Tora, Tora, Tora!

The sun has hardly risen here in the Center of the Empire, and the attack fleet is already turning its carriers into the wind.



People for the American Way . . .

[We pause to give readers the opportunity to do whatever it is that they do at the mention of PFAW. Personally, I repeat a short prayer originally composed by an 8th Century monk to protect against demonic possession. But enough about me.]

. . . has already faxed out and posted their opposition research packets . . .

[Since the identity of the nominee was in doubt up to the last minute, they obviously had to have spent the last several weeks examining a LOT of trashcans in upper-Northwest Washington and the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. And the cost of all those costumes to impersonate mail carriers in order to check out subversive magazine subscriptions? Wow!]

. . . . and, rhetoric aside, there's not much "there" there. There is an understandable focus on abortion, and the "straight" news outlets are already reporting in their usual "by the way" manner that Judge Roberts, when in the Solicitor General's Office, "wrote" or "filed" a brief "calling for the reversal of Roe v. Wade." That is, of course, not true in the sense that PFAW and the rest of the hive hopes it will be understood.

As is pointed out this morning by the fellows over at PowerLine:

Most of it [the PFAW packet] deals with Roberts' tenure as deputy Solicitor General. In that capacity, for example, he wrote a brief that argued that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be reversed. There are two problems with these attacks on Roberts' briefs. First, the Solicitor General has a client: the President and his administration. He doesn't just make stuff up, he argues the position that is formulated by the President, the Attorney General and other policy makers.

Thus, in the abortion case just referred to, Rust v. Sullivan, Roberts' brief said:

We continue to believe that Roe was wrongly decided and should be overruled . . . [T]he Court’s conclusion[] in Roe that there is a fundamental right to an abortion . . . find[s] no support in the text, structure or history of the Constitution.

The "we" is the first Bush administration, Roberts' client.

We will hear much, much, much more of this in the weeks to come, and will no doubt be treated to various tendentious shorthand references: "the anti-abortion brief," "his opposition to abortion," "his alarming legal philosophy" and the like.

None of it will be true, of course, but since when did that matter in this town?