Anytime a testifyer says he's here on a MATTER OF CONSCIENCE --- watch out.
He's really here on an agenda!
What's that saying, "The louder he talked of his virtue, the faster we counted the spoons"?
GRAHAM: Yes, Mr. Chairman, just for a couple of minutes. I'm trying to compile questions from the past where the answers were very similar to the answers of Judge Roberts about, I can't comment, I can't give you -- I can't answer your question because it may compromise my integrity to judge in the future. And I would ask permission of the committee to get a chance to organize this because there are so many volumes.
And what I would like to be able to demonstrate to the committee is that the pattern that he has displayed in terms of saying, I can't give you an answer because it may disqualify me is not unique to the Senate and very similar to past nominations. And we've got some examples of that.
But if I may, and I know we've been here and Lord knows this guy's been through the wringer, I just want to comment a little bit an unhealthy area I think we find ourselves in in the last hour.
Most of us are lawyers, and I would hate to be judged by the people I've represented in the past totally. I've represented some people that are not very nice.
(LAUGHTER)
But I gave them my all. I've represented people on Air Force bases that were so unpopular, Judge Roberts, that no one would eat with me, because it was my job as the area defense counsel to represent that person. Your heart -- nobody can question your intellect, because it would be a question of their intellect to question yours...
(LAUGHTER)
... so we're down to the heart. And is it all coming down to that? Well, there are all kind of hearts. There are bleeding hearts and there are hard hearts. And if I wanted to judge Justice Ginsburg on her heart, I might take a hard-hearted view of her and say she's a bleeding heart. She represents the ACLU. She wants the age of consent to be 12. She believes there's a constitutional right to prostitution. What kind of heart is that?
Well, she has a different value system than I do. But that doesn't mean she doesn't have a good heart. And I want this committee to understand that if we go down this road of putting people's hearts in play, and the only way you can have a good heart is, Adopt my value system, we're doing a great disservice to the judiciary.
Thank you.