RUSH: Have you seen the Drudge page? Have you? I guess nothing surprises me anymore, but the tastelessness of this. Drudge has uncovered – well, as he writes here – “a plot in the New York Times newsroom to look into the adoption records of the children of John Roberts, the Supreme Court nominee. The Times has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts’ two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals. Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants. Both children were adopted from Latin America. A Times insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper’s ‘standard background check.’ Roberts’ young son Jack delighted millions of Americans during his father’s Supreme Court nomination announcement ceremony when he wouldn’t stop dancing while the President and his father spoke to a national television audience.
Previously the Washington Post Style section had published a story criticizing the outfits Mrs. Roberts had them wear at the announcement ceremony.” Remember that? Yeah, they said the kid was wearing the saddle shoes that– Well, I don’t know if the Post did this, but some reporters claimed that the Roberts dressed their children up as the Kennedys dressed JFK, Jr., had him looking just like JFK, Jr. Some said that Mrs. Roberts showed up in a Jackie Kennedy-Dallas-1963-colored outfit. They’ve looked into her background, his wife, and her work and so forth as they attempt to turn over any kind of dirt they can on this man. “One top Washington official with knowledge of the New York Times action declared: ‘Trying to pry into the lives of the Roberts’ family like this is despicable. Children’s lives should be off limits.
The Times is putting politics over fundamental decency.’ One top Republican official when told of the situation was incredulous. ‘This can’t possibly be true?'” Yes, it can! When are you Republicans going to learn that anything is true and possible with the Democrats today, because they are in a state of desperate panic? So now the adoption records of John Roberts’ two kids are being looked into by the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times has a story on Roberts today which has as its purpose undermining him with conservative groups.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Back to this John Roberts business. To me, folks, it is not surprising. I know a lot of Republicans are stunned, but I think the days of being stunned should be behind us. I don’t think anything should surprise us. This is desperation time. This is the Supreme Court. This is the ruling body of government as far as the left is concerned, and they are scared to death of this guy. They’re scared to death of any Bush nominee getting on this court. So now the New York Times looking in, and a big, big deep investigation. It’s not in the paper today. Just got a heads-up here that it’s in the works, and amazingly the reporter doing the story confirmed it to Drudge. He confirmed it, and so you’ve got the New York Times looking into the adoption records of John Roberts’ two adopted children, who are five and four.
So we’ll wait to see what the story says. The New York Times says, “Hey, standard operating procedure. It’s our normal vetting process here.” Then you go to the Los Angeles Times today: “Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Case.” This is an attempt here, the LA Times, to use gays as a wedge against Roberts by angering those in the so-called religious right. “Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. worked behind the scenes for gay rights activists, and his legal expertise helped them persuade the Supreme Court to issue a landmark 1996 ruling protecting people from discrimination because of their sexual orientation. Then a lawyer specializing in appellate work, the conservative Roberts helped represent the gay rights activists as part of his law firm’s pro bono work.
He did not write the legal briefs or argue the case before the high court, but he was instrumental in reviewing filings and preparing oral arguments, according to several lawyers intimately involved in the case. Gay rights activists at the time described the court’s 6-3 ruling as the movement’s most important legal victory.”
You know what this ruling was? It was Romer vs. Evans, and this was a ballot issue. The people in Colorado had voted to prohibit the inclusion of sexual orientation in civil rights laws. The people of Colorado had voted this way and Romer vs. Evans reversed the people of Colorado, and this is the case that Roberts worked on, pro-bono, with the gay community or gay activists, and the Times says his work was valuable. Romer vs. Evans, that case barred the enforcement of a Colorado ballot initiative that was passed by citizens of Colorado which prohibited the inclusion of sexual orientation and civil rights laws. The Supreme Court decision was 6-3. Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, and they ruled that the ballot initiative violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection clause. Now, it’s interesting to note that this decision, Romer vs. Evans, then led to the next decision, Lawrence vs. Texas.
That was the case in which the Supreme Court reversed a prior decision called Bowers vs. Hardwick — by the way, so much for upholding precedent because here you go. The Supreme Court overturning the duly elected people of Colorado and their duly elected ballot initiative, and here’s the Supreme Court overturning itself, Bowers vs. Hardwick via Lawrence vs. Texas, and they held in Lawrence vs. Texas that same-sex sodomy is also protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. “Both these cases, Romer vs. Evans and Lawrence vs. Texas are considered to be the building blocks that the Supreme Court will eventually use to strike down state laws that limit marriage to heterosexual couples,” and this is being done through the misuse of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal-protection clause. So these two cases, court-watchers all agree that you take steps, and these are two steps along the path to finally striking down the notion that marriage is strictly a heterosexual affair and it could be between anybody.
I guess you could marry the horse that you made love to out there in the stud farm out in the state of Washington, which we talked about yesterday, as long as the horse enjoyed the sex afterwards. It’s getting insane. But the Los Angeles Times story is running its story, making it look like none of this would have happened, that Romer vs. Evans in Colorado wouldn’t have happened without the pro bono work of John Roberts, the president’s nominee. Now, there’s no question this is going to upset people on the right. There’s no question the people on the right are going to say, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute! The guy is doing pro-bono work and helping gay activists?” and people are going to say, “See? This is what happens when you get caught up in the DC culture. This is what happens when you get caught up in the Washington establishment and culture: you want to be seen as enlightened and so forth.” Roberts, for his part, says he doesn’t really remember this case.
He didn’t write anything. He didn’t go before the court itself, didn’t try the case — and it’s interesting it was pro bono because– what’s the name of his law firm? I’m having a mental block on the name of the law firm. It’s a big, huge firm. They’ve got offices in New York as well. But it’s well known that you can pass on pro bono work. I mean, law firms like their lawyers to take it. But you can pass on which case comes up, if you don’t want to do pro bono work on that case, but he took this and he says that he is not really cognizant, doesn’t really remember. Hogan & Hartson is the law firm, and the case is “one of several that Roberts worked on the pro-bono at Hogan & Hartson, and they expected their partners at this firm to volunteer time and community service. In his answers to the Senate questionnaire, Roberts talked generally about his volunteer work.
“‘My pro bono legal activities were not restricted to providing services for the disadvantaged,’ he wrote, explaining that he often donated-behind-the-scenes-time and expertise on projects.” This is the LA Times from which I’m reading. “Roberts’ work on behalf of gay rights activists whose cause is anathema to many conservatives appears to illustrate his allegiance to the credo of the legal profession to zealously represent the interests of the client whoever it might be. There is no other record of Roberts being involved in gay rights cases that suggest his position on such issues. He has stressed, however, that a client’s views are not necessarily shared by the lawyer who argues on his or her behalf.” I can confirm that in any number of ways. So it would be interesting to see what now transpires from this, because on the same day we have two stories. Well, we got one story and one story in the works, but we know about the story in the works.
The story in the works is the New York Times conducting an in-depth standard, they say, standard investigation into the adoption records of Judge Roberts’ two children, and the LA Times the same day exposing Judge Roberts as a closet supporter of the gay rights movement in hopes of driving a wedge between the James Dobsons and the Pat Robertsons and the so-called Religious Right out there. I’m just going to tell you: It is going to cause some angst among certain groups of people who are always, constantly worried about the next Souter or [Anthony] Kennedy. You’ve just been warned. I’m just passing the information along here. We’ll be back — isn’t it fun today, Dawn? Ha-ha.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
I want to briefly mention a couple of things that we talked about an hour ago on John Roberts, Supreme Court nominee. We have learned through Drudge, an exclusive report, that the New York Times is working on an in-depth investigation of the adoption of his children. He has two kids, five and four, both adopted. The New York Times, “This is just standard operating procedure,” they say. “Oh, yes we’ve got to dig deep! We need to know everything about these nominees,” and so they’re looking into the adoption records of his children, and I think they’re intrigued because those records — I’m not sure, but I think I heard or read somewhere that his adoption records — are “sealed.” Well, you know what that does to the media when you tell them that anything is sealed, as in medical records — or shall we say adoption records — then their reaction is, “Well, what’s he hiding? What’s he got to hide? Why can’t we see them?” They don’t understand that some people just want privacy. They’re not hiding anything. They just don’t want a bunch of people barging in on their privacy. Well, whatever, it incites them, and so that’s being looked into.
The story is not out yet. The New York Times is “researching” it. The LA Times today has a story, the headline of which is: “Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Case — In 1996, activists won a landmark anti-bias ruling with the aid of John Roberts.” This story is attempting to use gays as a wedge against Roberts with the so-called religious right and other conservatives. There’s something really insidious about this story as well, ladies and gentlemen, and it is this. It carries forward without question and with just huge assumption, this notion that conservatives hate gay people, that conservatives despise them — and it just assumes that because of that, conservatives will now not like Roberts because he’s worked with gays. The presumption is clear in this story that conservatives have to hate gays, otherwise why do the story?
Why would this be a big story to the New York Times if they didn’t think that conservatives hate gay people? And so now they want to try to make conservatives hate Roberts as well, but that’s really not the point. The point here is that this LA Times story makes it appear that he is a stealth pro-gay individual to the point of assisting in the overturning of a duly passed Colorado ballot initiative. He worked pro-bono advising people in this case for his law firm back in 1996 — and this case, as I’ve told you, is Romer vs. Evans, and the people of Colorado voted in a ballot initiative to prohibit in Colorado law, the inclusion of sexual-orientation-in-civil rights laws — and this ballot initiative was overturned by the US Supreme Court as unconstitutional, in a case called Romer vs. Evans at the US Supreme Court. So the people of Colorado duly passed a ballot initiative; the Supreme Court said, “Oh, no, you don’t! Fourteenth Amendment says you can’t do that,” and they said, “Your votes don’t count; ours do, and your initiative is squat, dead,” and on that initiative it was pro-bono work by Judge Roberts assisting a gay activist, the LA Times story says — and they do raise the question: Hey, are these his views or he is just duly representing his clients in this case?
The question needs to be asked: Could he possibly just be…? Yesterday we had a story that he was “too nice.” Yes, we had a story. He’s too nice a guy. What was that guy’s name? Reg Henry in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He’s just too nice a guy — and I guess this proves it. He’s just too nice a guy. He’s working with those gays to help overturn this Colorado law. But then we had another story Bolton is too mean. Now we’ve got this story in the LA Times and the New York Times, investigating the adoption of his children. So it’s vicious out there, and the president asked for “decency.” The president asked for a decent investigation and hearing — and, of course, that’s now all out the window.