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Roberts' role

Posted By: American Woman on 2005-08-05
In Reply to: I don't see it as a negative. SM - MT

I believe his role was a bit larger than you suggested.  "Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. provided significant help to gay activists in a 1996 landmark Supreme Court case protecting gays from discrimination based upon their sexual orientation, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.


At the time, Roberts was a lawyer specializing in appellate work for Hogan & Hartson, a large D.C.-based law firm. Walter A. Smith, Jr., then head of the pro bono department of the firm, told the paper that Roberts didn't hesitate. "He said, 'Let's do it.' And it's illustrative of his open-mindedness, his fair-mindedness. He did a brilliant job."


At any rate, he's been portrayed him as a fair-minded, tolerant, fair person, and I'm glad President Bush nominated him because I believe we need a person like that in the Supreme Court.  I also hope if the president has another appointment to make that he chooses Alberto Gonzalez, who I also think has those qualities.




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    Actually, you are wrong about his role in this crisis....
    concerning Fannie and freddie, he tried to get legislation passed to deal directly with them...and the Democrats blocked it. Fact is, John McCain was on the RIGHT side of this issue, and perhaps if the Democrats had listened to him in 2005 we would not be facing this crisis today. In the interest of full disclosure and truth, this is what he said regarding that legislation:

    Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae’s regulator reported that the company’s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were “illusions deliberately and systematically created” by the company’s senior management, which resulted in a $10.6 billion accounting scandal.
    The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight’s report goes on to say that Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets in order to trigger bonuses for senior executives. In the case of Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae’s former chief executive officer, OFHEO’s report shows that over half of Mr. Raines’ compensation for the 6 years through 2003 was directly tied to meeting earnings targets. The report of financial misconduct at Fannie Mae echoes the deeply troubling $5 billion profit restatement at Freddie Mac.
    The OFHEO report also states that Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator’s examination of the company’s accounting problems. This report comes some weeks after Freddie Mac paid a record $3.8 million fine in a settlement with the Federal Election Commission and restated lobbying disclosure reports from 2004 to 2005. These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform.
    For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.
    I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
    I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation.

    He saw it coming, tried to tell the Dems, and they blocked it. Chris Dodd, head of banking and finance comittee, Democrat, largest recipient of donations from them. Guess who was #2?
    your msg. "American Presidency is an exec. role"
    nm
    Speculation over her future role in the R party
    This kind of ignorance is no bash...unless former candidates can inflict them upon themselves. Let's make a deal. Palin will be a bash-free zone just as soon as Obama is. When election politics dries up from the board, Palin comments will follow in kind. Don't hold your breath.
    You forgot he and Tipper were the role models
    For the guy who wrote the story "Love Story".

    You are correct, algore is pathetic. Anyone who puts up a statue to him - well I just have no desire to visit that state. My beef is not so much with the "inventing the internet" thing. Unsure if he really said that, and that is so small in my books, but this Global Warming bu!!sh!t he invented is the biggest farce. All politically and $$$ motivated. Funny how he is making so much money off of something that is not so.

    Pathetic - good definition of algore. I have a few others but they are not acceptable on this board. I want to just puke every time I see his picture.
    When I first saw Roberts,

    my initial uninformed "gut" reaction was that he was a "good guy."  In fact, I had to check my pulse to make sure I still had one because I found myself approving of something Bush did.


    The fact that he would take on this kind of case pro bono just confirms that my "gut" reaction was right (hopefully).


    Sometimes karma has a way of kicking someone right smack in the butt when they come from a place of hatred, inequality and superiority.  I truly hope this is the case here and that Bush, even if inadvertently, happened to finally make a good decision.


    What do you think about the investigation into Roberts' SM
    adoptions?
    Judge Roberts

    Have you even bothered to take the time to notice that EVERY SINGLE POST ON THIS BOARD about Judge Roberts is a POSITIVE POST???


    What planet are you from, anyway?  Is your life so pathetic that the only pleasure you get is from stalking people on this board in the bizarre way you do and constantly put them down personally?  Dang.  You need a Happy Meal, dude. 


    Really..John Roberts?
    Roberts Disparaged States' Sex-Bias Fight



    By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 27 minutes ago



    WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts disparaged state efforts to combat discrimination against women in Reagan-era documents made public Thursday, and wondered whether "encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."


    http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050818/ap_on_go_su_co/roberts


    Roberts article
    Roberts Disparaged States' Sex-Bias Fight



    By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 29 minutes ago



    WASHINGTON - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts disparaged state efforts to combat discrimination against women in Reagan-era documents made public Thursday — and wondered whether "encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."






    ADVERTISEMENT





    As a young White House lawyer, Roberts also expressed support for a national ID card in 1983, saying it would help counter the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration."


    In words that may resurface — however humorously — at his confirmation hearing, he criticized a crime-fighting proposal by Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) as "the epitome of the `throw money at the problem" approach.


    Specter, R-Pa., then a first-term senator, is now chairman of the Judiciary Committee and will preside at Roberts' hearings, scheduled to begin Sept. 6.


    The documents, released simultaneously in Washington and at the Reagan Library in California, show Roberts held a robust view of presidential powers under the Constitution. "I am institutionally disposed against adopting a limited reading of a statute conferring power on the president," he wrote in 1985.


    The materials made public completed the disclosure of more than 50,000 pages that cover Roberts' tenure as a lawyer in the White House counsel's office from 1982-86.


    Nearly 2,000 more pages from the same period have been withheld on national security or privacy grounds.


    Additionally, over the persistent protests of Senate Democrats, the White House has refused to make available any of the records covering Roberts' later tenure as principal deputy solicitor general during the administration of President George H.W. Bush.


    Taken as a whole, the material released Thursday reinforced the well-established image of Roberts as a young lawyer whose views on abortion, affirmative action, school prayer and more were in harmony with the conservative president he served. In one memo, he referred favorably to effort to "defund the left."


    Democrats say they will question Roberts closely on those subjects and others at his hearings, and they scoured the newly disclosed documents. And despite the apparently long odds against them, civil rights and women's groups are beginning to mount an attempt to defeat his nomination.


    Emily's List, which works to elect female candidates, drew attention to a recent speech by Sen. Barbara Boxer (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., in which Boxer raised the possibility of a filibuster if Roberts doesn't elaborate on his views on abortion and privacy rights at his hearings.


    "I have the ultimate step," Boxer said. "I can use all the parliamentary rules I have as a senator to stand up and fight for you."


    The documents released Thursday recalled the battles of the Reagan era and underscored the breadth of the issues that crossed the desk of Roberts, then a young lawyer in the White House.


    He advised senior officials not to try and circumvent the will of Congress when it established a nationwide 55 mph speed limit, for example.


    At one point, Roberts drafted a graceful letter to the actor James Stewart for Reagan's signature. "I would normally be delighted to serve on any group chaired by you," it began, then went on to explain why White House lawyers didn't want the president to join a school advisory council.


    On a more weighty issue, he struggled to define the line that Reagan and other officials should not cross in encouraging private help to the forces opposing the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua.


    A memo dated Jan. 21, 1986, said there was no legal problem with Reagan's holding a White House briefing for two groups trying to raise funds. Then, a month later, Roberts warned against getting too close to such groups, toning down letters of commendation drafted for Reagan's signature.


    On immigration, he wrote Fred Fielding, White House counsel at the time, in October 1983 that he did not share his opposition to a national ID card. Separately, anticipating a presidential interview with Spanish Today, he wrote. "I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos."

    Roberts reviewed a report that summarized state efforts to combat discrimination against women. "Many of the reported proposals and efforts are themselves highly objectionable," he wrote to Fielding.

    As an example, he said a California program "points to passage of a law requiring the order of layoffs to reflect affirmative action programs and not merely seniority" — a position at odds with administration policy.

    He referred to a "staggeringly pernicious law codifying the anti-capitalist notion of `comparable worth,' (as opposed to market value) pay scales." Advocates of comparable worth argued that women were victims of discrimination because they were paid less than men working in other jobs that the state had decided were worth the same.

    In a third case, Roberts said a Florida measure "cites a (presumably unconstitutional) proposal to charge women less tuition at state schools, because they have less earning potential."

    In a memo dated Sept. 26, 1983, Roberts cited the administration's objections to a proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

    "Any amendment would ... override the prerogatives of the states and vest the federal judiciary with broader powers in this area, two of the central objections to the ERA," Roberts wrote.

    His remark about homemakers and lawyers seemed almost a throwaway line in a one-page memo about the Clairol Rising Star Awards and Scholarship Program. The program was designed to honor women who made changes in their lives after age 30 and had made contributions in their new fields.

    An administration official nominated an aide who had been a teacher but then became a lawyer. Roberts signed off on the nomination, then wrote: "Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good, but I suppose that is for the judges to decide."

    More than a decade later, Roberts married an attorney.


    Ha ha! I wonder if Hillary sent Roberts a thank you
    All she has to do is point out that Republicans want to go backwards in time, want women barefoot, pregnant and inferior to men.  This is probably the best thing to happen to a Democratic campaign n a long time!  Gotta love it!
    judge roberts
    To the conservatives who just have to frequent our liberal board..I have been told, conservatives, that you attribute posts questioning your beliefs or attacking you as coming from gt..THEY DO NOT COME FROM ME.  I do not go onto your board as it is too disheartening to read the way you would like America to be and your continual attack on liberal sites and liberal news articles..So, get over me, I AM NOT THE ONE POSTING ON YOUR CONSERVATIVE BOARD..

    Secondly, to my democratic friends, have any of you watched the John Roberts' confirmation hearings?  I have been watching for two days now..In fact, right now they are in recess, so I thought..let me check out the MTStars political board..MSN news video site on the computer has live hearings and they are fascinating..I have to tell you, so far I kind of like Judge Roberts..My only hesitation is Bush recommended him..


    Judge Roberts and Roe vs Wade
    I, too, am pro choice and I can remember when I was still in high school, there was no right of termination of pregnancy..It was left up to each state to decide and NY state did not allow a woman to choose.  I remember Congresswoman, Bella Abzug, was one of the strongest voices for women back then..That, I guess, is what got me into politics to the max, cause none of my sisters are political, nor my mother..They vote democrat and sure agree with me on issues but I am the one who marches and protests, etc, LOL.  I think back in about 1973, I was astonished that a woman had no right over her body, no decisions about her body..That seared my brain, I guess.  Then, thankfully the Supreme Court understood a woman has a right to decide about her body..I think if Roe vs Wade was ever overturned, we would have women in the streets, and also some men who have a higher consciousness and understand the implications of overturning Roe vs Wade.  The majority of Americans want to leave the decision alone, so hopefully the Supreme Court will leave it alone..I do not believe in abortion at late stages, only in case of a woman's health, however, in the first four months, I believe a woman should decide and, if it is wrong, the woman will explain it to her maker..far be it for me to judge, ya know?
    It was Roberts' mistake...here are the facts.
    WASHINGTON - It was merely a formality and it’s probably a few phrases that both Barack Obama and Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts have practiced several times, but the leader of the Supreme Court may have been just a tad nervous when he got one word of the presidential oath of office a little out of order.

    Obama smiled slightly when he realized that Roberts, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate, misplaced the word “faithfully” during the oath. but the new president joined in the fun and repeated it the way Roberts initially administered it. (Lest we forget, in the Senate Obama voted against confirming Roberts to the high court. Last week Obama met with him and the other Supreme Court justices during a courtesy call.)

    Here is how the oath is supposed to be administered: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

    And here’s how it went:

    ROBERTS: I, Barack Hussein Obama…

    OBAMA: I, Barack…

    ROBERTS: … do solemnly swear…

    OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear…

    ROBERTS: … that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully…

    OBAMA: … that I will execute…

    ROBERTS: … faithfully the office of president of the United States…

    OBAMA: … the office of president of the United States faithfully…

    ROBERTS: … and will to the best of my ability…

    OBAMA: … and will to the best of my ability…

    ROBERTS: … preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

    OBAMA: … preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

    ROBERTS: So help you God?

    OBAMA: So help me God.

    For any conspiracy theorists worried Obama isn’t president because the oath was a little off, the 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that the new president assumes office at noon on Jan. 20.
    Absolutely right, it was Roberts' error, not Obama's
    nm
    So are you saying the company took the case pro bono, but paid Roberts.
    If he wasn't paid, he did the work pro bono.
    It appears that Roberts involvement in the case was not an endorsement per se. SM




     

     
    SF        www.sfgate.com        Return to regular view


    Roberts Helped Group on Gay Rights
    - By JON SARCHE, Associated Press Writer
    Friday, August 5, 2005


    (08-05) 19:27 PDT DENVER (AP) --


    A decade ago, John Roberts played a valuable role helping attorneys overturn a Colorado referendum that would have allowed discrimination against gays — free assistance the Supreme Court nominee didn't mention in a questionnaire he filled out for the Senate Judiciary Committee.



    The revelation didn't appear to dent his popularity among conservative groups nor quell some of the opposition of liberal groups fearful he could help overturn landmark decisions such as Roe v. Wade, which guarantees a right to an abortion.



    An attorney who worked with Roberts cautioned against making guesses about his personal views based on his involvement in the Colorado case, which gay rights advocates consider one of their most important legal victories.



    "It may be that John and others didn't see this case as a gay-rights case," said Walter Smith, who was in charge of pro bono work at Roberts' former Washington law firm, Hogan & Hartson.



    Smith said Roberts may instead have viewed the case as a broader question of whether the constitutional guarantee of equal protection prohibited singling out a particular group of people that wouldn't be protected by an anti-discrimination law.



    "I don't think this gives you any clear answers, but I think it's a factor people can and should look at to figure out what this guy is made of and what kind of Supreme Court justice he would make," Smith said.



    On Friday, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans released two memos by Roberts when he was as an assistant counsel in the Reagan White House. In one, Roberts argued that President Reagan should not interfere in a Kentucky case involving the display of tributes to God in schools.



    In the other, Roberts writes that Reagan shouldn't grant presidential pardons to bombers of abortion clinics. "The president unequivocally condemns such acts of violence," he wrote in a draft reply to a lawmaker seeking Reagan's position. "No matter how lofty or sincerely held the goal, those who resort to violence to achieve it are criminals."



    Meanwhile, the Justice Department denied a request by Judiciary Committee Democrats for Roberts' writings on 16 cases he handled when he was principal deputy solicitor general during President George H.W. Bush's administration. The department also declined to provide the materials, other than those already publicly available, to The Associated Press and other organizations that sought them under the Freedom of Information Act.



    "We cannot provide to the committee documents disclosing the confidential legal advice and internal deliberations of the attorneys advising the solicitor general," assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote Friday to the eight committee Democrats.



    Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the panel's senior Democrat, said Roberts made decisions whether to pursue legal appeals in more than 700 cases. "The decision to keep these documents under cover is disappointing," Leahy said.



    The gay rights case involved Amendment 2, a constitutional amendment approved by Colorado voters in 1992 that would have barred laws, ordinances or regulations protecting gays from discrimination by landlords, employers or public agencies such as school districts.



    Gay rights groups sued, and the measure was declared unconstitutional in a 6-3 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996.



    Roberts' role in the case, disclosed this week by the Los Angeles Times, included helping develop a strategy and firing tough questions during a mock court session at Jean Dubofsky, a former Colorado Supreme Court justice who argued the case on behalf of the gay rights plaintiffs.



    Dubofsky, who did not return calls Friday, said Roberts helped develop the strategy that the law violated the equal protection clause in the Constitution — and prepared her for tough questions from conservative members of the court. She recalled how Justice Antonin Scalia asked for specific legal citations.



    "I had it right there at my fingertips," she told the Times. "Roberts was just terrifically helpful in meeting with me and spending some time on the issue. He seemed to be very fair-minded and very astute."



    Dubofsky had never argued before the Supreme Court. Smith said she called his firm and asked specifically for help from Roberts, who argued 39 cases before the court before he was confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., in 2003.



    Smith said any lawyer at Hogan & Hartson would have had the right to decline to work on any case for moral, religious or other reasons.



    "If John had felt that way about this case, given that he is a brilliant lawyer, he would have just said, `This isn't my cup of tea' and I would have said, `Fine, we'll look for something else that would suit you,'" Smith said.



    The Lambda Legal Defense Fund, which helped move the case through the state and federal courts, said Roberts' involvement raised more questions about him than it answered because of his "much more extensive advocacy of positions that we oppose," executive director Kevin Cathcart said.



    "This is one more piece that will be added to the puzzle in the vetting of John Roberts' nomination," Cathcart said.



    The Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition, said his support for Roberts' nomination has not diminished. "He wasn't the lead lawyer. They only asked him to play a part where he would be Scalia in a mock trial," Sheldon said.



    Focus on the Family Action, the political arm of the Colorado Springs-based conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, said Roberts' involvement was "certainly not welcome news to those of us who advocate for traditional values," but did not prompt new concerns about his nomination, which the group supports.



    "That's what lawyers do — represent their firm's clients, whether they agree with what those clients stand for or not," the group said in a statement.



    URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/08/05/national/w135401D98.DTL


    Roberts opposed legislation for womens rights

    Roberts resisted women’s rights


    1982-86 memos detail court nominee’s skepticism





    var cssList = new Array(); getCSS("3216310")





      








    By Amy Goldstein, R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker


    The
    Updated: 11:48 p.m. ET Aug. 18, 2005

    Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called "the purported gender gap" and, at one point, questioning "whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."


    In internal memos, Roberts urged President Reagan to refrain from embracing any form of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment pending in Congress; he concluded that some state initiatives to curb workplace discrimination against women relied on legal tools that were "highly objectionable"; and he said that a controversial legal theory then in vogue -- of directing employers to pay women equally to men for jobs of "comparable worth" -- was "staggeringly pernicious" and "anti-capitalist."






    getCSS("3176006")
    Roberts's thoughts on what he called "perceived problems" of gender bias are contained in a vast batch of documents, released yesterday, that provide the clearest, most detailed mosaic so far of his political views on dozens of social and legal issues. Senators have said they plan to mine his past views on such topics, which could come before the high court, when his confirmation hearings begin the day after Labor Day.











    Covering a period from 1982 to 1986 -- during his tenure as associate counsel to President Reagan -- the memos, letters and other writings show that Roberts endorsed a speech attacking "four decades of misguided" Supreme Court decisions on the role of religion in public life, urged the president to hold off saying AIDS could not be transmitted through casual contact until more research was done, and argued that promotions and firings in the workplace should be based entirely on merit, not affirmative action programs.


    In October 1983, Roberts said that he favored creation of a national identity card to prove American citizenship, even though the White House counsel's office was officially opposed to the idea. He wrote that such measures were needed in response to the "real threat to our social fabric posed by uncontrolled immigration."


    He also, the documents illustrate, played a bit role in the Reagan administration's efforts in Nicaragua to funnel assistance to CIA-supported "contras" who were trying overthrow the Marxist Sandinista government.


    In one instance, Roberts had a direct disagreement with the senator who now wields great influence over his confirmation prospects, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). In a 1983 memo, Roberts was dismissive of a "white paper" on violent crime that had been drafted by one of Specter's aides. Noting that the paper proposed new expenditures of $8 billion to $10 billion a year, Roberts wrote: "The proposals are the epitome of the 'throw the money at the problem' approach repeatedly rejected by Administration spokesmen."


    President Bush nominated Roberts, now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, four weeks ago.


    Yesterday's deluge of more than 38,000 pages of documents has particular political significance -- because of their content and their timing. The papers, held in the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, are likely to be the last major set of written material from Roberts's past to become public before his confirmation hearings.


    Extensive insight
    Senate Democrats have been pressing the Bush administration to release Roberts's files from the highest-ranking position he has held in the executive branch, as the Justice Department's deputy solicitor general from 1989 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush. But administration officials have asserted that those records should remain private on the grounds of attorney-client privilege.


    Previously released documents, from slightly earlier in the Reagan era, when Roberts was a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith, have established that the young attorney was immersed in civil rights issues of the time, including school desegregation, voting rights and bias in hiring and housing. The new batch provides the most extensive insight into Roberts's views of efforts to expand opportunity for women in the workplace and higher education.


    Roberts: Iraq Will Affect Future War Votes

    Fool me once, shame on you....etc.


    I feel better knowing Congress is smart enough to not believe BU_ _ SH _ _ twice from this farce of a president.


    Roberts: Iraq Will Affect Future War Votes
    Experience With Faulty Data Has Made Senators More Wary, Panel Chairman Says


    By Walter Pincus
    Washington Post Staff Writer
    Monday, November 14, 2005; A04


    The Republican chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that one lesson of the faulty prewar intelligence on Iraq is that senators would take a hard look at intelligence before voting to go to war.


    I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action, Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) said on Fox News Sunday.


    We don't accept this intelligence at face value anymore, he added. We get into preemptive oversight and do digging in regards to our hard targets.


    He said that agreement has been reached on the Phase 2 review that the intelligence panel is doing to look into whether the Bush administration exaggerated or misused prewar intelligence. The review may not be finished this year, he said.


    The intelligence panel vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), also appearing on Fox, called the review absolutely useful because if it is the fact that they [the Bush administration] created intelligence or shaped intelligence in order to bring American opinion along to support them in going to war, that's a really bad thing -- it should not ever be repeated.


    Appearing on CNN's Late Edition, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said the White House is supporting the study, adding: I think that what you're going to find is that the statements by the administration had backing at the time from accepted intelligence sources.


    He said that when administration statements turned out to be wrong, that was because the underlying intelligence was not true, but that's not the same as manipulating intelligence, and that is not misleading the American people.


    Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), appearing with Roberts on Late Edition, said that Iraq became the center of terrorism after the March 2003 invasion.


    I'm afraid we're going to see Iraq is not only the center of the war on terror, which it was not before we attacked Iraq, but now it is going to, I'm afraid, export it.


    He added that Iraq has become the heartland of terrorism. It was not before we attacked.


    Levin, a member of both the Senate intelligence committee and Armed Services Committee, has been a leading critic of the Bush administration's handling of the war.


    Levin also said that the United States must get allies, as many as we can, including in the Muslim world because this is a form of fanatic Islam which has to be defeated by the moderate Islamic people.


    In a column in yesterday's Washington Post, former senator John Edwards (N.C.), the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2004, said the failures of the Bush administration turned Iraq into a far greater threat than it ever was. It is now a haven for terrorists [and] has made fighting the global war on terrorist organizations more difficult rather than less.


    The president and his senior aides have said since before the invasion that Washington went to war primarily because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the United States and its neighbors because of his connection to terrorists. Once fighting began, they argued that Iraq was the central front in the battle against terrorism.


    In his Veterans Day speech on Friday, the president turned his original argument around, saying, The terrorists regard Iraq as the central front in their war against humanity, and therefore, We must recognize Iraq as the central front in our war against the terrorists.


    Paul Craig Roberts: "Gullible Americans." sm
    Dr. Roberts is Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. In this, his latest article, he takes on the propaganda and lies that surround the Liquid Terror plot.

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14531.htm



    Justice Roberts messed it up, Obama knew that. sm
    He could not repeat it as Roberts stated it because it was wrong. He correctly paused in order to give Justice Roberts the opportunity to state it correctly so that he (Obama) could repeat the oath correctly.
    "America's Shame", by Paul Craig Roberts, former

    http://www.vdare.com/roberts/090111_shame.htm


     


    Paleocon Paul Craig Roberts: A Criminal Administration
    Conservative Columnist Paul Craig Roberts: A Criminal Administration



    A Criminal Administration
    by Paul Craig Roberts

    Caught in gratuitous and illegal spying on American citizens, the Bush administration has defended its illegal activity and set the Justice (sic) Department on the trail of the person or persons who informed the New York Times of Bush's violation of law. Note the astounding paradox: The Bush administration is caught red-handed in blatant illegality and responds by trying to arrest the patriot who exposed the administration's illegal behavior.

    Bush has actually declared it treasonous to reveal his illegal behavior! His propagandists, who masquerade as news organizations, have taken up the line: To reveal wrong-doing by the Bush administration is to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

    Compared to Spygate, Watergate was a kindergarten picnic. The Bush administration's lies, felonies, and illegalities have revealed it to be a criminal administration with a police state mentality and police state methods. Now Bush and his attorney general have gone the final step and declared Bush to be above the law. Bush aggressively mimics Hitler's claim that defense of the realm entitles him to ignore the rule of law.

    Bush's acts of illegal domestic spying are gratuitous because there are no valid reasons for Bush to illegally spy. The Foreign Intelligence Services Act gives Bush all the power he needs to spy on terrorist suspects. All the administration is required to do is to apply to a secret FISA court for warrants. The Act permits the administration to spy first and then apply for a warrant, should time be of the essence.

    The problem is that Bush has totally ignored the law and the court. Why would President Bush ignore the law and the FISA court? It is certainly not because the court in its three decades of existence was uncooperative. According to attorney Martin Garbus (New York Observer, 12/28/05), the secret court has issued more warrants than all federal district judges combined, only once denying a warrant.

    Why, then, has the administration created another scandal for itself on top of the WMD, torture, hurricane, and illegal detention scandals?

    There are two possible reasons.

    One reason is that the Bush administration is being used to concentrate power in the executive. The old conservative movement, which honors the separation of powers, has been swept away. Its place has been taken by a neoconservative movement that worships executive power.

    The other reason is that the Bush administration could not go to the FISA secret court for warrants because it was not spying for legitimate reasons and, therefore, had to keep the court in the dark about its activities.

    What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the US government in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election?

    Could we attribute the feebleness of the Democrats as an opposition party to information obtained through illegal spying that would subject them to blackmail?

    These possible reasons for bypassing the law and the court need to be fully investigated and debated. No administration in my lifetime has given so many strong reasons to oppose and condemn it as has the Bush administration. Nixon was driven from office because of a minor burglary of no consequence in itself. Clinton was impeached because he did not want the embarrassment of publicly acknowledging that he engaged in adulterous sex acts in the Oval Office. In contrast, Bush has deceived the public and Congress in order to invade Iraq, illegally detained Americans, illegally tortured detainees, and illegally spied on Americans. Bush has upheld neither the Constitution nor the law of the land. A majority of Americans disapprove of what Bush has done; yet, the Democratic Party remains a muted spectator.

    Why is the Justice (sic) Department investigating the leak of Bush's illegal activity instead of the illegal activity committed by Bush? Is the purpose to stonewall Congress' investigation of Bush's illegal spying? By announcing a Justice (sic) Department investigation, the Bush administration positions itself to decline to respond to Congress on the grounds that it would compromise its own investigation into national security matters.

    What will the federal courts do? When Hitler challenged the German judicial system, it collapsed and accepted that Hitler was the law. Hitler's claims were based on nothing but his claims, just as the claim for extra-legal power for Bush is based on nothing but memos written by his political appointees.

    The Bush administration, backed by the neoconservative Federalist Society, has brought the separation of powers, the foundation of our political system, to crisis. The Federalist Society, an organization of Republican lawyers, favors more energy in the executive. Distrustful of Congress and the American people, the Federalist Society never fails to support rulings that concentrate power in the executive branch of government. It is a paradox that conservative foundations and individuals have poured money for 23 years into an organization that is inimical to the separation of powers, the foundation of our constitutional system.

    September 11, 2001, played into neoconservative hands exactly as the 1933 Reichstag fire played into Hitler's hands. Fear, hysteria, and national emergency are proven tools of political power grabs. Now that the federal courts are beginning to show some resistance to Bush's claims of power, will another terrorist attack allow the Bush administration to complete its coup?

    _____

    Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

    Copyright © 2006 Creators Syndicate

    Roberts did some pro bono work for gay rights back in 1992. Good for him.

    I think its the one glimmer of hope the fact that he at least had the decency to stand up for gays rights to lease an apartment and other civil liberties. 


    What I continue to find ironic is how the conservatives could see this as a possible negative "ideology" for their party. 


    He got a look when Biden was making wise cracks about Justice Roberts at the swearing in. sm
    I think when he is under stress he has a hard time hiding how he feels, but I think it is more a sign that he is honest about his feelings, not that he is going to act out in some crazy way.