John Roberts (Justice)
New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak sent up a warning flare for Chief Justice John Roberts from the front page of Monday’s New York Times: It would be “dangerous” for the Supreme Court to be seen as conservative. The headline: “As Supreme Court Tips Right, Chief Justice Steers to Center." patting Roberts on the back for his perceived shunning of his more right-leaning Justice colleagues. The Court’s “legitimacy” is a new concern for the media, which for decades was used to it making “progressive” rulings that furthered the liberal agenda without Democrats having to mess with passing actual legislation.
Chief Justice John Roberts has been drawn into President Trump's web. Last week the president criticized the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, based in San Francisco, calling it "a lawless disgrace." The New York Times writes, "Mr. Trump's remarks came after a federal trial judge ordered the administration to resume accepting asylum claims from migrants no matter where or how they entered the United States."
Appearing on Saturday's CNN Newsroom to discuss Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley predicted that he will have a "stain" that he will "carry for the rest of his life," and suggested that conservative Chief Justice John Roberts may move further to the left because he has "great intellect," as if intelligence implies being more liberal.
What is this? Democracy dies in....silence? Thursday afternoon, CNN’s Wolf dedicated a segment with host Wolf Blitzer and Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic wondering why the current eight Supreme Court justices have remained silent and not opined on the three-decades-old sexual misconduct allegation against nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Perhaps more insane than anything Biskupic or Blitzer said was this CNN chyron that’s fit for a straightjacket: “Supreme Turmoil; How Justices Feel About Partisan Confirmation Battles.”
The New York Times is trying its best to find dirt on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, filing an odd public information request with his wife’s employer. And in 2005 they tried to access sealed private records involving then-Bush-nominee John Roberts. Even the paper's commenters weren't convinced of the paper's fairness and balance, wondering where that investigative zeal was when it came to Democratic Supreme Court nominees..
Since the 1980s, the well-worn liberal playbook is to claim that Republican appointees to the Supreme Court should be voted down as ideologues who are outside the judicial mainstream. The establishment media aids this tactic by often tagging GOP nominees as “conservative,” while ignoring — or even disputing — the liberal bent of Democratic nominees to the Court. True to form, ABC, CBS and NBC’s morning and evening broadcasts branded Judge Brett Kavanaugh a “conservative” a total of eleven times in the first 24 hours since his nomination by President Trump.
On Sunday's MSNBC Live, NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg again showed her blatant double standard in being quick to label conservative justices as "very conservative" but painting liberal justices as being more "centrist." Appearing as a guest on Sunday's MSNBC Live, Totenberg claimed that three of the current U.S. Supreme Court justices are "very hardcore people," "hard core to the right." She also claimed that Chief Justice John Roberts was viewed as "very, very conservative" until he was "savaged by the far right" over his ObamaCare vote.
President Trump won’t officially announce his latest nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court until this evening, but it’s already easy to predict the liberal media’s spin. As with all recent Republican nominees, reporters will repeatedly label them as “conservative,” which will nicely reinforce the Democrats’ strategy to paint them as outside “the mainstream.” But when Democratic Presidents announce their Supreme Court nominees, those same reporters can’t find the words to call those choices “liberal.”
The announced retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy has thrown the left even further into angry confusion. Amid all the doomsaying and rending of garments, some in the media are attempting to label Anthony Kennedy as a “traditional conservative.”
With Wednesdsay's retirement news from Justice Anthony Kennedy, the liberal media was in a tailspin thinking of all the horrors President Trump would unleash on America with yet another Supreme Court nomination. On ABC’s World News Tonight, they were fearful for the future of Roe v. Wade and were hopefully speculating Chief Justice John Roberts would become the new swing vote for the sake of the court.
Perhaps it was the way he arched an eyebrow. Or maybe it was the momentary twitch of his nose. Could it have been that barely seen curl of the lip?
Somehow, somehow, we must see that Chief Justice John Roberts was critical of President Donald Trump in his commencement address for ninth grade graduates at Cardigan Mountain School even though his name was not mentioned nor was there anything that could be remotely interpreted as the slightest reference to him. Such desperation to discern criticism where none existed of Trump by the Chief Justice came from Los Angeles Times editorial writer Michael McGough in his July 3 opinion piece, A Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. speech that should make Trump's ears burn.
An MRC analysis of labels used on ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows during the 24 hours after each of the past six Supreme Court nominations demonstrates the pattern. GOP nominees John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch were labeled by reporters as “conservative” a total of 36 times, while Democratic nominees Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Merrick Garland were called “liberal” a mere seven times — all on CBS. In fact, there were more occasions (10) when reporters either denied that a Democratic nominee was liberal, or labeled them “centrist” or “moderate.” Republican nominees were never described as “centrist” or “moderate.”