Roberts Declines to Explain Group Listing

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5165241,00.html

Roberts Declines to Explain Group Listing

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts declined Monday to explain why he was listed in a Federalist Society leadership directory when the White House says he doesn't recall being a member of the conservative legal organization.

Roberts, nominated by President Bush last week to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was asked by a reporter about the discrepancy during a morning get-acquainted meeting with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

He smiled but didn't reply.

``I don't think he wants to take any questions,'' Feinstein interjected during the session with photographers and reporters that was part of the meeting in her office with the Supreme Court nominee.

``No, no, no thanks,'' Roberts added.

<</SNIP>>

[progressivebydesign]

1. That is just unbelievable. Those repubs have bad memories. n/t

[davidinalameda]

2. this is just weird

you're either a member or you're not

unless he was doing some heavy duty drugs, one would think that he would remember what organizations he belonged to

here's the Wash Post link

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072401201.html

[rooboy]

7. It's easy to forget when you're only listed in a LEADERSHIP directory...

:eyes:

[Supersedeas]

3. answering questions is so passe when DINOS can handle this behind

closed doors.

[Webster Green]

8. Really, DiFi is a traitor to the party!

I'll never vote for her again.

[whistle]

4. Bullshit! Yikes, and there is Sen. Dianne Feinstein running....

...interference for this guy. What is up with that?

[displacedtexan]

5. I'm worried that Roberts may have early-onset Alzheimer's.

He CAN'T RECALL 1997-1998.

(Just kidding... and no offense to Alzheimer's sufferers and their families.)
I wrote about this on my blog (link is under the burning Bush below).

[babylonsister]

6. He "doesn't recall?" Bullshit! What are they hiding

and why is Feinstein being an enabler?

[mac56]

9. What other memberships doesn't he remember?

Can you imagine if this were a Clinton appointee?

[wtbymark]

11. I bet you any amount of money he belongs to the Fellowship

they all belong to the fellowship, a Nazi born organization that masks itself as an evangelical group, why they started the presidential prayer breakfast. He's a fuckin' Nazi like the rest of them.

[RobertSeattle]

10. How can someone with MEMORY PROBLEMS be a Supreme Court Justice?

:evilgrin:

[kaya33]

23. There is an explanation

It's called selective memory....You only remember what benefits you! What bs...

[brainshrub]

24. Ask Reagn. He had memory problems and he was the POTUS.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

12. Feinstein is an embarassment to the Democratic Party.

I'm so fucking sick of her "go-along to get-along" bullshit. Dementia can't set in quick enough as far as I'm concerned.

Good riddance, Diane.

JB

[maxrandb]

13. Great! Another RepukeliKKKan Who Doesn't Know What the

"Meaning of 'is', is"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[AzDar]

14. This administration has figured out how to get away with murder...

(literally)...stonewall; refuse; deny; "fuzzy memory"; and , of course, flat-out lie. It works well for them, they have gotten away with it for 4 + years, and until the media and citizenry DEMAND an accounting from this syndicate, this is all we'll get.

[rocktivity]

15. And they FELL for this?

Several news organizations, including The Associated Press, reported immediately after his nomination that Roberts had been a member of the Federalist Society. The(y)...printed corrections after the White House said later that Roberts doesn't recall ever belonging to the group.

"He doesn't recall ever being a member" is NOT a correction. "He was NOT a member" is a correction. Liberal bias strikes again!

:headbang:
rocknation

[jojo54]

16. Haven't liked Feinstein for a long time now & never will.

On another note, maybe one of the WH press reporters should ask Scotty about this??? I love to watch him squirm.......

[Vickers]

17. Wow, he's Reaganing already?

:eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes:

[Ratty]

18. This is the grimmest news yet

Wasn't the Federalist Society that secret cabal (and I don't think it's hyperbole to call it that) of judges and lawyers dedicated to wiping out liberalism? They were the ones who orchestrated the entire effort to disgrace and neutralize Clinton by engineering scandal after scandal using the so-called "elves" to do the legwork. Clarence Thomas was a member wasn't he? Or was it Rehnquist? This isn't just any conservative society but a rabidly partisan one that likes to operate behind the scenes and out of the light of day. I guess some of us were clinging to the notion that sometimes conservative appointments to the Court to mature and drift to the left, and his conservative paper trail was mostly done on the behalf of a conservative administration and may not necessarily reflect his own personal legal philosophy. And since Feinstein says the guy is top notch ...

I was clinging to my pathetic shreds of hope, but this erases all of that. Anybody have some good links on the Federalist Society? My memory may be flawed in regards to it.

[UpInArms]

25. here's some info

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=3149

excerpt:

Federalist Society Members in the Bush Administration: :

Attorney General John Ashcroft

Secretary of the Department of Energy Spencer Abraham

Secretary of the Department of Interior Gale Norton

Solicitor of Labor Eugene Scalia (Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s son)

General Counsel of the Department of Education Brian Jones
Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson

Solicitor General Ted Olson

Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy Viet Dinh
Inspector General of Department of Defense Joseph E. Schmitz

Asst. Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources Thomas L. Sansonetti

Principal Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement

Associate Deputy Attorney General R. Ted Cruz

Director of National Institute of Justice Sarah V. Hart
Back to Top



Other High-Profile Federalist Society Members :

Justice Antonin Scalia, U.S. Supreme Court

Senator Orrin Hatch

Kenneth Starr, former White House Independent Counsel whose investigation led to President Clinton’s impeachment

Judge Robert Bork, failed Supreme Court nominee

Linda Chavez, President of the Center for Equal Opportunity

Charles Murray, controversial author who asserted that some races are inherently less intelligent than others

Don Hodel, former Christian Coalition president

Michigan Governor John Engler

Justice Maura Corrigan, Michican Supreme Court Chief Justice (4 other justices on the state supreme court are also members of the FS)

Attorney General Don Stenberg, Nebraska

Attorney General William Pryor, Alabama

Attorney General Alan Lance, Idaho

...more...

and here's a Yahoo News story from last week:

Conservative Legal Group's Clout Growing

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=513&e=9&u=/ap/20050718/ap_on_go_ot/federalist_society

excerpt:

Others on President Bush's reputed short list include Federalist Society members John Roberts and Michael McConnell, both appellate court justices. Still others on the list have addressed the group, including appellate Judges J. Harvie Wilkinson, Emilio Garza, Edith Hollan Jones and Samuel Alito, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

While the society has no formal role in consulting with the White House, "the reality is, given the presence of Federalist Society members within the White House counsel's office and the Bush administration, they are playing a crucial role in selecting judges and likely justices," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal Duke University law professor who has addressed the group.

<snip>

Northwestern University law professor Steven Calabresi, a Federalist founder, said the organization has grown "beyond our wildest dreams. We really started it as a hobby and for fun, to add to the debate and discussion on campus." Law schools, he said, are largely Democratic in their orientation, so the Federalist Society took off as a countervailing forum for conservative ideas and networking.

<snip>

The Institute for Democracy Studies, which says it examines "anti-democratic religious and political movements and organizations," calls the society part of "the infrastructure underlying the right-wing assault on the democratic foundations of our legal system."

...more...

[stanwyck]

26. Are you sure that's not the list

for Bernie Goldberg's The 100 People Who Are Ruining America?
Because that would actually make sense.
And not a list which features Jimmy Carter, Barbara Kingsolver, and Jane Smiley.

[clydefrand]

19. Last paragraph of the article very interesting.

Last Wednesday, the day after Bush announced Roberts's nomination, the officials working on the nomination asked the White House press office to call each news organization that had reported Roberts's membership to tell them that he did not recall being a member. Asked yesterday if the White House would have done so knowing about the leadership directory, Perino said "Yes."

They only tell the truth...maybe...if the truth is written in black and white.

[VegasWolf]

20. This never works for real people. "Honey, what is that lipstick on

your collar?" "I don't remember!" Yeah, right.

[PATRICK]

21. So the easy strategy

will be to frustrate the smart, studied Dems by refusing any and all information whatsoever on anything at all. They are willing to cope with THAT as a sole issue which has not only been more or less successful, but has disappeared all controversy under a rubric of simply withholding information. Easy, risky but limited in scope risk. made to order for the ease of the candidate and the beleaguered WH still holding the huge luxury of a majority vote.

The mission of the Dems is NOT to play patsy with fistfuls of unanswered demands and articulate discussions, but to get any information not nailed down- and some that is.

Acting shocked and outraged only cuts it for the bullies in charge. Strategy has to deal with the actual situation. The actual situation is that Roberts will be presented as a silent tabula rasa pleading the Fifth
and accorded all manner of wishful thinking and polite acquiescence to the fraudulent President's "right" to get what he wants regardless of the harm it does this nation.

Strategy, not the inevitable disappointment of procedural Dems doing predictable preparations for a showdown that may never even be allowed to become audible. Notice I can't propose a simple strategy. I was hoping for smarter people than the ones who simply fit into the poisoned DC scene to get brilliant for a change.

The Democrats must stop pretending that this fraud will EVER nominate and acceptable candidate to any office anywhere at any time.

[PATRICK]

22. The media enables rope-a-dope

strategy for the GOP every time.