Hugh Hewitt is ready for combat
Preparing to play the "deeply held beliefs" card: Charles Schumer's New Test Act.
"Roberts Opposition Struggles for Focus" is the headline in the Wall Street Journal this morning (subscription required.) But declarations of victory are very premature given the obvious signs that the left is getting ready to mount a two-part campaign against Judge Roberts.
Part I will be the conventional "give us the documents or we won't vote" blather that currently blocks Bolton and in the past was used to block Miguel Estrada. This is a delaying tactic, and nothing more.
The real assault is coming on Roberts --and his wife's-- Roman Catholicism.
It will be carefully coded, but there is no mistaking the set-up work underway to get the Demcrats' version of the Test Act established.
Four articles have appeared in two days that set-up the nominee's religious beliefs as a subject for conversation.
Two days ago, writing for MSNBC, Howard Fineman introduced Roberts' Catholicism, but did so with a genteel bit of misdirection --arguing that Roberts' family's beliefs would help him in the confirmation process:
"He’s well-liked personally—and that matters here. He and his wife are members of a suburban Roman Catholic parish known for its good educational programs and rock-steady values. His two kids are adopted. Washington sits on a substratum of Catholic conservatism that few people who aren’t from here understand. It goes back to Georgetown University and pre-D.C. Maryland history. It is that community that Roberts represents, and that Bush is paying homage to with this pick."
Yesterday, the New York Times employed the always-willing-to-play-the Catholic-card Barry Lynn to get Roberts' faith into the story:
"Barry W. Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said Wednesday that Judge Roberts's participation in the [Lee] case makes him 'unsuited for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.' He said that if confirmed to the court, Judge Roberts would 'open the door to majority rule on religious matters.'
Friends of Judge Roberts and his wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, a lawyer at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, say they share a strong faith. 'They are deeply religious,' said Fred F. Fielding, the former White House counsel for President Reagan, 'but they don't wear it on their sleeves at all.'
The couple are members of the Church of the Little Flower in Bethesda, Md., a Catholic congregation that includes about 1,500 families. Like many Washington-area churches, its members have included prominent political figures. Thomas O'Neill, the former speaker of the House known as Tip, as well as Edmund Muskie, the former United States senator, secretary of state and presidential candidate, once attended, said Gary R. Davies, a church deacon. More recently, L. Paul Bremer III, who served as the United States' administrator in Iraq, was a member.
The church, Mr. Davies said, is not particularly political, though it does organize two or so busloads of members each year to participate in an anti-abortion rally marking the Roe v. Wade decision. 'I have never heard anyone talk about politics,' Mr. Davies said. 'It just does not belong.'
Some who know Judge Roberts say he does not let his personal beliefs affect his legal views. 'He's not going to allow political or theological interference with his opinions,' said Mark Touhey, a partner in the Texas law firm of Vinson & Elkins.
Shannen W. Coffin, a friend of Judge Roberts and a former Justice Department lawyer, said: 'John's faith is his faith, and his approach to the law is a separate issue. If it has any effect, it is in the sense of restraint, that he is not and the role of the judge is not to be the center of the universe. It stems from the sort of humility of a faithful person.'
The Robertses frequently attend events at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Mass. Jane Roberts is a graduate of the school and has been a trustee for the last four years.
'They are devout Catholics,' said the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, the college president. 'They are not the kind of people who would be in your face,' he added. Their religion 'would affect their personal lives, but they are very professional in their work.'
Mr. Coffin said that after the Robertses married nine years ago when they were both in their 40's, they tried to have children. After a several failed adoption efforts, he said, they 'got lucky' with two children, Josephine and John, now 5 and 4.
In a sign of just how small the elite world of the Supreme Court bar and bench can be, the Robertses have attended Holy Cross events with Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, Virginia, according to Father McFarland. Justice Thomas is also an alumnus of Holy Cross and a trustee."
That's a brilliant piece of "red alert to the left" writing, especially the nice toss to Clarence Thomas at the end, just in case the less nimble at MoveOn had missed the point.
Subtlety is not the Los Angeles Times' long suit when its agenda journalists take the field. yesterday's front page story on Jane Roberts is a polemic: "Wife of Nominee Holds Srong Antiabortion Views." The article's opening three paragraphs leave no doubt in the reader's mind that John Roberts' wife's religious faith powers her political views which will in turn influence her husband who probably holds those views anyway:
"While Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr.'s views on abortion triggered intense debate on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, there is no mistaking where his wife stands: Jane Sullivan Roberts, a lawyer, is ardently against abortion.
A Roman Catholic like her husband, Jane Roberts has been deeply involved in the antiabortion movement. She provides her name, money and professional advice to a small Washington organization — Feminists for Life of America — that offers counseling and educational programs. The group has filed legal briefs before the high court challenging the constitutionality of abortion.
A spouse's views normally are not considered relevant in weighing someone's job suitability. But abortion is likely to figure prominently in the Senate debate over John Roberts' nomination. And with his position on the issue unclear, abortion rights supporters expressed concern Wednesday that his wife's views might suggest he also embraced efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade."
Today's Washington Post keeps the focus on Jane Roberts with a profile that begins:
"In 1995 Jane Sullivan walked into the tiny downtown office of Feminists for Life, a group she'd heard about from a friend. Serrin Foster was staffing the front desk and explained to her what they were about: The group was a kind of updated antiabortion group that concentrated more on 'prevention than rhetoric.' It was started in the '70s by some 'hippie anti-nuke, anti-death penalty activists,' including two women who had been kicked out of a National Organization for Women meeting for saying they were antiabortion.
Sullivan's response was the same as that of many women who discover the group after searching for someplace that could contain all their various beliefs: 'I've found my home,' Foster recalls her saying."
Abortion-rights activists have got to be feeling faint after the coverage of the past few days, and gearing up to oppose Judge Roberts in every conceivable fashion.
Robert Novak's column from August 11, 2003 provides the key history to the expected assault on John Roberts:
"On May 1 in a Senate Judiciary Committee session, Schumer raised religious questions in connection with the nomination of lawyer J. Leon Holmes as district judge from Arkansas. Holmes has the support of his state's two Democratic senators, but not Chuck Schumer. The New Yorker argued that the conservative religious views of Holmes, a devout Catholic, disqualified him because of disagreements interpreting the separation of church and state. Schumer contended that 'religious beliefs cannot dictate government policy, even though they can infuse our values.'
That was preparation for Schumer's opposition to Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor for the appellate bench, another conservative Catholic who is the most recent of the filibustered Bush nominees. In the Judiciary Committee June 11, Schumer said Pryor's beliefs 'are so well known, so deeply held that it's very hard to believe that they're not going to influence' him on the bench. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, another Judiciary member, also has cited the 'deeply held beliefs' standard."
It is going to get ugly, and how ugly depends upon how desperate the left is, and it looks pretty desperate. Charmaine Yost's post here makes me think there is no bottom to the left's lows.
hughhewitt.com |
