Posted on 08/17/2005 12:56:26 AM PDT by goldstategop
That carefully crafted political blank slate of Judge John Roberts is getting filled in piece of by piece.
And what it reveals is an ugly portrait of a backstabbing establishment Republican who subverted the political will of the greatest American president of the 20th century.
Memos drafted by the Supreme Court nominee during his tenure in President Reagan's Justice Department show a distinct hostility to the conservative ideals embraced by his boss and to some of the individuals who championed those ideals.
Take, for instance, a Dec. 14, 1981, memo, obtained by the Washington Times, and written to his colleague, Kenneth Starr, another country-club Republican, who would later bamboozle President Reagan into nominating Sandra Day O'Connor as a Supreme Court justice.
The topic was a book called, "A Blueprint for Judicial Reform," produced by Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation. The American Bar Association, no friend of the Reagan administration, was quizzing new Attorney General William French Smith about the ideas in the book.
Roberts let his hair down and revealed just what kind of a snake he truly is in this memo he probably thought would remain forever a private communication.
"I suggest we keep as low a profile on this as possible," he wrote to his co-conspirator Starr. "Weyerich [sic] is of course no friend of ours, but it won't help to stir up the influential contributors to this volume, and any comment by the AG will simply highlight the fact that we have yet to take a position" on some of the issues raised by the book.
Weyrich is no friend of ours!
Only an anti-conservative would make such a comment.
Weyrich is one of the shining intellectual lights of the modern conservative movement.
You can like him. You can dislike him. But he's a true believer and closely represented the will and ideals of Ronald Reagan, the man sitting in the White House the man Roberts was ultimately supposed to be serving.
I've seen this kind of weasel all too often skulking around the corridors of our nation's capital undermining visionary leaders like Reagan, betraying the people who elected them to office, promoting their own personal political agendas.
Roberts is the kind of Beltway creature I most detest. He's not man enough to stand up and tell you what he really believes. He doesn't want to be accountable for defending his positions publicly. So he conspires in the dark behind closed doors and writes memos attacking righteous men who have the courage to operate in the light.
The fact that Roberts twice misspelled Weyrich's name also suggests just how out of touch he was with conservative thought. All conservatives knew Weyrich in 1981. He was seen as one of the architects of the Reagan landslide victory and part of the conservative brain trust that would set the nation on a new political course.
Remember, this is the guy who can't remember if he ever joined the Federalist Society. He's pathological.
Now, I don't consider myself a conservative, but I do consider myself a friend to many conservatives. And my advice to those friends is to recognize right now that John Roberts is the enemy. One of my beefs with conservatives is they never seem to see it coming. They didn't recognize what Ken Starr was and is. And they still don't see the handwriting on the wall with John Roberts.
Roberts was an insider then defending the indefensible policies of the permanent bureaucracy of the Justice Department that was out to thwart Reagan initiatives.
He's a backroom "fixer," and he's just been rewarded for his underhanded wheeler-dealing with a lifetime nomination to the Supreme Court and he will not be denied, not by the fat-cat Republicans who dominate the U.S. Senate.
In another memo to French in 1982, Roberts showed he understood how easy it was to win over conservatives with a simple phrase a gimmick now employed with great success by President Bush.
When preparing the attorney general for an interview with the editor of the Conservative Digest, he suggested dropping the phrase "judicial restraint." That would do the trick.
Hey, isn't that the very same phrase that Bush used in announcing his nominee to the world?
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Thank you for that reply; well done! :-)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
My deep concern is that so many conservatives are not even wanting to CONSIDER any facts that might even hint at Robert's being anything less than a solid conservative justice who would hold to originalism.This is exremely careless, and puzzling considering all that is at stake.
This blind rush to support is exacty what got us people like O'Connor, Kennedy, SOUTER, etc.
Now, Roberts will probably turn out being better than those justices. BUT THAT ISN'T SAYING MUCH!
At this point I am convinced Robert won't be the Thomas os Scalia Bush promised. And that's a picking shame because we had the means, the opportunity, and the majority to make it happen. If not us, who? If not now, when?
I'm of the opinion that Roberts might be better than O'Connor (again, that's not saying much), but he probably would not vote to overturn Roe v Wade. And if he wouldn't, then he's not the man for the job.
I urge conservatives everywhere PLEASE be more cautious in your support. If he turns out great, such caution would still have proven to be advisable. If he turns out to be less than expected, any rush to support Roberts now would prove to be an embarrassment.
I'm not advocating "no-value judges." Originalism is obviously a value. I'm saying that if the man is actually an originalist, then by definition of originalism he won't let his political beliefs--whatever they may be--interfere with a legal reasoning.
And it's not like we don't know he can't do this: we know he's ruled that a young girl's civil rights weren't violated when she was arrested for eating fries in a no-food area.
Which only proves they are being uncharateristically careless. Again, Roberts may be a great judge, but there's just not enough evidence to indicate he'd be a Scalia or Thomas, and in fact there are some red flags. I truly hope Roberts puts my concerns to rest.
Well said. Bush is a good man. But no one is perfect. If Roberts turns out to be a great SCOTUS, I will be more than happy to praise the President's decision.
Are you sure this part wasn't stolen from a note by Dr. Samuel Mudd to John Wilkes Booth?
It's only fair that you make the same promise.
I agree. His radio show airs here, and he's definitely a right-wing kook.
Don't believe anything you read by Joseph Farah
Worldnetdaily.com is a kook site.
They hate President Bush and the GOP and want to destroy them.
1. First a quote against Weyrich, where the context of the quote is not even clear. Farah equate a quote against Weyrich as a quote against Reagan. It is a stretch by Farah and I still question the context. I would bet that not being a friend was about a particular issue, but without context who knows what was meant. I assume this might be connected to the O'Connor nomination.
2. Then he calls Starr a RINO and makes case that Roberts by association is guilty. Starr may not have impressed many in his Clinton investigation, but is still a class guy and a staunch conservative. When Roberts was first brought about the first thing he was assigned to was getting O'Connor through. Roberts did his job and assisted Starr. Roberts was not backstabbing Reagan, but doing work assigned by Reagan. And I think the guilt by association is just silly.
3. Farah makes a big deal out of Roberts misspelling Weyrich's name. I really don't get that, and it sounds as Farah is grasping at straws.
4. Farah makes a big deal out of Roberts denying he was a member of the Federalist Society. Roberts has spoken to the Federalist Society on several occasions and it is still not clear if he actually joined or was just put on their rooster because he spoke. Again Farah is grasping at straws here.
Farah is a known Bush-hater and is grossly exaggerating the case against Roberts here. Nowhere does Farah come close to proving the title of the article.
It's only fair that you make the same promise.
And, no, WND is not a kook site. It's a very consevative site (of course the kooky left would also call WND a "kook" site).
Why do you say Joseph Farah is against Bush? His site, WorldNetDaily.com, is very conservative in nature, and is hated by the liberal left who have tried to shut him down. If you do not believe me, go to the site. It has some amazing articles defending Christians. The magazine "Whistleblower" associated with this site has some of the best articles I have read on a variety of subjects such as, what is really happening in organizations like the ACLU.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.