bush's administration. He also has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court and said that experience "left me with a profound appreciation for the role of the court in our constitutional democracy and a deep regard for the court as an institution."
    "I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the court, and I don't think it was just from the nerves," he said.
    "I am very grateful for the confidence the president has shown in nominating me, and I look forward to the next step in the process before the United States Senate."
    Reaction on Capitol Hill was swift, albeit muted. While advocacy groups immediately opposed the nomination, especially after members of the Bush administration sought opinions from more than 70 members of the U.S. Senate before the president announced his decision.
    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said, "I will not prejudge this nomination.
   "The president has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry," the Nevada Democrat said. "The Senate must review Judge Roberts' record to determine if he has a demonstrated commitment to the core American values of freedom, equality and fairness."
    Added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat: "I look forward to the committee's findings so that I can make an informed decision about whether Judge Roberts is truly a guardian of the rule of law who puts fairness and justice before ideology."
    Pro-choice groups were more biting.
    "We are extremely disappointed that President Bush has chosen such a divisive nominee for the highest court in the nation, rather than a consensus nominee who would protect individual liberty and uphold Roe v. Wade," NARAL Pro-Choice America said.
    In 1990, Judge Roberts co-wrote a legal brief that suggested the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 high court decision that made abortion a constitutional right.
    "The court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion ... finds no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution," the brief said. "We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled."
    But during his 2003 confirmation hearing, the judge said he would be guided by legal precedent.
    "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. ... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent," Judge Roberts told senators in May 2003.
    In last night's announcement, Mr. Bush cited a 2001 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee from more than 140 members of the D.C. Bar, including a former counsel to two Democratic presidents.
    "Although as individuals we reflect a wide spectrum of political party affiliation and ideology, we are united in our belief that John Roberts will be an outstanding federal court [of] appeals judge and should be confirmed by the United States Senate," the president cited the letter as saying.
    Democrats and liberal advocacy groups will likely bring up several rulings and briefs from the judge's past. In private practice, Judge Roberts wrote a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that Congress had failed to justify a Department of Transportation affirmative-action program.
    During his tenure in the first Bush administration, Judge Roberts co-authored an amicus brief arguing that public high-school graduation programs could include religious ceremonies. The Supreme Court disagreed 5-4.
    Also during his time in the first Bush administration, Judge Roberts helped argue before the court -- successfully this time -- that doctors and clinics receiving federal funds may not talk to patients about abortion.
    Unlike some of the judges put forward by Mr. Bush, Judge Roberts was considered so noncontroversial when he was nominated to the federal court in May 2003 that the Senate skipped a recorded vote and approved him by unanimous consent.
    Republicans last night praised the nomination.
    "Judge Roberts is the kind of outstanding nominee that will make America proud. He embodies the qualities America expects in a justice on its highest court -- someone who is fair, intelligent, impartial and committed to faithfully interpreting the Constitution and the law," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee said.
    Praise also quickly poured in from conservative and pro-life groups.
    The Family Research Council called Judge Roberts "exceptionally well-qualified," and Concerned Women for America said, "No reasonable person can claim that Judge Roberts is 'out of the mainstream.'"
    Added the Rev. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life: "I am thrilled that the president has kept his promise by selecting a nominee who understands the importance of strictly adhering to the Constitution."
    Judge Roberts was first nominated for a federal appeals court seat in 1992 by President George Bush and again by the current president in 2001. The nominations died in Democrat-led Senates both times. He was renominated in January 2003 and joined the court in June 2003.
    The president's announcement last night was the subject of intense scrutiny throughout the day. At first, the name of Judge Edith Brown Clement emerged, with several news organizations -- including the Associated Press -- putting her forward as the choice. Later in the day, news agencies backed off Judge Clement and several other names emerged.
    The White House held an "embargoed, off camera briefing" at 7:45 p.m. on the president's decision, and so Judge Roberts' was being reported as the nominee even before Mr. Bush stepped to the podium. The White House said Mr. Bush took with him 11 names of top candidates under consideration when he went to Denmark on July 5.
    In the past few days, he interviewed five candidates, including Judge Roberts on Friday. Judge Roberts was treated to a presidential tour of the residence, including the Lincoln Bedroom, during his one-hour visit.
    Mr. Bush made his decision last night, and during lunch with Australian Prime Minister John Howard yesterday, stepped out of the room to call his nominee.
    When he returned, he said to the group, which included the leaders' wives: "I just offered the job to a great, smart 50-year-old lawyer who has agreed to serve on the bench."
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S050720   Easy time seen for judicial nominee
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 20, 2005
 

With Senate Democrats offering at least tepid praise last night, Republicans say federal Judge John G. Roberts Jr. should be easily confirmed to the Supreme Court.
    "This should be a straightforward confirmation," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will hold hearings on the nomination. "President Bush fulfilled his commitment to appoint an individual who is committed to restraint and not legislating from the bench."
    Judge Roberts, 50, is hardly loved by Democrats and liberal groups, but he was confirmed to his current seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit by the full Senate without needing a vote.
    "The president has chosen someone with suitable legal credentials, but that is not the end of our inquiry," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said. "I will not prejudge this nomination. I look forward to learning more about Judge Roberts" in committee hearings.
    Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat and one of the harshest critics of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees, noted that while he was one of three Democrats who voted in the Judiciary Committee against Judge Roberts for the D.C. Circuit Court, last night's nomination was "a whole new ballgame." He pledged to remain open-minded.
    Mr. Schumer also joked that Judge Roberts, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., who now lives in Bethesda, is at the very least, a Bills pro football fan.
    Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut Democrat and one of the "Gang of 14" senators who negotiated an end to the judicial filibusters earlier this year, told reporters last week that Judge Roberts is "in the ballpark." He added that Judge Roberts or any nominee will be carefully scrutinized.
    Democratic reaction suggests that Judge Roberts may fall below the threshold of "extraordinary circumstances," the term used by the Gang of 14 to describe the circumstances under which a future filibuster would be acceptable.
    Liberal groups weren't quite so generous, though even their responses were measured compared with the nasty rhetoric over judicial nominations in recent years.
    "We're extremely disappointed that the president did not choose a consensus nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O'Connor," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way. "John Roberts' record raises serious concerns as well as questions about where he stands on crucial legal and constitutional issues -- it will be extremely important for senators and the American people to get answers to those questions."
    In particular, Mr. Neas and other pro-choice advocates are suspicious that Judge Roberts doesn't believe that the Constitution guarantees the right to an abortion, as was determined in the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision.
    "We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled," he argued in a brief. He also said that abortion has "no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution."
   Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who was nearly passed over for the chairman's slot last year after he suggested that Mr. Bush would have a hard time confirming a Supreme Court nominee who doesn't support pro-choice rights, said Judge Roberts "brings very fine qualifications to the position."
    Asked whether he shared the concerns of pro-choice groups, Mr. Specter replied: "I'm concerned about people already starting to raise questions. It's less than two hours since word was out that Judge Roberts would be the nominee. I think that at a minimum people ought to give him an opportunity to be heard and to express himself and to review his record."
    Judge Roberts also drew scrutiny from liberals last night because he was part of the three-judge panel that gave the Bush administration the important victory last Friday when it ruled that the military tribunals of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could proceed.
    Judge Roberts picked up at least one endorsement last night that Mr. Bush probably hadn't expected.
    "Judge Roberts is a brilliant lawyer, a brilliant judge," David Boies, the lawyer who represented former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election, said on MSNBC's "Scarborough Country" last night. "He is a very careful judge, a thoughtful judge."
    Mr. Boies, who predicted that Judge Roberts will net the 60 Senate votes needed to override any filibuster, added: "He is a conservative, but we were not going to get anybody who wasn't a conservative from this president."
    Before joining the D.C. Appeals Court -- often called the second-highest court in the land -- Judge Roberts worked at Hogan & Hartson's appellate practice group in the District.
    The Supreme Court is nothing new to the Harvard Law School graduate. He has tried 39 cases before the high court and clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist from 1980 to 1981.
    The following year, President Reagan appointed Judge Roberts to the White House staff as associate counsel to the president, a position he held until joining Hogan & Hartson.
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L050720   Frist tries to juggle stem-cell interests
By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 20, 2005
 

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is in a difficult and tight spot as he tries -- perhaps in vain -- to find a way for the Senate to address the contentious embryonic stem-cell issue while satisfying various factions.
    "Senator Frist is riding two horses in the circus," said Sen. Gordon H. Smith, Oregon Republican, explaining that Mr. Frist is trying to "keep faith" with his colleagues, protect the White House and stay true to his own convictions. "I guess that's three horses," Mr. Smith said.
    Mr. Frist, in an attempt to placate all factions, last week suggested that the Senate vote on a menu of stem cell-related bills. But the Tennessee Republican has been unable to get everyone in his own party to agree, let alone the Democrats. A meeting late yesterday with seven Republican senators didn't produce an agreement, either.
    Supporters of a bill to expand President Bush's stem-cell policy were expected to force it into other legislation if they weren't given a clean vote on their measure -- which already passed the House and has bipartisan Senate support.
    But the bill, sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, is staunchly opposed by conservative lawmakers, pro-life family groups and the White House -- which has promised to veto it.
    Conservatives have demanded that if the embryonic-stem-cell bill comes to the floor, so should their long-awaited human cloning ban, sponsored by Sen. Sam Brownback, Kansas Republican. If that does not happen, Mr. Brownback has promised to filibuster the embryonic-stem-cell bill.
    "If they want an up-or-down vote ... then we would like a vote on the human cloning ban," said David Christensen, director of congressional affairs for the Family Research Council.
    "A cloning vote in the Senate -- we've been waiting for that for a long time," said Lanier Swann, director of government relations at Concerned Women for America.
    Meanwhile, Mr. Frist and the White House have been pushing a measure still being crafted that would fund research into new methods being developed to create stem cells without harming embryos. But outside conservative groups have had concerns with the new bill, too, because they don't want to fund any sort of research unless it is certain not to harm the embryos.
    "We made it clear to Senate leadership ... that we would oppose doing this right away in humans until we know more," Mr. Christensen said.
    He said that the last he heard, however, his group could support the bill because it would only fund research to explore the new methods in animal studies.
    Mr. Frist wants the Senate to vote on numerous bioethics bills -- a proposal to expand Mr. Bush's embryonic-stem-cell policy, another proposal to expand the policy in a more limited fashion, the cloning ban, a popular bill promoting umbilical cord blood research and the measure encouraging the new methods of creating stem cells.
    Supporters of the main embryonic-stem-cell bill have worried the multibill strategy was just an attempt to confuse the debate and draw support away from their bill, causing it to fail.
    Mr. Specter seemed more hopeful yesterday, saying Republicans are "pretty much in accord" to take up the series of bills.
    Mr. Smith wasn't as upbeat. "Don't bet the farm," he said.
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S050720   John Roberts 'has the qualities Americans expect in a judge'
July 20, 2005
 

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
    Excerpts of President Bush's announcement yesterday of his nomination of Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to the Supreme Court:
    Mr. Bush: One of the most consequential decisions a president makes is his appointment of a justice to the Supreme Court. When a president chooses a justice, he's placing in human hands the authority and majesty of the law. The decisions of the Supreme Court affect the life of every American.
    And so, a nominee to that court must be a person of superb credentials and the highest integrity, a person who will faithfully apply the Constitution and keep our founding promise of equal justice under law. I have found such a person in Judge John Roberts. And tonight I am honored to announce that I am nominating him to serve as associate justice of the Supreme Court.
    John Roberts currently serves on one of the most influential courts in the nation, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Before he was a respected judge, he was known as one of the most distinguished and talented attorneys in America. John Roberts has devoted his entire professional life to the cause of justice and is widely admired for his intellect, his sound judgment and personal decency.
    Judge Roberts was born in Buffalo and grew up in Indiana. In high school he captained his football team, and he worked summers in a steel mill to help pay his way through college. He's an honors graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School.
    In his career, he has served as a law clerk to Justice William Rehnquist, as an associate counsel to President Ronald Reagan and as the principal deputy solicitor general in the Department of Justice.
    In public service and in private practice, he has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court and earned a reputation as one of the best legal minds of his generation.
    Judge Roberts has earned the respect of people from both political parties. After he was nominated for the Court of Appeals in 2001, a bipartisan group of more than 150 lawyers sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. They wrote, "Although as individuals we reflect a wide spectrum of political party affiliation and ideology, we are united in our belief that John Roberts will be an outstanding federal court [of] appeals judge and should be confirmed by the United States Senate."
    The signers of this letter included a former counsel to a Republican president, a former counsel to two Democratic presidents, and a former -- and former high-ranking Justice Department officials of both parties.
    My decision to nominate Judge Roberts to the Supreme Court came after a thorough and deliberative process. My staff and I consulted with more than 70 members of the United States Senate. I received good advice from both Republicans and Democrats. I appreciate the care they took. I'm grateful for their advice. I reviewed the credentials of many well-qualified men and women. I met personally with a number of potential nominees.
    In my meetings with Judge Roberts, I have been deeply impressed. He's a man of extraordinary accomplishment and ability. He has a good heart. He has the qualities Americans expect in a judge: experience, wisdom, fairness and civility. He has profound respect for the rule of law and for the liberties guaranteed to every citizen. He will strictly apply the Constitution and laws -- not legislate from the bench.
   He's also a man of character who loves his country and his family. I'm pleased that his wife, Jane, and his two beautiful children, Jack and Josie, could be with us tonight. Judge Roberts has served his fellow citizens well, and he is prepared for even greater service.
    Under the Constitution, Judge Roberts now goes before the United States Senate for confirmation.
    I have recently spoken with leaders Senator [Bill] Frist [Tennessee Republican] and Senator [Harry] Reid [Nevada Democrat], and with senior members of the Judiciary Committee -- Chairman [Arlen] Specter [Pennsylvania Republican] and Senator [Patrick J.] Leahy [Vermont Democrat]. These senators share my goal of a dignified confirmation process that is conducted with fairness and civility. The appointments of the two most recent justices to the Supreme Court prove that this confirmation can be done in a timely manner. So I have full confidence that the Senate will rise to the occasion and act promptly on this nomination.
    It is important that the newest justice be on the bench when the Supreme Court reconvenes in October. I believe that Democrats and Republicans alike will see the strong qualifications of this fine judge, as they did when they confirmed him by unanimous consent to the judicial seat he now holds. I look forward to the Senate voting to confirm Judge John Roberts as the 109th justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
    Judge Roberts: It is both an honor and very humbling to be nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. Before I became a judge, my law practice consisted largely of arguing cases before the court. That experience left me with a profound appreciation for the role of the court in our constitutional democracy and a deep regard for the court as an institution. I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the court, and I don't think it was just from the nerves.
    I am very grateful for the confidence the president has shown in nominating me, and I look forward to the next step in the process before the United States Senate.
    It's also appropriate for me to acknowledge that I would not be standing here today if it were not for the sacrifice and help of my parents, Jack and Rosemary Roberts; my three sisters, Kathy, Peggy and Barbara; and of course my wife, Jane. And I also want to acknowledge my children -- my daughter, Josie; my son, Jack -- who remind me every day why it's so important for us to work to preserve the institutions of our democracy.
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M050720   What's the big idea?
    Talk about appearing blindfolded before a kangaroo court.
    Then again, CBS newsman-turned-author Bernard Goldberg might not have recalled before appearing last night on CNBC's "The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch" that the host was a lead member of the Clinton/Gore communications team in 1992.
    "I've been doing this a long, long time, and I have never, ever, ever, never -- I could say never and ever 10 more times -- experienced what I just went through," Mr. Goldberg told Inside the Beltway late yesterday after he taped the show, which is to air tonight, from Miami.
    "Deutsch disagreed with everything, and that is just fine," said Mr. Goldberg, the best-selling author of "Bias" who has written the new book "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is No. 37)."
    "But then, unbeknownst to me, they brought on a panel of five, plus Donny, all of whom took the other side. And it's not like they just respectfully disagreed; there was name-calling, ganging up; it was unbelievable. And not one of them even read the book. They admitted it.
    "It was more than an ambush," he said. "It was the most cynical, dishonest thing I have ever been lassoed into. They misled me."
    Immediately after the taping, Mr. Goldberg said, he told the show's producer, Marilyn Cutler, that Mr. Deutsch had been "dishonest."
    "I told her that she should be ashamed," he said. "A short time later, she called back, crying like a baby. She said, 'I am resigning.' And I told her, 'You should resign.' It was one big setup. And they used her to get me into it. They wanted to kick my [expletive] on national television -- six people, all basically calling me an idiot."
    Reached at press time yesterday, Ms. Cutler said she had yet to speak to her boss, but as for resigning, she confirmed: "I am thinking about it very seriously."
    New Jersey-based CNBC said last night, "We treat all of our guests, including Mr. Goldberg, with nothing but the utmost respect and courtesy."
    The network said, "At certain points during the segment, Mr. Goldberg, the panelists and Donny did not always agree. We felt that it was a healthy and robust conversation."
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M050719   Bush sets threshold for punishing leaks
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 19, 2005
 

President Bush yesterday vowed to fire anyone in his administration if he or she illegally leaked the name of a CIA employee, but also called for a swift conclusion to a probe of the case.
    "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," Mr. Bush said in the East Room during a press conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
    Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean accused the president of lowering "the ethics bar" by refusing to fire anyone unless it is established that a crime was committed. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, added on CNN that Mr. Bush was "trying to move the goalposts."
    But White House officials insisted that the standard has not been changed since September 2003, when the CIA requested a federal probe into whether someone in the administration had publicly disclosed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame.
    "If the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of," Mr. Bush said Sept. 30, 2003. "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."
    Eight months later, when a reporter asked Mr. Bush whether he stood by his pledge to fire "anybody who leaked the agent's name," he replied, "Yes."
    Yesterday, Mr. Bush declined to comment on whether he was disappointed with White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for alluding to Mrs. Plame during a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003. Mr. Rove did not reveal her name or whether she was a covert agent, disclosures that might have violated federal law.
    "I didn't know her name and I didn't leak her name," Mr. Rove said last August.
    Nonetheless, Democrats are demanding that the president fire Mr. Rove or suspend his security clearance. White House officials are refusing to entertain such demands in the absence of evidence that Mr. Rove broke any law.
    The flap began in July 2003, when Mrs. Plame's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, accused the Bush administration of exaggerating intelligence to justify war against Iraq. In a New York Times column, the former ambassador said he was sent to Africa at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney to investigate reports of a uranium deal between Niger and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussain.
    But Mr. Cheney never ordered Mr. Wilson's mission, which was arranged by his wife, Mrs. Plame. This fact was mentioned to Mr. Cooper by both Mr. Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, although neither mentioned Mrs. Plame's name.
    White House officials would have had to knowingly reveal Mrs. Plame's identity to violate a federal law protecting CIA covert agents. The law defines covert agents as those who have worked abroad within the past five years, a condition Mrs. Plame appears not to have met.
    Yesterday, the president complained of excessive press speculation about the probe, which is being conducted by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
    "We have a serious ongoing investigation here, and it's being played out in the press," Mr. Bush said. "It's best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions -- and I will do so, as well."
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S050720   Property decision galvanizes the right
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 19, 2005
 

Property rights have become -- quietly and suddenly -- the battle cry for conservatives in the brewing fight over replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
    Conservatives say last month's Supreme Court ruling that expanded the government's power of eminent domain is now Exhibit A for their case that the high court has abandoned the original meaning of the Constitution and is in desperate need of more conservative jurists.
    "It's so bad, it's good," said Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, which is dedicated to getting President Bush's judicial nominees confirmed. "Property rights is now the number one issue."
    In Kelo v. New London, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the government can seize private property from its lawful owner and give it to a private developer who promises to generate more tax revenue with it.
    Since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, "conservatives have relegated property rights to the back burner," said Nancie Marzulla, president of Defenders of Property Rights. "We feel like we have been laboring in the vineyards for years and then, all of a sudden, Kelo comes along."
    She called the ruling "a dark cloud" that essentially eliminates all property rights.
    "But even with the darkest cloud, there is a silver lining," Mrs. Marzulla said. "The timing of this has been just brilliant for us."
    In the Kelo case, the high court ruled that government officials could seize private property and give the land to private developers to build an office complex, a health club and a hotel. Prior to the ruling, eminent domain was legally restricted to only projects with a clear public use such as roads or schools.
    "The city has carefully formulated an economic development that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including -- but by no means limited to -- new jobs and increased tax revenue," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.
    Justice O'Connor wrote a scathing dissent.
    "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," she wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
    The ruling has united a broad cross section of activists -- from conservatives to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People -- outraged by the decision. In Congress, bills have already been introduced in the House and in the Senate to remedy the ruling.
    Many liberals worry that the new powers of eminent domain will be used mainly to seize the property of poor people in urban areas. Conservatives are using the issue to rally around a conservative replacement for Justice O'Connor.
    Judicial Confirmation Network, a newly formed group supporting Mr. Bush's nominees, released an Internet ad last week saying the Kelo ruling is only the latest Supreme Court decision that has "violated the Constitution and undermined our democracy."
    Mark R. Levin, president of Landmark Legal Foundation, said the court has become the "guardian of big government, not the guardian of individual liberty."
    "A revolution was fought for a lot less than this," he said.
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S050719   Bush meets with court contenders
By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 19, 2005
 

President Bush said yesterday that he already has met with some top contenders for the vacant Supreme Court seat and plans to meet with other candidates, as Republican strategists said the high court nomination could come as early as this week.
    The president, holding a brief press conference yesterday in the White House East Room with the prime minister of India, again refused to name any possible nominees to fill retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat.
    "I'm going to take my time, and I will be thorough and deliberate," Mr. Bush said. "Of course I'm reviewing different candidate. I'm reviewing their curriculum vitae, as well as their findings."
    At least two Republican strategists with close ties to the White House said they expect the nomination to come before the end of the week. A third strategist said the White House wants to divert news coverage from Karl Rove, a Bush aide at the center of a media frenzy over who leaked the identity of a CIA official.
    Mr. Bush plans a working vacation beginning about the first week of August -- another reason strategists predict an announcement soon.
    The president yesterday reiterated his desire to have a justice on the bench by the time the Supreme Court reconvenes Oct. 3. To achieve his goal, the president would need to nominate a candidate in the next week or two, because it typically takes several weeks before the Senate is ready to hold hearings.
    Speculation about the announcement has run rampant in recent days.
    The Washington Post reported Sunday that a nomination does not look likely "for another two weeks," but then cited sources yesterday who said the president "appears to have narrowed his list of candidates to no more than a few finalists and could announce his decision in the next few days."
    White House spokesman Scott McClellan said yesterday that Mr. Bush had discussions over the weekend with some senior advisers about possible candidates and reiterated the president's plan to "nominate a fair-minded individual who represents the mainstream of American law and American values."
    Mr. Bush said yesterday that he would "continue to consult with the Senate."
    He already has met once with top Senate leaders on the nomination and has spoken several times with top Democrats, in part, as he said yesterday, "to ask the senators, 'What's it take to get somebody in place by the October session?' "
    Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, urged the president to pick a nominee who can "unite America."
    "He must make a choice: He can either pick a nominee to appease his right-wing base, or he can choose someone who will respect the rights and freedoms of all Americans," Mr. Reid said.
    Candidates for the court mentioned most when Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was expected to retire were Samuel Alito, Emilio Garza, J. Michael Juttig, John Roberts Jr., Michael McConnell and J. Harvie Wilkinson III -- all federal appeals court judges -- and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
    Those hoping Mr. Bush will fill the seat with another women most often have mentioned federal judges Edith Hollan Jones and Edith Brown Clement, although new names have emerged, including Alice M. Batchelder and Deborah Cook of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati; Deanell Reece Tacha of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver; Karen Williams from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond; and Sonia Sotomayor of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York.
    The names of dozens of people outside the judiciary also have been floated as candidates: One person said to be a serious contender is Larry Thompson, counsel at Pepsico and deputy attorney general during Mr. Bush's first term.
    On the list of other possible contenders are several Republican senators: Lindsey Graham, South Carolina; Michael D. Crapo, Idaho; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas; Judd Gregg, New Hampshire; Mel Martinez, Florida; John Cornyn, Texas; and Mike DeWine, Ohio.
    Still others include former Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson; former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, and Miguel Estrada, a former Bush appeals court nominee.
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S050719   Roberts is Bush's choice
ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 19, 2005
 

President Bush chose federal appeals court judge John G. Roberts Jr. today as his first nominee for the Supreme Court, selecting a rock-solid conservative who has won broad support from both parties but still faces what could be a contentious battle over the direction of the nation's highest court.
    Bush offered the position to Roberts in a telephone call at 12:35 p.m. as he was hosting a luncheon for the prime minister of Australia, John Howard. He was to announce it later with a flourish in a nationally broadcast speech to the nation.
    His selection was somewhat of a surprise since there had been some expectations that he would replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor with a woman or minority.
    Roberts has been on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since June 2003 after being picked for that seat by Bush.
    Advocacy groups on the right say that Roberts, a 50-year-old native of Buffalo, N.Y., who attended Harvard Law School, is a bright judge with strong conservative credentials he burnished in the administrations of former Presidents Bush and Reagan. While he has been a federal judge for just a little more than two years, legal experts say that whatever experience he lacks on the bench is offset by his many years arguing cases before the Supreme Court.
    Liberal groups, however, say Roberts has taken positions in cases involving free speech and religious liberty that endanger those rights. Abortion rights groups allege that Roberts, while deputy solicitor general during former President Bush's administration, is hostile to women's reproductive freedom and cite a brief he co-wrote in 1990 that suggested the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 high court decision that legalized abortion.
    "The court's conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion ... finds no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution," the brief said.
    In his defense, Roberts told senators during his 2003 confirmation hearing that he would be guided by legal precedent. "Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land. ... There is nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent."
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S050718   Specter hopes for nominee similar to O'Connor
July 18, 2005
 

ASSOCIATED PRESS
    The chairman of the Senate panel that will oversee hearings on President Bush's Supreme Court nominee said yesterday that he would like to see someone in the tradition of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and perhaps someone with experience in politics.
    Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said he didn't want to recommend a specific candidate because of his role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
    But he said he would like to see a nominee who has experience outside the judiciary, which would rule out many of the candidates that Mr. Bush is said to be considering.
    The candidates mentioned most often are federal appeals court judges: Samuel Alito, Emilio Garza, J. Michael Juttig, John Roberts Jr., Michael McConnell and J. Harvie Wilkinson III.
    Mr. Specter said on "Fox News Sunday" that he would like Mr. Bush to pick "somebody who's had more experience, somebody who's been out in the world and has a more varied background."
    He said someone who has been in politics might be a good choice. Justice O'Connor had served in the Arizona legislature before being nominated by President Reagan.
    "I have expressed the view that it would be useful, in my judgment, to have somebody on the court who does not come from the graduates of the courts of appeals," Mr. Specter said. "When you look back at the court, which handed down Brown v. Board of Education unanimously, there was an ex-governor, there were three ex-senators, two attorneys general, a solicitor general, a professor and somebody from the SEC."
    Mr. Specter encouraged Mr. Bush not to bow to pressure from conservatives and instead try to preserve the existing ideological balance on the court -- meaning that his nominee would be a moderate like Justice O'Connor.
    Mr. Bush "stands in a position where he has to put a person on not where the president would be beholden to any group, no matter how much they contributed to his election, but something in the national interest," Mr. Specter said.
    "And when you have these very delicate questions, it's helpful to the country to have somebody who is a swing vote, which maintains the balance," he said.
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S050718   Left's list for high court seen as setup
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
July 18, 2005
 

Democrats are floating candidates who they consider acceptable Supreme Court nominees primarily to ensure that they can complain later about not "really" being consulted by President Bush when none are selected, according to conservatives.
    They say the three Hispanic judges who Democratic leaders offered Mr. Bush in a private meeting earlier this week to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor are all non-starters.
    "It's a cynical tactic intended to set themselves up so that when the president nominates someone they haven't mentioned, they can jump up and down and scream about how they weren't really consulted," said Manuel Miranda, chairman of the Third Branch Conference, which is lobbying to put conservative nominees on the bench.
    Not so, say Democrats.
    "It was an honest effort on the part of Democrats to suggest names that might be acceptable to both sides," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid. "Unfortunately, those names got leaked, but they weren't supposed to."
    The leaked names that had been recommended by Mr. Reid of Nevada and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, were federal appeals court Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Edward C. Prado and federal district court Judge Ricardo H. Hinojosa.
    Conservatives view the judges as "either too old or simply not conservative," said Mr. Miranda, a former Judiciary Committee lawyer and aide to Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee. "He's got much more qualified nominees who are conservative."
    Judge Sotomayor, for instance, has been criticized by conservatives in the past and was considered a potential Supreme Court nominee if either former Vice President Al Gore or Sen. John Kerry had become president.
    In 1998, she was awarded the Court Jester Award by the Family Research Council for extending the application of the Americans With Disabilities Act to a woman who failed the New York bar exam several times because, she said, she couldn't read very well.
    "Floating the name of Sonia Sotomayor is kind of comical," said Reid Cox, general counsel to the conservative Center for Individual Freedom. "She would probably be viewed as a bipartisan, consensus nominee, but that's not what Bush has promised to submit. President Bush said he would nominate someone in the mold of [Clarence] Thomas or [Antonin] Scalia."
    Thomas L. Jipping, a senior aide to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, wrote a 2000 column while working for the conservative Free Congress Foundation that criticized Judge Sotomayor.
    "Facts and common sense were not, however, similarly important to Clinton-Gore Judge Sonia Sotomayor, also said to be on Gore's Hispanic short list," Mr. Jipping wrote. "She dissented with the typical activist view that reality is whatever she says it is."
   Judge Prado also isn't viewed as acceptable by conservatives, but he's become the focus of a major Democratic campaign to be nominated.
    "DraftPrado.org is an independent grassroots campaign," according to its Web site. Its creators, however are anything but independent.
    Executive director Arkadi Gerney and chief technical adviser Tim Cullen were co-founders of Concerts for Kerry, a group that tried generating interest in last year's Kerry campaign among young voters.
    Marc Laitin, the group's campaign manager, was press contact last year for a group called Run Against Bush, which described itself as "a movement to defeat Bush in 2004."
    "The bad news for the liberals is that they didn't win the presidential election, and they seem to be demanding not only a co-nomination but veto power before the president even makes the nomination," said Kay R. Daly, president of the conservative Coalition for a Fair Judiciary.
    "The truth of the matter is that no matter who the president nominates, Harry Reid and his merry band of obstructionists will do everything in their power to delay the nomination, smear the nominee, make outrageous demands and whine every step of the way."
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S050721E   The Roberts nomination
July 21, 2005
 

Not since the early 1820s has the Supreme Court gone so long without a vacancy; Stephen Breyer in 1994 was the last to join the court. That 11-year period is about to come to an end with President Bush's decision to nominate John G. Roberts Jr. to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. Judge Roberts, who served as an associate counsel in the Reagan White House and as the Justice Department's principal deputy solicitor general during the George H.W. Bush administration, looks to be well qualified, having served for the past two years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
    The Republican-controlled Senate should follow the tradition of swift hearings and a timely confirmation vote. That tradition was firmly established by the Senate when Democrats last presided over the Senate and confirmed two nominees of President Clinton, Justice Breyer in 1994 and Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993.
    Mr. Bush's friends and supporters appear to be in almost unanimous agreement that with the selection of Judge Roberts the president has redeemed one of his most consequential campaign promises. In introducing Judge Roberts to the nation on Tuesday night, the president said that his nominee would "strictly apply the Constitution and laws -- not legislate from the bench." This is precisely the justice that millions of Americans expected from this president, a justice who will apply the Constitution as it is written and not as judges might wish it had been written. Choosing Judge Roberts, the president rejected the advice to consider race or sex, and based his choice solely on considerations of the law.
    Respect for Judge Roberts is not limited to conservatives. A bipartisan group of more than 150 members of the D.C. Bar signed a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee three years ago praising his qualifications when he was named to the appeals court, the second-most powerful court in the land and traditionally a proving ground for the Supreme Court. The letter was written 19 months after the Senate, then controlled by Democrats, had refused Judge Roberts a hearing. Its signatories include the late Lloyd Cutler, who served as White House counsel to both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and Seth Waxman, who served as Mr. Clinton's solicitor general, and deserves to be quoted at length.
     "Although, as individuals, we reflect a wide spectrum of political party affiliations and ideology, we are united in our belief that John Roberts will be an outstanding federal court of appeals judge and should be confirmed by the United States Senate. [Mr. Roberts, who has won 25 of the 39 cases he has argued before the Supreme Court] is one of our very best and most highly respected appellate lawyers in the nation, with a deserved reputation as a brilliant writer and oral advocate ... John Roberts represents the best of the bar and, we have no doubt, would be a superb federal court of appeals judge."
     All that has changed since is that Judge Roberts has posted an exemplary record on the appeals court. The prospect of a Democratic filibuster now seems remote, given Judge Roberts' record since the lawyers who know him best offered this resounding tribute to his scholarship and his honesty, his character and his integrity. The "extraordinary circumstances" the Senate's Gang of 14 said must be present to justify a filibuster are nowhere present. We expect hearings with tough questions, as there should be, and after that his confirmation.
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S050721L   Move to the right
    With all th