Oh, but of course, they’re just joking. They’re always just joking. They’re Wonkette. They’re a joke.

***

This sounds terrible. If you pray, say an extra prayer for the Chief Justice:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., a seasonal resident of Hupper Island, located off Port Clyde, was taken to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport mid-day Monday.

St. George Ambulance responded to a call at about 2 p.m. Monday of a man who had fallen 5 to 10 feet and landed on a dock, hitting the back of his head. The patient was ashen and was foaming at the mouth. The patient had reportedly suffered a grand mal seizure and was transported to Penobscot Bay Medical Center.

As of Monday afternoon, Penobscot Bay Medical Center would not confirm that Roberts was a patient.

Roberts and his wife, Jane Roberts, purchased their home on Hupper Island in June 2006. The island is located a few hundreds yards off Port Clyde and is only accessible by boat.

More:

“He was conscious and alert when they put him in the rescue (vehicle) and took him to Penobscot Bay Medical Center,” Polky said. A spokesman at the Rockport hospital did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.

Chief Justice Roberts had suffered a seizure in 1993.

A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that universities that get federal funds must allow military recruiters on campus, even if their law schools oppose the Pentagon’s policy prohibiting openly gays and lesbians from serving.

The high court upheld as constitutional a federal law dating back to 1994 that allows the government to withhold money from universities that deny military recruiters the same access to campuses given to other employers.

Via How Appealing: “Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. delivered the opinion of the Court. You can access the syllabus here; the Chief Justice’s opinion here; and the oral argument transcript here.”

Reader Paula D. writes:

The Chief Justice shows some brilliant and biting wit, shredding the argument of the law schools in this excerpt from the opinion:

“…Nothing about recruiting suggests that law schools agree with any speech by recruiters, and nothing in the Solomon Amendment restricts what the law schools may say about the military’s policies. We have held that high school students can appreciate the difference between speech a school sponsors and speech the school permits because legally required to do so, pursuant to an equal access policy… …Surely students have not lost that ability by the time they get to law school.”

ZING!!

AP:

Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law school professors who claimed they should not be forced to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision, which was unanimous.

Law schools had become the latest battleground over the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy allowing gay men and women to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves. Many universities forbid the participation of recruiters from public agencies and private companies that have discriminatory policies.

Roberts, writing his third decision since joining the court, said there are other less drastic options to protest the policy. “A military recruiter’s mere presence on campus does not violate a law school’s right to associate, regardless of how repugnant the law school considers the recruiter’s message,” he wrote.

The federal law, known as the Solomon Amendment after its first congressional sponsor, mandates that universities give the military the same access as other recruiters or forfeit federal money.

College leaders have said they could not afford to lose federal help, some $35 billion a year.

Let’s see if they’ll put their money where their mouths are now.

Reader John B. writes:

Regardless of what the schools NOW decide to do in the future, they should have to forfeit all federal funds they have received since they instituted the anti-militray recruiting policy.

ABP is reminded of an old story…

John Fund’s follow-up on the Taliban mouthpiece now studying at Yale is especially timely:

Are there no limits to how arrogant and out-of-touch America’s Ivy League schools can get? Last week it emerged that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former deputy foreign secretary of the Taliban, is now a student at Yale while at the same time the school continues to block ROTC training from its campus and argues for the right of its law school to exclude military recruiters. King George’s troops played the music to “The World Turned Upside Down” as they surrendered at Yorktown. Perhaps the Ivy League should adopt that tune as they surrender all vestiges of common sense.

Clinton W. Taylor, Yale grad, spoofs.

Power Line weighs in, with reax from George Mason University Law School Dean Polsby, who filed an amicus brief supporting the government’s position.

***

Previous:

SCOTUS Watch: Rumsfeld vs. FAIR
The campus war on military recruiters
Military recruiters under fire

2: PAPAL TRANSITION: John Paul II’s death marked the passing of the first non-Italian pope in 455 years and ended a 26-year pontificate, third-longest in history. In a remarkable show of affection, many millions attended services worldwide on the day of his funeral. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany, expected to continue a conservative doctrinal approach, became the new pope and promptly waived the normal waiting period so John Paul could swiftly be considered for sainthood.

3: IRAQ: As in 2004, news from Iraq ranged from the grim, including a devastating wave of suicide bombings, to the promising – Iraqis voting for new leaders and thrashing out differences on a new constitution. The U.S. military death toll surpassed 2,000, and President Bush estimated the Iraqi toll at 30,000, but he insisted U.S. forces would stay until Iraqi troops could contain insurgents on their own.

4: SUPREME COURT: Not since 1994 had a Supreme Court seat become vacant. Suddenly there were two openings due to Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement and Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s death. John Roberts was smoothly confirmed to succeed Rehnquist, but President Bush’s next nominee, Harriet Miers, had to bow out amid conservative complaints. The right liked the next choice, Samuel Alito, but he could face tough Democratic opposition at confirmation hearings in January.

5: OIL PRICES: Crude oil prices hit an all-time peak of almost $71 a barrel in August before subsiding. Costly gasoline prompted some motorists to rethink their driving habits; the beleaguered U.S. airline industry had to spend $9 billion more on jet fuel in 2005 than in 2004.

6: LONDON BOMBINGS: Attacks on three rush-hour subway trains and a bus killed 56 people on July 7, including four bombers with ties to Islamic militants. Authorities said three of the alleged bombers were born in Britain to immigrant parents from Pakistan; the fourth was from Jamaica.

7: ASIAN QUAKE: A massive earthquake near the Pakistan-India border killed more than 87,000, and left more than 3 million homeless. Worried relief officials appealed for more emergency aid as winter arrived in the stricken region.

8: TERRI SCHIAVO: A family feud escalated into a wrenching national debate as the husband of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo struggled and finally succeeded in getting clearance to remove the feeding tube that had kept her alive for 15 years. President Bush, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and members of Congress joined Terri Schiavo’s parents in efforts to have the tube reinserted before she died.

9: CIA LEAK: Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, was indicted and several prominent journalists were entangled in complex offshoots as a special prosecutor investigated the Bush administration’s leaking of Valerie Plame’s CIA status to the news media in 2003. Plame’s husband, a former U.S. diplomat, had accused the administration of manipulating prewar intelligence on Iraq.

10: BUSH’S STRUGGLES: Multiple factors, including public doubts about Iraq, a flawed response to Hurricane Katrina and a failed Supreme Court nomination, drove President Bush’s national approval ratings below 40 percent, the lowest of his presidency.

Bush’s struggles? What about the Democrat Party’s struggles? Multiple factors, including a flawed response to the War on Terror, a failed party chairman, and increasing unhingedness.

Another unacknowledged top story: the continuing crumbling of the MSM’s credibility, from the reckless rumor-mongering of top cable news executives to Newsweek’s Korangate to entrenched anti-war bias and Chicken Little journalism timed to sell books.

*Times Watch has the NY Times’ Worst Quotes of the Year.

*Stephen Spruiell has the top media-manufactured controversies.

*John Hawkins has the top 10 worst quotes from the Democratic Underground.

First, if you haven’t already read it, check out Miers’ 57-page questionnaire (in PDF via NRO), which she submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The blogosphere has brutally dissected Miers’ answers, non-answers, and unintelligible gibberish. See, for example, Steve Bainbridge, Prawfsblawg, Victor Fleischer, James Lindgren, Patterico, and Bench Memos.

Now, Sens. Arlen Specter and Pat Leahy have rendered their verdict: They want a do-over. Words like “underwhelming,” “inadequate,” and “insulting” are streaming out of Washington. And it’s not just from the lips and keyboards of elitist/sexist pundits. Via WaPo:

Barely concealing their irritation during a 35-minute news conference at the Capitol, Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and ranking Democrat Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) called the lobbying on Miers’s behalf “chaotic,” and said the answers she provided Monday to a lengthy questionnaire were inadequate. “The comments I have heard range from incomplete to insulting,” Leahy said.

They sent Miers a three-page letter asking for more detailed responses in several areas, and Specter said he has asked the Bush administration for more documents concerning her work as White House counsel. Specter said Miers must provide “amplification on many, many of the items” included in the first questionnaire.

Miers quickly replied, writing that she would comply with the new request. She also wrote that “as a result of an administrative oversight,” her Texas law license was suspended for 26 days in 1989 because of unpaid dues. On Monday, Miers disclosed that her D.C. law license was briefly suspended last year because of unpaid annual dues.

Announcing plans to start the hearing Nov. 7 despite Democrats’ request for more time, Specter told reporters: “This is going to be an unusual hearing where I think all 18 senators are going to have probing questions.” The panel has 10 Republicans and eight Democrats.

This also jumped out at me and exacerbated my already queasy stomach:

At yesterday’s news conference, Specter appeared to be annoyed with Miers on several points. He said his staff gave him a “big binder” of legal cases she had handled in private practice, but “she gave us a skimpy little group” of material describing those cases in response to the questionnaire’s request for details of her most important cases. “No reason we should know more about her cases than she does,” he said.

Specter said he remained perplexed by a disagreement Monday stemming from his meeting with Miers in his office, after which their accounts differed on what the nominee had said about Supreme Court rulings that preceded Roe.

In dealing with 11 Supreme Court nominees, Specter said, “I’ve never walked out of a room and had a disagreement as to what was said.” He smiled politely as Leahy said, “I’ve never known him to make a mistake on what he heard.”

Meanwhile, several constitutional law scholars said they were surprised and puzzled by Miers’s response to the committee’s request for information on cases she has handled dealing with constitutional issues. In describing one matter on the Dallas City Council, Miers referred to “the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause” as it relates to the Voting Rights Act.“There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause,” said Cass R. Sunstein, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. He and several other scholars said it appeared that Miers was confusing proportional representation — which typically deals with ethnic groups having members on elected bodies — with the one-man, one-vote Supreme Court ruling that requires, for example, legislative districts to have equal populations.

Go back to Miers’ questionnaire and pay special attention to Question 22 on p. 49 to grasp Sunstein’s point:

While I was an at-large member of the Dallas City Council, I dealt with issues that involved constitutional questions. For instance, when addressing a lawsuit under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the council had to be sure to comply with the proportional representation requirement of the Equal Protection Clause.

As a non-elite, non-lawyer, non-Beltway pundit might put it: “What the…?!?” If this bizarre gaffe is supposed to demonstrate Miers’ sharp legal mind and painstaking attention to detail, God help us all.

President Bush promised Senators that they’d fall in love with Harriet once they got to know her. But the Los Angeles Times reports that Republicans have been damning her with faint praise after emerging from meetings:

“I might have liked a different type nominee myself, but that’s the president’s choice,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said after his meeting with Miers.

The lackluster beginning of her campaign to be confirmed raises the stakes for Miers, and the president, when she appears before the Judiciary Committee. Senators of both parties say her nomination will succeed or fail based on how well she performs.

Senators and aides have been reluctant to provide details of their meetings with Miers because they do not want to antagonize the White House. But some described her as surprisingly reticent and, in a word used by more than one of them, “underwhelming.”

Even those who were impressed said that she offered up little of herself in conversation. “In these meetings she has been very guarded,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

One senator found her much too quiet. The lawmaker had such a hard time hearing Miers that aides had to tell people outside the meeting room to quiet down.

“She doesn’t have the gravitas in terms of the constitutional issues,” said another senator who has been critical of Miers. The nominee, the senator said, would not answer questions about whether she would recuse herself if issues involving her work with Bush came before the high court.

“Generally when you hold these interviews, people want to show you what they know,” the senator said. “She did not respond. Nothing came back.”

These accounts do not bode well for Miers’ scheduled testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in two weeks. Her supporters might argue that expectations are so low that she will have an easy time appeasing committee members after she has boned up on constitutional law. But John Roberts’ stellar, authoritative performance–speaking without notes and jousting vigorously with the panel for four days–set a high standard. Does anyone believe from testimonials like this and this and this that Miers can meet that standard?

On top of all this, add reporting by John Fund and Bob Novak that raises questions about Miers’ messy dealings while on the Texas Lottery Commission.

What does it spell? T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

***
Update: Believe it or not, I think this NYTimes editorial is reasonable.

John Hawkins has a Miers news/opinion round-up and more here.

And if you still can laugh about this mess, check out Harriet Miers’ blog, Scrappleface, and All Things Beautiful.

More Scrappleface.

Jeff Goldstein brings on more funny.

John Roberts has been confirmed. The vote (via Confirm Them):

Final vote was 78-22.

55 Republicans and 23 Dems voted yes. 22 Dems voted no.

How the Dems voted below the fold.

Democrats voting Yes:

Max Baucus of Montana
Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico
Robert Byrd of West Virginia
Kent Conrad of North Dakota
Russ Feingold of Wisconsin
Tim Johnson of South Dakota
Herb Kohl of Wisconsin
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana
Patrick Leahy of Vermont
Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Bill Nelson of Florida
Mark Pryor of Arkansas
Ken Salazar of Colorado
Christopher Dodd of Connecticut
Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut
Byron Dorgan of North Dakota
Carl Levin of Michigan
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Tom Carper of Delaware
Patty Murray of Washington
Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas
James Jeffords (I) of Vermont

Democrats voting no:

Evan Bayh of Indiana
Joseph Biden of Delaware
Barbara Boxer of California
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York
Jon Corzine of New Jersey
Mark Dayton of Minnesota
Dick Durbin of Illinois
Dianne Feinstein of California
Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts
John Kerry of Massachusetts
Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey
Barbara Mikulski of Maryland
Barack Obama of Illinois
Harry Reid of Nevada
Charles Schumer of New York
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
Jack Reed of Rhode Island
Tom Harkin of Iowa
Daniel Inouye of Hawaii
Paul Sarbanes of Maryland
Maria Cantwell of Washington
Daniel Akaka of Hawaii

Wonder if the new Chief Justice will be keeping those gold stripes?

***
Paul Mirengoff at Power Line:

The willingness of half the Senate Democrats to vote against a candidate of Judge Roberts’ ability, accomplishment, and temperament is a disgrace, and one that will likely change the “rules of engagement” with respect to the Supreme Court confirmation process for years to come.

***

315pm update. Roberts has been sworn in:

Bush said it was “a very meaningful event in the life of our nation” — almost 19 years to the day since the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist took his oath in the same room at the White House, the East Room.

The 50-year-old Roberts was sworn in a little more than three hours after he was confirmed by the Senate on a vote of 78-22. The oath was delivered by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court’s senior member and acting chief justice since Rehnquist’s death early this month.

“The Senate has confirmed a man with an astute mind and kind heart,” Bush said. “All Americans can be confident that the 17th chief justice of the United States will be prudent in exercising judicial power, firm in defending judicial independence and above all a faithful guardian of the Constitution.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy says Supreme Court nominee John Roberts holds “radical” views and has been an “eager, aggressive advocate” for policies of the far right.

While stopping short of announcing his opposition to the appointment, the Vermont Democrat’s written statement Tuesday was by far the most critical he has made since President Bush nominated Roberts…Leahy, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary, fired his broadside one day after the release of 5,000 pages of Reagan-era records. Leahy said Roberts’ views were “among the most radical being offered by a cadre intent on reversing decades of policies on civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, privacy and access to justice.”

Sept. 21, 2005 (via Breitbart/AP):

The senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee announced Wednesday he will vote to confirm John Roberts for chief justice of the United States after leading senators met with President Bush to discuss candidates for a second high court vacancy.

The decision by the veteran Vermont senator dealt a serious blow to liberal efforts to mount significant Democratic opposition to the conservative judge who would succeed the late William H. Rehnquist at the helm of the court.

Leahy’s announcement on the Senate floor came shortly after he and three other senators met with Bush at the White House to talk about the vacancy created by the decision by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to retire.

Four leading senators floated several names to Bush, but the president kept his own list to himself at a White House breakfast earlier Wednesday.

Leahy said he still has some concerns about Roberts. “But in my judgment, in my experience, but especially in my conscience I find it is better to vote yes than no,” he said. “Judge Roberts is a man of integrity. I can only take him at his word that he does not have an ideological agenda.”

The Judiciary Committee will vote on Thursday on Roberts’ confirmation. With 10 Republicans and eight Democrats, Roberts is assured of getting a majority of the committee’s support before moving on to the full Senate for confirmation next week.

Byron York:

Leahy’s decision obviously means that there will not be a party-line vote in the Judiciary Committee. And it also suggests that senators who are arguing that Democrats should support Roberts so they can more effectively oppose the next Bush Court nominee may be gaining the upper hand in the debate among Senate Democrats.

Everyone knows Senators love to hear their own voices and that the confirmation hearings are supposed to be about John Roberts’s views, not theirs. But of course that’s not the case. A little experiment proved that. That guys at anklebitingpundits.com did a word count of each Senators Q &A and found that in nearly all cases it was the Senators who spoke more than the nominee. And who says partisanship is dead? GOP Senators were just as big windbags as the Democrats

Even more comical was that Joe Biden accused John Roberts of filibustering, yet his own statements took up a whopping 70% of his questioning of Judge Roberts (including a 1,055 word first “question”). Check out the statistical analysis of each Senator on the Committee…

This will not surprise you:

GOP U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have indicated support for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, but both have yet to come out and say they would definitely vote for him.

Here’s a handy SCOTUS vocabulary guide.

10 likely questions senators will ask.

Five more questions for John Roberts.

Patrick Ruffini’s SCOTUS wire is here.

Stay tuned to Confirm Them and Bench Memos throughout the day.

Track back if you’ll be liveblogging the hearings.

Update: Scrappleface spoofs…Sen. Kennedy’s questions for Roberts.

Matt Margolis will liveblog starting at noon.

- Bush nominates Roberts to fill Rehnquist’s shoes.

The president met with Roberts in the private residence of the White House for about 35 to 40 minutes on Sunday evening, then officially offered him the job at 7:15 a.m. Monday when Roberts arrived at the Oval Office.

“This had been something that had been in the president’s thinking for some time _ in case the chief justice retired or that there otherwise was a vacancy,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “The president when he met with him, knew he was a natural born leader. The president knew Judge Roberts had the qualities to lead the court.”

- The wires have a “guide to the John Roberts hearings,” with brief biographical info, Senate Judiciary Committee tidbits, and the “Michael Jackson connection.”

- WaPo analysis declares “Roberts Hearings Likely to Enter Religious Territory.”

- Reuters says there’s still talk of delaying the hearings because of Hurricane Katrina. The Hill reports same. [11:50am EDT update: There will be a brief delay of the hearing.]

- The witness lineup includes John Dean vs. Charles Fried, and more:

Thirty witnesses have been scheduled to speak at Roberts’ confirmation hearings — 15 chosen by Republicans and 15 by Democrats. The GOP released its list Thursday, and it includes former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, Jennifer Braceras and Peter Kirsanow from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission and Juneau Mayor Bruce Botelho.

Democrats will counter with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who participated in the civil rights struggles that helped secure passage of the law in 1965; Carol Browner, the longest serving EPA administrator; and [Dean]…

- Law professor Cass Sunstein says Roberts is “conservative, but he’s no fundamentalist.”

- Paul Mirengoff at Power Line notes that Roberts’ biggest critics–NARAL, NOW, and People for the American Way–”appear to be wasting their money.”

- Is it just me, or does Todd Purdum’s NYTimes piece on the Roberts nomination/Katrina/Iraq–starting with the Vietnam-all-over-again-lede–ooze with gloating and schadenfreude?

Since Congress passed legislation in 1963 and 1964, it has been illegal to discriminate against women by paying them less for the same job. But, statistics still seem to show women earning less than men. Why is that?

My husband, an economist and blogger, explains what economists have to say about comparable worth and how to explain the wage gap. Read his explanation and you’ll be able to answer anyone who brings up these sorts of arguments.

It would almost be a gift to Judge Roberts to have the Judiciary Committee examine him about his opposition to comparable worth. He should be able to knock that softball out of the park.

I find it hard to believe that NARAL’s communication director would quit in the teeth of a nomination battle without having been pushed out. It is a virtually certainty that NARAL gave him an incentive to leave, and perhaps an ultimatum.

I also find it hard to believe that the Roberts advertisement wasn’t vetted and approved by NARAL’s executive management, including Nancy Keenan. If she didn’t approve the ad before it ran, NARAL contributors should know that their president is not supervising the most visible work of the organization. If she did approve the ad, then she has sold David Seldin down the river (assuming that NARAL did, in fact, twist his arm). NARAL, obviously, does not believe that the captain is accountable for the ship.

Meantime, the woman who appeared in the ad, Emily Lyons, is defending her role and the content of the smear, which she said was “”confusing, but not false.”

The Washington Post reports that Democrat strategists are in whiny, chin-pulling mode:

Some Democratic operatives say their trouble is congenital. “The problem is our politically impractical insistence on always residing on the moral high ground,” said Jim Jordan, who was a longtime adviser to Kerry. “A large part of our ethos goes to what we perceive to be moral superiority and the sad truth is in politics that’s sometimes inconvenient.”

John Podhoretz responds here.

And NARAL’s abomination has prompted rebukes from the likes of the liberal Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial board, which condemns the “inexcusable attack” today:

Roberts never said he endorsed violent demonstrators at abortion clinics. In fact, he made it clear he was not trying to defend their conduct. He was merely interested, he said, in defending what he thought was “the proper interpretation” of the old statute. As it turned out, the Supreme Court agreed with him, 6-3.

So defamatory was the TV spot that some abortion-rights groups joined conservatives in rejecting it. As a result of these protests, NARAL pulled the ad Thursday night. That was a necessary but insufficient response. The ad was not merely the mother of all extravagant conclusions, not merely an outrageous insult with virtually no basis in fact; it was a smear undertaken by people who, at least in this instance, lost their moral compass. NARAL owes Roberts a fervent apology.

Right on.

***
Previous:

The abortion crowd goes nuts

The ladies who gave Plato’s “noble lie” new uses in the hearings of Clarence Thomas are at it again. NARAL is using the image of the abortion clinic bombing by Eric Rudolph to suggest that Judge Roberts would excuse such violence–even though NARAL’s leaders have admitted to the press that Judge Roberts has condemned clinic violence. Indeed, the Washington Post reported last week that in 1986, when he was an assistant in the White House counsel’s office, Mr. Roberts wrote a memo recommending against a presidential pardon for abortion-clinic bombers. “No matter how lofty or sincerely held the goal, those who resort to violence to achieve it are criminals,” Roberts wrote.

In fact, the 1993 case whose name NARAL shows in its ad, Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic, had nothing to do with Eric Rudolph or violence against abortion clinics. As a deputy solicitor general in the first Bush administration, Mr. Roberts filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the Civil Rights Act of 1871, enacted to protect blacks from the Ku Klux Klan, did not prohibit peaceful pro-life demonstrators from standing outside of abortion clinics. The high court agreed 6-3, with Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter among the majority.

It is important to point out such a distortion as this for what it is: a lie. Yet my initial reaction was not the same as other conservatives who went on defense. Rather, it was something like this: Do it again, harder, harder–and bring your friends. Having extremist groups spend big money to win over liberal GOP senators is a no-lose proposition, especially when they have to tell lies to do so.

These people will stop at nothing to smear the most unassailable of conservatives. They wouldn’t know the truth if it drove over them with 18 wheels.

John Hinderaker at Power Line has more:

Roberts didn’t “support violent fringe groups” or a “convicted clinic bomber.” He supported the federal government’s position on a specific question of law–correctly, as the Court found. NARAL’s reference to a “convicted clinic bomber” is especially outrageous. The Bray case had nothing to do with a bombing by Eric Rudolph or anyone else, and Rudolph attacked the Birmingham clinic–the bombing that is referred to in the NARAL ad–eight years after Roberts wrote the brief on the Section 1985(3) issues.

For NARAL to suggest that John Roberts has ever done anything to support violence against abortion clinics (or anything else) is so far outside the bounds of civilized debate that one can hope that, even in today’s far-gone Democratic Party, sane voices will be raised to denounce NARAL’s advertising campaign.

Don’t count on it.

Factcheck’s analysis of the NARAL ad is here. Ed Whelan at Bench Memos has been tracking. Drudge on CNN’s reported decision to run the ad here.

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood published a sick snuff cartoon–removed from its website yesterday after conservative bloggers blew the whistle–targeting pro-life opponents. Get all the background from Dawn Eden and LifeNews.

Sick. But don’t expect an apology. Being unhinged means never having to say you’re sorry.

Update: Beltway Blogroll looks at lefty bloggers unhappy with NARAL for a different reason.

From Reader Jeff K:

I’m sure you’ve been hearing from a lot of adoptive parents over the issue of the NYT looking into Roberts’ adoption records.

I am an adoptive parent, my two precious children come from Russia.

Here’s another danger in this that I see. It is up to the parents and the parents alone to decide what they tell the kids about their adoption. What if the paper published information the Roberts didn’t want to have out there yet, what if the kids at some future date found this information in the public domain, rather than from their parents in a loving, supportive context? What in the bleep gives the NYT the right to usurp one of most important duties of an adoptive parent, that of sharing with the children where they come from?

Reader Steve E.:

I got the same mamby-pamby response from the public editor when I threatened to spend every dime I have investigating the children of NYT editors and columnists if they pursued this. As the adoptive parent of a Chinese daughter, to say I was furious is an understatement. Maybe the t[h]reats were a little over the top — “Any editors up there have kids with DUI arrests? Date rape accusations? Mandatory stints in rehab? Want it broadcast to millions through the miracle of cyberspace? Think about what you’re doing. — but thugs have to be treated this way.

Wonder what the NYT response would have been if The Washington Times had investigated Justice Ginsburg’s children?

Reader Cliff T.:

It seems clear to me that the goal and hope of the Timesfolk was to find the birth mothers of the two Roberts children; send a reporter (and photographer!) to some poor Latin American village and interview the two women. After some coaxing and editing the following would appear on the front page of the (Sunday) NY Times:

Maria Sanchez earns twenty five cents a year and survives without medical care and in a cardboard shack. Five years ago an American helicoptered into her poor mountain village (there are no roads) and offered her the equivalent of four year’s salary to hand over her newest child, one month old Jose. Eighteen year-old Maria, who couldn’t feed her other six children went to her local Priest who advised her that it would be best for all the children if she accepted the “Gringo’s generous offer.”The New York Times has now learned that Jose is Jack. The adorable adopted son of John Robert, George Bush’s nominee to the US Supreme Court. The Times was able to interview Maria who has never forgotten the day that Jose waved goodbye from the window of the departing helicopter.

“Maria, do you want your son back?”

“Maria: Si.”

“Maria, do you think that fellow Catholic, ultra-conservative Supreme Court nominee John Roberts stole your baby?”

“Maria: Si.”

Although the editors of the New York Times are proudly ignorant of how incentives and disincentives alter human behavior the rest of us know better.

Action: America’s best-known newspaper tries to find dirt on a public figure by investigating the figure’s adoption of two children.

Reaction: There will be fewer adoptions.

Some good has come of all this, I suppose. At least we can now be sure of at least one thing: John Roberts has never rented an X-rated video. If he had we’d surely know about that by now.

Reader Chris K:

I have noticed in a number of reports about the Times investigation of Robert’s adopted children the inclusion of the disclaimer, “which detected nothing irregular about the adoptions.”

Why are they taking pains to point this out? Would they gleefully print anything irregular?

It’s as if they expect a Thank You for ensuring there is nothing irregular about the adoption. How petty, sleazy and disgusting.

Reader Ed M.:

What about nominees with natural born children? Will they be asked for detailed recitations of events preceding each and every conception? Might be needed to avoid civil suits charging bias against adoptive parents.

What about in vitro fertilization? Surrogate mothers? The waters do
get swampy.

Share your two cents with the Times:

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
fax: (212) 556-3622
letters@nytimes.com

***

More reax at Lucianne.com.

***
Previous:

The muckraking N.Y. Times

Associated Press reports:

Overturning a Honolulu federal judge’s decision supporting the school, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 2-1 that the practice at the private school violates federal civil rights law even though it receives no federal funding.

The case was brought by an unidentified non-Hawaiian student who was turned down for admission in 2003.

“I think it is a terrific decision,” said John Goemans, an attorney for the boy. “It is a very big event for Hawaiian history.”

Kamehameha Schools trustees say they will ask the the 9th Circuit to appoint a larger panel of judges to review the case. If the full 9th Circuit court rules against them, they say they will go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We are prepared to go as far as necessary to defend our preference policy,” said Kamehameha Schools Board Chairwoman Diane Plotts, a modern day George Wallace who apparently believes that native Hawaiians are exempt from civil rights laws that apply to other Americans.

If the case does go to the Supreme Court, the Rice v. Cayetano (2000) decision will loom large. In that case, the Supremes struck down a blatantly discriminatory Hawaiian-only restriction for voting in a statewide Hawaiian election. In a strongly worded 7-2 decision, the court ruled that the racial restriction “demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.”

The attorney representing Hawaii, which lost, was none other than John G. Roberts Jr., President Bush’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, who at the time was with the Washington law firm Hogan & Hartson.

According to the Star-Bulletin,

When the Supreme Court struck down the voting restriction as unlawful racial discrimination in February 2000, Roberts told the Star-Bulletin that the decision “could have been worse. The good news is that the majority’s opinion was very narrowly written and expressly did not call into question the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the public trust for the benefit of Hawaiians and native Hawaiians, but only the particular voting mechanism by which trustees are selected.”

The Left is worried that Roberts will advocate colorblind policies in the area of voting rights. I fear they will be proved wrong, just as many conservatives were wrong about President Bush’s commitment to colorblind policies when he first began running for national office six years ago–a fact I noted at the time.

Roberts will probably be a fine Justice on other issues, particularly national security-related issues. But an attorney who argued against colorblind policies in Hawaii should not be counted on to work for a colorblind America once he’s on the Supreme Court.

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Update:

E-mailer J.P. writes:

As a [government] lawyer myself (though certainly not in the major leagues like Judge Roberts), I’ve had to make legal arguments I did not necessarily agree with, so I wouldn’t necessarily hold this one against him. I think an indication of how he would vote on the Hawaiian case can be seen in who dissented in the Rice case: Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg. I can’t see Roberts in that crowd. God forbid.

Update II: Quite a few readers e-mailed me arguing that Courts should allow private entities to engage in racial discrimination. That sounds to me like judicial activism. Like it or not, civil rights laws are on the books; these laws clearly apply to employers and many other private institutions. Unless these laws are repealed, they should be enforced. And they should be enforced evenhandedly, i.e., even when the victims of discrimination happen to be white.

Update III: Paul Mirengoff of Power Line agrees with me that the position Roberts espoused in Rice v. Cayetano was “an abomination” but is “not concerned that Roberts, as the lawyer Hawaii hired, supported it.” Paul thinks Roberts’ memos on racial quotas while in the Justice Department “are far more indicative of his views on the subject.” I sure hope so.

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Related:

Apartheid in Hawaii: Which side is Bush on?

John at Wuzzadem takes a stab–and scores.