Can you believe it? Now the New York Times is editorializing against the NARAL ad! Not only that, but John Tierney piles on with an Op-Ed titled “Pro-Choice but Anti-Naral.” This bodes ill for NARAL Pro-Choice America and leaves them looking more and more like a fringe group. No doubt this is why their communications director, David Seldin, has resigned. The Times editorial ends with the following paragraph: “In withdrawing the ad, Naral’s president, Nancy Keenan, said that the controversy sparked by the ad had ‘become a distraction’ from the group’s effort to educate the public. Lamentably, her statement stopped short of apologizing to Judge Roberts, and to Americans of…

You have probably heard about the ad that NARAL ran on TV smearing Judge John Roberts. The ad alleged that Judge Roberts supports violence against abortion providers. The ad was manifestly scurrilous, and thankfully, has been called out as such by an editorial in today’s Washington Post. You can read it here. NARAL has now withdrawn the ad.(HT: Justin Taylor)

At first blush, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court looks like a welcome development. All indications are that he is an originalist in his approach to constitutional interpretation—that is, he believes the constitution to have a fixed meaning grounded in the original intention of the framers. Yet it also looks like Roberts fits the description of a so-called “establishment conservative”—meaning, he will show some degree of deference to the traditions of the high court. To this effect, Time magazine speculates: “Roberts may agree in spirit with those who see the past 50 years of jurisprudence as too expansive and too intrusive but respect too much the way…

The headline of a story in today’s Washington Post reads “Plame’s Identity Marked As Secret.” The first paragraph of the story goes on to state the following: “A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked ‘(S)’ for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified.” At first blush, this information looks very damning for Karl Rove. It’s the kind of headline that makes a really big splash on the front page of a newspaper. Yet one finds critical qualifications buried in the text of…

Well, he’s not a woman like many were speculating. But John Roberts looks pretty good anyway. Here’s the watershed quote from a brief Roberts co-wrote in 1990: “We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled . . . the Court’s conclusions in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion and that government has no compelling interest in protecting prenatal human life throughout pregnancy find no support in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution” (source). Some news outlets are already citing remarks that Judge Roberts made in 2003 in his confirmation hearing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District…

ABC News reports that Edith Clement received a phone call from the White House saying that she would not be the President’s nominee. Here’s the link to the story.

SCOTUS Scuttlebutt I won’t pretend that I know who the President’s nominee will be to the Supreme Court. But I have been following the educated guesses of the pundits in the press. The scuttlebutt is that Bush will nominate a woman who is an originalist. Among those who might fit that description and who are likely candidates: Edith Jones Edith Brown Clement Priscilla Owen Janice Rogers Brown Karen Williams Alice Batchelder Mary Anne Glendon Lillian R. BeVier John S. Shannon Maura D. Corrigan (Sources: Bill Kristol’s article and MSNBC’s list of prospective nominees.) The Washington Post and MSNBC have pages that give information on many of these prospects. Some of…

Be sure to tune in tonight at 9pm Eastern time (8pm Central) to hear President Bush’s announcement of his nominee to the Supreme Court. Buckle your seatbelts, this will be the political ride of 2005. Get set for the battle royal that will make Election 2004 look like child’s play. Let the games begin!

“Everybody knows this is about what Watergate was about and Iran-Contra was about: bringing down a Republican president the left could not defeat at the ballot box” (source). We have come full circle. This is precisely what the Democrats accused the Republicans of doing when Bill Clinton was impeached. Go figure.