I can only imagine what it must be like for John Roberts to have his nomination to the Supreme Court in the hands of clowns like Sen. Christopher Dodd, who said today:

The open-ended question for us clearly is what are his views about some of the basic values, the equal protection clause, the privacy clause of the Constitution.

Yup, you read that right. The “privacy clause of the Constitution.”

Sigh.

It seems that every post I do lately is getting filed under “Morons.”

(Via Confirm Them.)

UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.

The other day, Howard Dean condemned President Bush’s “right-wing Supreme Court” for the Kelo decision:

[Dean] also said the president was partly responsible for a recent Supreme Court decision involving eminent domain.

“The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is ‘okay’ to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is,” Dean said, not mentioning that until he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court this week, Bush had not appointed anyone to the high court.

The Townhall.com news item I quote here made it clear why Dean’s statement was so ridiculous:

Dean’s reference to the “right-wing” court was also erroneous. The four justices who dissented in the Kelo vs. New London case included the three most conservative members of the court – Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the fourth dissenter.

The court’s liberal coalition of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer combined with Justice Anthony Kennedy to form the majority opinion, allowing the city of New London, Conn., to use eminent domain to seize private properties for commercial development.

“We think that eminent domain does not belong in the private sector. It is for public use only,” Dean said.

(Via John Cole.)

So, at a time when the nomination of a Supreme Court Justice is one of the hottest stories in the news, the head of the Democrat party makes an impassioned speech that (though he doesn’t realize it) is an argument for more conservative Justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas.

Does that sound like news to you?

In the days since Dean made this statement, it has been reported in exactly one Big Media outlet: the “Political Grapevine” segment of Fox News’s “Special Report with Brit Hume.” Nothing in the New York Times. Nothing in the Washington Post. Nothing in the Los Angeles Times or the Chicago Tribune. Nothing on CBS, NBC, ABC, or CNN.

Nothing.

Meanwhile, Dean’s words have reverberated throughout the Internet. Blogs like John Cole’s Balloon Juice, Protein Wisdom, Q&O, Say Anything, RightWingNews, Lifelike Pundits, and many others have noted Dean’s gaffe. A poster at Kos was stunned, saying: “There’s simply no way that Dean’s comments can be spun to make them even remotely defensible.”

Will Big Media ask Howard Dean about this? The next time Howard Dean is on a Sunday talk show, will the host ask him if he is more likely to support a conservative like John Roberts because he would likely be a vote for property rights?

Time will tell . . . but I doubt it.

UPDATE: Thanks to Instapundit for linking this post. I’d encourage new readers to do two things (after bookmarking my main page, of course):

1) Go visit one of the fine blogs listed in this post, all of which had this story days ago; and

2) Write your local newspaper and ask them why they haven’t run this story.

P.S. I’m not including Kos in suggestion #1 . . . unless you’re a masochist.

I have a Bloglines folder labeled “Morons,” which contains exactly two blogs. I almost never link either, but this time I can’t resist.

I am going to quote the silly post and comments in full, in case they are later altered:

(more…)

The L.A. Times reports:

Motorists who drive solo in fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles will gain access to carpool lanes in California under a massive transportation bill approved by Congress on Friday that includes billions of dollars for projects statewide.

This change is not likely to have the impact that its proponents expect.

(more…)

Hugh Hewitt has begun implementing a new policy towards print reporters who want to interview him about John Roberts. He tells them: sure, you can interview me — but you have to do it live, on my radio show. That way, everyone will hear the complete interview — and they will know what you put in, what you left out, and how you spun my comments.

Guess what? Nobody has taken him up on it yet.

I wonder why. The latest reporter to decline his offer said she didn’t want the story “out there” before it ran in her paper. I have a different theory: she doesn’t want to lose her control over the way Hugh’s comments are portrayed to the public. I have discussed this issue in detail previously, in this post.

P.S. Hugh could establish for us which theory is right by agreeing not to run the interview live, but insisting on taping and broadcasting the whole thing.

On July 27, 2005, after publishing this post about a misleading David Savage story on John Roberts, I sent this e-mail to the L.A. Times Readers’ Representative:

Hi,

David Savage’s story on John Roberts this morning (7-27) titled “Some Roberts Documents Released” says:

The White House opened to the public Tuesday thousands of pages from the files of a young assistant attorney general but declared off-limits all the files from the years when John G. Roberts Jr., now a Supreme Court nominee, was a top government lawyer urging the repeal of the Roe vs. Wade abortion ruling.

No one on Capitol Hill had asked for the Reagan-era files.

I am having difficulty reconciling this statement with one published in the New York Times on Monday:

The Bush administration plans to release documents from Judge John G. Roberts’s tenure in the White House counsel’s office in the mid-1980’s and his earlier job working for the attorney general, but will not make public papers covering the four years he spent as principal deputy solicitor general starting in 1989, two senior administration officials said Monday.

The decision fulfilled a request for disclosure of the documents made on Monday by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which will hold the confirmation hearings for Judge Roberts, President Bush’s choice to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, said the senator’s spokesman, Bill Reynolds.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/26/politics/politicsspecial1/26confirm.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1122472481-15FDBSnhtKmG+38DtF2AwQ

These seem in conflict, unless I’m missing something.

Patrick Frey

It’s July 30, and I’ve heard nothing. I have forwarded the earlier e-mail to the Readers’ Representative again (and to editor Dean Baquet) with this note:

Hi,

Could you please respond to me regarding my e-mail of July 27 (which I am forwarding another copy of below)? I want to know whether Arlen Specter’s office requested the documents already released by the Bush Administration re John Roberts, as reported by the N.Y. Times on Monday. These are documents that the L.A. Times said Wednesday had not been requested by anyone on Capitol Hill.

I have seen no correction and have received no response. I’m sure the issue could be resolved by a simple query to Sen. Specter’s office.

Thanks.

Patrick Frey
Patterico’s Pontifications
http://patterico.com

In the meantime, if I am overlooking something or otherwise barking up the wrong tree, please let me know in the comments. The quotes look inconsistent to me, but maybe I’m missing something.

UPDATE: Via commenter Ed at Oh, That Liberal Media comes this link to Scott McClellan’s comments at a recent press conference:

Q: If they’ll answer the question. Yesterday, you suggested that — you determined — you made the release of these documents possible after discussions with Senator Specter. Did Senator Specter explicitly request these documents, or were they offered in conversation?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, and I never — no, in fact, I never said such a thing. I know that there are some reports in the paper that someone in his office may have said that, and that appears to have been a mischaracterization. But we did talk to him before releasing that information, and he appreciated the — he expressed his appreciation for the fact that we were going to expedite the release of these documents.

I am interested to see what Sen. Specter’s office says. If his office agrees, then perhaps the NYT owes the correction, rather than the LAT.