RUSH: All right, Mike Allen, Dana Milbank, Washington Post. It sounds like they’re throwing in the towel here. Don’t believe this, folks. This could be a setup, could be. I read this stuff and say, “Uh, uh, uh, uh, we haven’t even gotten to the hearings yet and these people are throwing in the towel? Something doesn’t pass the smell test.” But here are the details. “Democrats have decided that unless there is an unexpected development in the weeks ahead, they will not launch a major fight to block the Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts Jr., according to legislators, Senate aides and party strategists. In a series of interviews in recent days, more than a dozen…” Twelve, for those of you in Rio Linda. “…Democratic senators and aides who are intimately involved in deliberations about strategy said that they see no evidence that most Democratic senators are prepared to expend political capital in what is widely seen as a futile effort to derail the nomination.
Although they expect to subject President Bush’s nominee to tough questioning at confirmation hearings next month, members of the minority party said they do not plan to marshal any concerted campaign against Roberts because they have concluded that he is likely–” What do you mean, “don’t plan to”? What do you think they’ve been doing? It just hasn’t panned out. “‘No one’s planning all-out warfare,’ said a Senate Democratic aide closely involved in caucus strategy on Roberts.” These are liberals, and as such, I don’t believe them. Charles Schumer said there was going to be “war,” and Charles Schumer wants to make a big name for himself, and he’ll try whatever he has to at the hearings to do so. Anyway…
“For now, the aide said, Democratic strategy is to make it clear Roberts is subject to fair scrutiny while avoiding a pointless conflagration that could backfire on the party. ‘We’re going to come out of this looking dignified and will show we took the constitutional process seriously.'” That’s a tantamount admission that they’ve been screwing it up till now. That’s a tantamount admission that they’re looking anything but constitutional and dignified. “‘This was a smart political choice in the White House,’ said one prominent Democrat lawmaker, who demanded anonymity because they were departing from the Democrats public position. ‘I don’t think people see a close vote here at all.’ In a reflection of the mildness of the Democrats’ message, a set of party talking points circulated latest week to Senate offices included no specific criticism of the nominee but simply called for an honest look at John Roberts’ record.”
Anyway, they think that he gets 70 votes. “Seventy votes? That’s too much,” the theory is. They don’t want to go out on a limb. Individual Democrats don’t want to go out on a limb and be lone wolves in the Senate is going to vote 70 or more for the guy. “The Democrats said that instead of mounting a headlong assault on Roberts, they plan to use the hearings and the surrounding attention by the news media to remind voters of their party’s values including the protection of rights for individual Americans.” That’s abortion. “The plan calls for emphasizing rights beyond abortion in an effort to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate.” Fine, that’s what they say today.
I’ll believe it when I see it because I still see media reports: Roberts on a “collision course” with Maine’s Olympia Snowe. Memo cited, abortion as “tragedy.” Roberts came out against Michael Jackson. There’s still a deluge of reports every day from the mainstream press on some of the outrageous things that Roberts has written when he was with the Reagan administration and when he was with the solicitor general’s office. The media still trying to carry the water for the Democrats and they’re still trying to gin up anti-Roberts sentiment out there, and don’t for a moment think that they’ve given up on that, folks.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: The media is still trying to find that one thing that would disqualify John Roberts. Let’s go Good Morning America, correspondent Jessica Yellin reporting on Roberts and the new papers released by the White House. This is a montage of her report.
YELLIN: On the topic of school prayer, Roberts urged the president to support a constitutional amendment —
RUSH: Stop the tape. Notice the breathlessness? The urgency? The sense of, Whoa-no-look-at-this-discovery attitude in this report.
YELLIN: — that allows silent prayer in public school. He also urged the White House to oppose an effort by some in the women’s movement to equalize pay between women and men who do comparable work. Roberts also argued at the time that the Geneva Conventions, which offers protections to most prisoners of war should not apply to terrorists. Perhaps the strangest of all the documents are two combative memos regarding the singer, Michael Jackson. Roberts recommends against writing a presidential letter praising the pop star.
RUSH: All right, now, as you listen to this, do you not detect an attitude? Well, what is the attitude? The attitude here is one of… This word, “superiority,” does not quite capture what I mean, but it’s as close as I can come. This reporter could be any reporter in the mainstream press. There is a presumption and assumption that what they believe is just automatically conventional wisdom and anything expressed by somebody else, any view or other views expressed by somebody else is, “God, can you believe this?” There is an undertone of, “God, can you believe this guy?” in this whole report. For example, let me go through it here. “On the topic of school prayer, Roberts urged the president to support a constitutional amendment that would allow silent prayer in public school!” (doing impression) “Do you believe that? Who is this man? Prayer in the schools? He’s an alien!” And it goes on. “He also urged the White House to oppose an effort by some in the women’s movement to equalize pay between women and men who do comparable work!” I can’t believe it.
This guy is a Neanderthal, is the attitude with the story, and then, “Roberts also argued at the time that the Geneva Conventions, which offers protections to prisoners of war, should not apply to terrorists.” Do you believe that there are people who don’t think terrorists should be given access to the Geneva Conventions? Who is this guy? Is this not the attitude of this whole report? It’s like, “Well, everybody knows that there shouldn’t be school prayer! Everybody knows that there ought to be federally mandated equal pay! Everybody knows terrorists need to have protection of the Geneva Conventions. Who is this guy?”
That’s the attitude. And it’s an attitude of condescension, of smug arrogance, condescension and superiority. They think they found dirt here. They think they’ve really dug up the dirt. So when I see these stories, the Democrats have decided that there’s no way to defeat Roberts. Well, somebody better tell their buddies and allies in the media, because the media thinks they’ve dug up Bork kind of dirt here. They think they’ve dug up Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill kind of dirt here — and then even this last item. “Perhaps the strangest of all the documents are two combative memos regarding the singer, Michael Jackson.” Why, just weeks ago everybody in the media thought the guy was a pedophile, now ABC’s Good Morning America thinks John Roberts is odd for telling the president, ”Don’t get near this guy”? For crying out loud, folks, the media doesn’t want to get near this guy, but now Roberts is supposed to have embraced him so Reagan could have embraced him, and because Roberts didn’t? “Why, Michael Jackson! He wouldn’t even write a letter of support for Michael Jackson! Why, who is this alien John Roberts?” You don’t get the details here. You want some of the details on some of this stuff? “On the topic of school prayer, Roberts urged the president to support a constitutional amendment that would allow silent prayer.”
The reason is that there was a movement in the country to deny prayer in the schools, and John Roberts looked to the Constitution and there’s nothing in there that says you can’t pray, but they’re all relying on this separation of church and state, but that’s not what’s separation of church and state is. Separation of church and state doesn’t even exist in the Constitution in those words. The Constitution doesn’t even address separation of church and state. It’s a liberal concoction. All it does is say there shall be no state sponsored and established religion, but it doesn’t say you can’t pray in the school, and yet there were some people out there saying that it does. Roberts was saying, “The Constitution doesn’t say that, Mr. President. I urge…”
You know, the constitutional amendment on this? He’s a constitutionalist. This business on equal pay for equal work? Let me give you the details on this. This is the Olympia Snowe story. Judge Roberts, who was 29 at the time, even suggested that the congresswoman, Ms. Snowe, Representative Nancy Johnson of Connecticut and Claudine Schneider of Rhode Island might be Marxists. Well, he didn’t use that word. Here’s what he wrote. “‘Their slogan may as well be, “From each according to his ability to each according to her gender,”‘ Roberts quipped.” Well, that is a tenet of Marxism with a little adjustment: “From each according to his means, to each according to his needs.” Meaning you rob the rich and give it all away to the poor. It’s Marxism. It’s redistribution of income, and this was a bill to sponsor federally mandated “equal pay,” and that flies in the face of the free market. Oh, and it was also about comparable worth. Yeah, this was the comparable worth bill that was going to say that a ditch digger’s job was the same thing as a homemaker, and if the ditch digger made 50 bucks an hour so does the homemaker. They came up with all this comparable worth and it was left up to some American government tribunal to define what work was comparable and then set the pay grades for it. It’s not how this works.
That is Marxism. But if you listen to the ABC report, how could anybody oppose equal pay? Because the people reporting on this are so uninformed about the actual issues behind all this that they think Roberts is the oddball. He is head and shoulders ten times above them intellectually and they demonstrate it by their lack of understanding and lack of curiosity to even understand why he’s saying these things. To them, these are all clich?s. These are just things that are misunderstood. There shouldn’t be prayer in school. Who possibly thinks that’s good? It’s like the movie critic Pauline Kael in New York after Nixon won in ’72, “I’m stunned! Nixon won? Why, none of my friends voted for him.” Well, her universe was her friends, and since none of her friends voted for Nixon she thought her universe was America. Well, that’s the same thing these people in the media are thinking, and who’s their universe? Other reporters and other liberals, and Charlie Gibson next up on Good Morning America. He was breathless. He said, “Jessica! Jessica! Did you find anything about abortion, Jessica! Is there anything about abortion?”
GIBSON: Jessica, a lot of people obviously very concerned about Roberts’ thoughts regarding the issue of abortion. Anything in those documents that give you an indication of what he does feel about that?
YELLIN: There is one indication as to how he might feel. He describes abortion at one point as a tragedy, but administration officials point out that Roberts was simply reflecting the position of the president at the time.
RUSH: “How does he feel?” not “What does he think?” How does he feel? Charlie Gibson: “How does he feel about abortion?” “Well, he thinks it’s a tragedy.” “What? He thinks the celebration of our liberalism is a tragedy! Abortion is a celebration, abortion is emancipation. Abortion is what sets us free and this guy thinks it’s a tragedy! Who are we nominating here?” This is the attitude, folks, that underscores all these reports. You know, some of you people — and I don’t mind referencing this — you call and tell me sometimes I’m “out of touch.” You know who’s out of touch? All of these self-anointed, smarter than everybody else in the room liberal media people who think they are the smartest people in the room. They literally haven’t a clue. Now, for Olympia Snowe. This is the New York Sun: “Ms. Snowe reacted cautiously yesterday to the news that Judge Roberts summarily dismissed her stance in the pay equity and comparable worth debate.
She said, ‘I understand the 1984 memo authored by John Roberts, one of 5,000 documents released by the administration yesterday, demonstrates that he and I had a difference of opinion on how to legally approach the matter of valuing women’s contributions in the workforce. Hopefully 21 years later Judge Roberts possesses an openness with respect to the issues of gender-based wage discrimination,’ she said, adding that she considers the issue critical. She says she’s not mad but she hopes that he has evolved.'” I’m in the mood for some Zell Miller. Shall we have some Zell Miller? Zell Miller in Nashville on Sunday, gave a speech. Here’s a portion of his remarks on activist judges.
MILLER: Using psychobabble and the latest foreign fads it has removed prayer and the Bible from schools. Each Christmas it kidnaps the baby Jesus, halo, manger, and all from the city square. It has legalized the barbaric killing of unborn babies and is ready to discard like an outdated hula-hoop the universal institution of marriage between a man and a woman.
RUSH: And they think that they’re the ones who are in contact with the mainstream of this country! They’re the people who look at the biggest box office smash in recent history, as Mel Gibson’s The Passion, and think, “Oh, my God! There are more kooks in this country than we knew,” not realizing they are the kooks, not realizing they are the minority. Remember ol’ Zell at the Republican convention, John Kerry said he’s going to be tough on the terrorists. “Well, what’s he going to shoot at ’em, spitballs? He wants to get rid of all of our weapons!”