Why is it the job of NPR reporters to be apologists for Roberts?
Oh yes, I forgot. They now interpret their mission to be the
propaganda arm of the executive branch of the government. They are a
bunch of overpaid hacks who are almost entirely out of the business of
journalism, and are now working in the field of public relations
(often viewed as a related field, but it is in fact the polar
opposite).
Neil Conan the barbarian is the absolute worst. It's no wonder the
mainstream organizations have lavished awards on him. This is typical.
Alexander Cockburn broke important stories such as the overturned
incurbator hoax that Bush Sr used to justify the first gulf war.
Virtually everybody else was taken in by it, including Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch. Eventually they admitted their
error, but he broke the story that it was a hoax when it was early
enough for it to make a difference. Nobody in the MSM followed up on
his investigation, and he certainly never won any awards for that or
any of the other important work he's done.
Check out these people that are cheering on Neil Conan, at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1473935/posts -
These people seem to think that Conan also works for Fox. I don't
believe that is the case, though some of his peers at NPR are also
acceptable to Fox.
They regard principled opponents of the war to be "seditious and
corrupt Leftists ... everywhere, pro-islamofascist-terrorist
radical[s]... as a conservative defender of American virtues (what's
left of them) in the tradition of Samuel Clemens, I find this sort of
reflexive and childish response offensive, but not surprising coming
from fans of Neil Conan.
Their position is that Neil Conan... had the courage and the
intellectual honesty to pierce the mourning veil... they called
Conan's cowardly and snarky attack her "jump the shark moment."
I'd like to ask who else on this list feels that Cindy Sheehan was, in
fact, magnificent in how she handled the little creep, and in fact it
is NPR that jumped the shark - and if so, when?
Back to the hearings - a few of the senators are making some attempt
to pin down the future Chief Weasil of the Supreme Court. The NPR sock
puppets have laughed at their efforts to "lay a glove on him", calling
them "inquisitors."
Really terrible stuff. I wish I was listening to Democracy Now! instead.
I used to rank NPR below programs like Democracy Now! and above
network news. I have to report that ABCs coverage of the New Orleans
flood was far better than NPRs. It was more independent, more
hard-hitting, more informative. It is a sorry, sorry time for public
broadcasting.
I close with some more bracing coverage of Roberts than the spineless
mush we've been hearing on NPR.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel09092005.html
Weekend Edition
September 9 / 11, 2005
On the Far Right of a Far Right Party
The Brief on Judge Roberts
By ELAINE CASSEL
I have to admit that I was fooled by the Cleaver family images
displayed by the Roberts family that sultry July night. Not a bad guy,
I thought. Doesn't look like a Scalia. Doesn't talk like a Scalia.
Maybe President Bush won't make good on his nuclear-type promises to
put a Thomas or Scalia on the high court. Maybe Roberts will be a guy
with a nice demeanor, a bright man and one who is - as judges should
be - fair and open-minded.
No such luck. While others were sleeping, I was up reading memoranda
and briefs from days when Roberts was a political operative disguised
as a lawyer working in the Reagan administration. It did not take long
for the nice-guy image to fade. In its place is a judge in the mold of
Scalia more than Thomas, one who is mightily impressed with himself
and his intellect and one who does not care a flip for everyday
Americans.
When he and his fellow "conservatives" talk about not "legislating
from the bench," what they mean is that the 14th Amendment that
guarantees constitutional rights to all Americans, regardless of what
state they live in, should, in effect, be abolished. The Bush line on
"legislating from the bench" means that the courts should not protect
the people from governments who interfere with those rights so
inimical to American values - freedom of religion, press, speech,
freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and due process and
reproductive rights.
Roe v. Wade was third in a line of cases that struck state laws
against contraception. If you think that Roe v. Wade won't be reversed
in the next few years with Roberts in the majority, you are living in
a dream world. Roberts writes contemptuously about Roe v. Wade and the
right of women to have any say over their own bodies. Any state laws
that prohibit end-of-life decision making by competent adults would
also be in jeopardy.
Legislating from the bench was what led the court to reject separate
but equal education. After all, Brown v. Board of Education was about
as activist a decision as one could imagine, overturning a prior
decision, Plessy v. Ferguson. States would be, in the Roberts scheme,
free to return to segregated education. This may not apply for black
people - perhaps we have advanced enough that black and white children
can learn together - but were Texas, for instance, to want to
segregate Hispanic children from "white" children, Roberts would think
that would be just fine.
Roberts would add one more vote to legislating from the bench as the
court seeks to roll back the laws that protect the environment.
Roberts' judicial decisions, memoranda and arguments as a private
attorney come down on the side of big business and against the
environment. Roberts would like to strip Congress and the federal
agencies of the power to make our air and water safe. Leave it to the
states, he would argue, and let the big businesses make their deals
with state legislatures.
Roberts would like to overturn federal laws and regulations that bring
a modicum of justice to everyday citizens. Like the Voting Rights Act.
Roberts came out strongly against portions of it as a lawyer working
in the Reagan White House. He argued that blacks did not have to have
"real" voting rights - the government just had to make people think
that they had some rights.
Those who claim not to know what Roberts thinks have not done their
homework. Roberts is at the far-right of a far-right party, the party
that thinks it has the corner on being right. Roberts may be right for
the powerful and the wealthy, but he is not right for ordinary
Americans, those of us who pay his salary.
We need a people's Supreme Court. Like George Bush, Roberts was born
into privilege. In his world view, the privileged and the powerful own
the playground and the marbles. The rest of us may as well go home and
do as we're told.
Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia,
teaches law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling
of the Constitution at Civil Liberties Watch. Her new book The War on
Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of
Rights, is published by Lawrence Hill. She can be reached at:
ecassel1@cox.net
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