For those of you in Washington, D.C. on the 21st of September, feel free to join us for the follow-on conference to our recent mega-forum on new thinking about terrorism.
This forum will feature property rights reform advocate Hernando de Soto, Chain of Command author and provocative journalist Seymour Hersh, CNN Terrorism Analyst Peter Bergen, Former U.S. Agency for International Development Deputy Administrator (under Clinton)Harriet “Hattie” Babbitt, April 1865 author Jay Winik, former U.S. AID General Counsel (under G.W. Bush) John Gardner, U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Michael Barone, and others (including yours truly).
We’ll be at the Mayflower Hotel — and I think that this will nudge forward the fact that exclusive police and military responses to terrorism do little to undo the factors that drive terrorist behavior or which earn them sympathy in the eyes of a global audience for whom terrorists are performing.
A draft schedule is attached here.
ON OTHER FRONTS, John Roberts stated that he believed that a constitutional case for the right of privacy did exist. This is somewhat stunning news — and makes it tough for both left-of-center and hard-right strategists in the Supreme Courty appointment skirmishes underway.
Ted Kennedy is right that the American public deserves to see Roberts’ notes when he was Solicitor General — and he has made troubling statements about Roe v. Wade and about equitable gender treatment. However, it’s clear that this candidate is extremely polished and unflappable.
He completely outclasses Scalia in his reasonable demeanor, and I can see Roberts recusing himself if he had been in the same duck-hunting mess that Scalia and Vice President Cheney were in when Cheney had the battle over his energy policy consultation notes pending before the Supreme Court. Scalia was gross about the whole affair and diminished himself and the Court by not recusing himself. I just don’t see Roberts in the same mode, but maybe I’m being duped.
I heard Ted Kennedy on a conference call with bloggers last night — and he said “This is John Roberts’ job interview with the American people. . .There is no right to serve on the Supreme Court. . .You have to earn your way on to that court through the American public.”
On the conference call, I thought Ted Kennedy was fair in outlining John Roberts’ strengths and weaknesses.
But as he said, there is still much we just don’t know — and I think that most of what we will get to know is how polished he is — not how he thinks and not what is in his heart.
— Steve Clemons
