MR. RUSSERT: It's interesting, because in your own political past, when you were a congressman in the House of Representatives in 1983, you believed that Roe vs. Wade was incorrectly decided. You filled out a questionnaire calling for a constitutional limit to ban all abortions. You wrote a constitute [sic—I think they mean “constituent”] saying that "The right to an abortion is not guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution."
SEN. DURBIN: I'll concede that point to you, Tim. When I came to Washington...
MR. RUSSERT: So are these views out of the mainstream?
SEN. DURBIN: Well, at that point, I can tell you I came to Congress not having seen what I think is the important part of this debate and not understanding, if you will, really what was behind it. You know, it's a struggle for me. It still is. I'm opposed to abortion. If any woman in my family said she was seeking abortion, I'd go out of my way to try to dissuade them from making that decision. But I was really discouraged when I came to Washington to find that the opponents of abortion were also opponents of family planning. This didn't make any sense to me. And I was also discouraged by the fact that they were absolute, no exceptions for rape and incest, the most extraordinary medical situations. And I finally came to the conclusion that we really have to try to honor the Roe vs. Wade thinking, that there are certain times in the life of a woman that she needs to make that decision with her doctor, with her family and with her conscience and that the government shouldn't be intruding. It's true that my position changed, but as Abraham Lincoln said when they accused him of changing his position, "I'd rather be right some of the time than wrong all the time."
From Meet the Press, July 24, 2005, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8658626/
I’m afraid it’s too late for that, Senator, because you couldn’t be more wrong about everything if your name were Mr. Wrong Wrongenstein. Here, when confronted by Mr. Russert, with your 180-degree conversion to the religious Left’s position that abortion is a sacrament and Roe v. Wade is sacred text, you do it again. Let’s deconstruct this little tap dance, shall we?
Let’s see, back in 1983, you corrected pointed out that “the right to abortion is not guaranteed by the Constitution,” or as Supreme Court nominee John Roberts stated when representing the government in a case you will no doubt ask him about, Rust v. Sullivan, the Court’s conclusion in Roe that there is a fundamental right to abortion “finds no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution.” Then you came to Washington and found out that some people who took a pro-life position were opponents of family planning, and, what?! Their position on birth control—and why do I suspect that these were more of those imaginary friends of whom dems have so many—changed your reading of the Constitution? The scales fell from your eyes and you suddenly were able to see Justice Douglas’s amazing penumbra and all its beautiful emanations suddenly ten years after Roe was decided? Are you expecting us to buy that? Are you saying that the motives of the people involved in the debate trump the Constitution? I submit that you are. I ask my fellow citizens of Illinois, aren’t you sick of having your intelligence insulted by this hack who takes his marching orders from Ralph Neas? Senator Eddie Haskell could have at least come up with a better story than this one!
But it gets better in the next sentence, where he says “And I was also discouraged by the fact that they were absolute, no exceptions for rape and incest, the most extraordinary medical situations. And I finally came to the conclusion that we really have to try to honor the Roe vs. Wade thinking, that there are certain times in the life of a woman that she needs to make that decision with her doctor, with her family and with her conscience and that the government shouldn't be intruding.” That’s really interesting, Senator, but how do you reconcile your deep felt concern for a woman’s rights and her choices with your vote against Laci and Connor’s Law, the law that would have made a crime committed against an expectant mother that results in harm to her unborn child, not one crime, but two? I’m sorry, but even invoking Abe Lincoln isn’t going to make this pathetic tap dance believable.
Then there was this exchange:
MR. RUSSERT: And you said, "He was not candid in his answers. He said Roe vs. Wade was settled law. I didn't think that was a very responsive answer. I want an honest answer."
What's wrong with saying it's settled law?
SEN. DURBIN: Well, because of course, at that point, he was aspiring to the circuit bench, which is to follow the law of the Supreme Court, the decisions of the Supreme Court. In this case, he is aspiring to that high court which can change the law and so we need to know more. And, Tim, I think it gets down to the basics. It's a question about the values and principles that guided Roe vs. Wade. What Justice Blackmun was trying to achieve in that decision was to recognize the right of privacy, a right of exclusion so that there are parts of our lives, our personal and family lives, the government can't intrude upon. And in this situation, I think we have a right to know where John Roberts stands when it comes to fundamental issues of privacy and personal freedom. So if he doesn't want to address the question up or down, "Are you for Roe vs. Wade?" he at least has an obligation to tell us if he believes, that within the four corners of the Constitution, we have a right of privacy, as was decided in Griswold and in Roe vs. Wade.
Let’s talk a little about the “values and principles that guided Roe v. Wade,” and the whole legacy of that decision and the one that started this whole mess, Griswold v. Connecticut. Let me quote from the brilliant Antonin Scalia’s dissent in the 1992 case that affirmed Roe, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
“By foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish.”
That is the real legacy of Roe v. Wade, the anger and frustration that results when a free people are deprived of their legitimate opportunity to debate and settle contentious public policy matters by an imperial judiciary imposing its personal preferences of every citizen.
The Roberts Nomination: Top Ten Liberal Interest Group Bumper Stickers
Moments after President Bush nominated John G. Roberts, Jr. to fill the vacancy left on the Supreme Court by the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, the angry moonbat coalition of left-wing interest groups sprung into action, posting their hysterical ravings on their websites and spending George Soros’ and Barbra Streisand’s money on deceptive ads, hoping to define this fine jurist as a combination of the 3 S’s (Satan, Scalia and Starr). Can it possibly be long before we see the following bumper stickers? (Admit it, libs—you’ve been looking for something to cover up that hideous partially-scrapped off, faded Kerry-Edwards defacement.) Mark my words: the real rhetoric will make these slogans look sane.
1. John G. Roberts, Jr: Eric Rudolph’s Favorite Judge
2. Ask an Arroyo Toad: Judge Roberts is No Prince
3. Judge John Roberts: Just Another Dumb White Guy
4. Judge Roberts’ America: Eat a French Fry, Get Handcuffed
5. Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: Roberts Reads the Constitution
6. John Roberts: He’s Way Too Good Looking
7. John Roberts: Not a Mainstream Judge Like Ruth Bader Ginsberg
8. Not So Fast, Roberts: We Aren’t Giving Up on Rove Yet
9. Bork Roberts: Durbin, Schumer and Kennedy Can’t All Be Wrong
10. John Roberts: He Admits He’s a Republican!
There is only word I can use to describe the hysteria in the mainstream media over the “revelation” that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper’s source for the information the Joe Wilson’s wife was the one who sent him on his mission to Niger. That word is hilarious. I nearly bust a gut watching these MSM types salivating at the thought that perhaps finally their wet dreams were coming true. Watergate redux, with President Bush in the role of Richard Nixon. E.J. Dionne outdid himself with this statement on Hardball:
“I think there are—the—you're going to face a very interesting debate here, because you had just a few years back a lot of Republicans saying a president should be impeached if he was guilty of perjury or obstruction of justice. This investigation seems, according to a lot of people, to be moving toward a perjury probe.
What are people going to say now compared to what they said all those years ago?”
Now I realize that E.J. is a guy who thinks that Dan Rather made “a mistake” with those forged documents, so maybe he doesn’t have a stranglehold on reality, but does this statement mean that he thinks Karl Rove is actually the president? I know that’s what the lefties like to say, but I figured that was just hyperbole to make their point that the president is a dunce. I didn’t think they really believed it. Either that, or E.J. doesn’t see the difference between perjury and obstruction of justice committed by the chief law enforcement official in the nation (E.J., that would be the president) and that same conduct by a White House staffer, albeit a high-level one.
These days knowledgeable observers realize that discrediting Joe Wilson is like disparaging Paris Hilton’s reputation. He has been so thoroughly discredited by his many lies, starting with the lie that is at the heart of this whole mess (that Vice President Cheney and CIA director Tenet sent him to Niger and that his wife never recommended him), it may be hard for some people to remember that back in 2003 some people (other than partisan democrats, Bush-hating anti-American activists and their P.R. flacks who masquerade as journalists) actually considered him credible. At the time, way back in July 2003, I pointed out two things, one of which the MSM came to realize when they found themselves on the receiving end of the special prosecutor’s subpoenas and the other that they still haven’t, or more accurately, will never admit. The first is that it’s entirely possible that no crime was committed in this case. The 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act is narrowly drafted and requires specific intent to reveal the identity of classified information. It was never intended to cover the activities of a pompous, self-promoting partisan like Joe Wilson, who himself revealed his wife’s identity on his website before Bob Novak did. That is a very nice photo of Joe and Val in the new Vanity Fair, isn’t it? The one with Nicole Kidman on the cover and the excerpt from the Deep Throat book. It’s also the issue that has the unintentionally humorous article by Michael Wolff, the one that claims that the reason Karl Rove has been so successful is that principled losers like Bob Shrum won’t stoop to the dirty tricks and sleazy politics that put Rove on top.
That brings me to the second truth, which is that for all their self-righteous chest beating about their sacred trust as objective seekers of truth, the label the MSM assigns to someone depends on whether that person shares their political agenda. Mark Felt, despite not only being part of the hated FBI, but also a man who pursued their Amerika-hating heroes in the Weather Underground, receives the heroic designation “whistleblower” for helping to bring down the despised Richard Nixon. The serial lying, narcissistic gasbag Joe Wilson is a “whistleblower,” even though ever single thing he’s ever said has proven to be false, unlike the assertion about yellowcake from Niger. The British government has never backed off from the assertion contained the famous 16 words from the 2003 State of the Union speech. Exactly one year ago, a Senate Intelligence Committee report revealed something that none of the media types seem to remember, and it’s very relevant to the issue at hand. Far from “debunking” claims about Iraq attempting to acquire yellowcake from Niger, Wilson’s report provided some confirmation for that fact. So, he lied about his wife sending him to Niger, no doubt to get him off his lazy butt and out of her hair while she pursued her high-powered career. He lied about seeing forged documents, which he says he knew were fake. The only problem was that those documents didn’t reach U.S. intelligence to 8 months after Wilson’s trip. And he lied about what was in his worthless report. Yet to the media he is a hero. Why? Simply because he opposed the president and opposed the war.
As I asked back in 2003, why isn’t the person who told Bob Novak that Joe Wilson was not credible and that his wife did send him out of town, not the Bush administration a “whistleblower?” I think you know the answer.
The real issue here is the liberals hate Karl Rove, not only because he beats them like red-headed stepchildren in every election, but also because he tells the truth about them. That’s why they were all running around with their hair on fire a couple of weeks ago when Rove dared to state what we all know is true; specifically, that the liberals can never be trusted with national security in a post-9/11 world. The same people who said we could not prejudge Osama bin Laden, one of whom is the current leader of the democrat party, have already convicted Karl Rove. That says all you need to know.