By Debbie Schlussel
Islamic terrorism is the single most important issue facing this country. But to hear liberal Senators, like Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer, and abortion hacks (and hags) at NARAL and Planned Parenthood, it’s as if 9/11, 7/7, etc. never happened. Their attacks on Supreme Court nominee John Roberts focus exclusively on his position regarding Roe v. Wade.
(Regardless of your position on abortion, Roberts’ well-reasoned suggestion, in a brief, that the 1973 decision had no basis in the Constitution, is backed by Justice Harry Blackmun, himself, who admitted to reporters Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong, in “The Brethren,” that he created the right out of whole cloth–that the right to privacy was founded on Mayo Clinic doctrine, not the U.S. Constitution.)
Terrorism is clearly a far more pressing issue, and on that, Roberts is right on target. Roberts demonstrated his commitment to fight court-system coddling of terrorists and the creation of rights for these murderers that don’t exist. Roberts’ position on Salim Ahmed Hamdan (a Gitmo terrorist who was Osama Bin Laden’s personal driver)is far more important than his position on Jane Roe. On Friday, Roberts–as part of a federal appeals court panel–backed the Bush Administration’s plan to let special panels of military officers conduct trials of terrorism suspects detained at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, overturning a lower-court decision that has blocked the “military commissions” for the past eight months.

John Roberts: Confirm this man . . .

So this terrorist doesn’t go free!
The ruling was an important affirmation of the government’s right to deny “enemy combatant” detainees access not only to civilian courts but to the more formal proceedings of military courts-martial, in which they would enjoy additional rights and legal protections. The decision in Hamdan, joined in by John Roberts, backs up President Bush’s decision that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to detainees that Bush declares as enemy combatants and that the provisions of the Conventions are not enforceable by U.S. courts in lawsuits brought by foreigners.
This is additionally important because Roberts–if he makes it to the Court, and he will–will likely get a similar case, that of Jose Padilla a/k/a Abdullah Al-Muhajir, soon. Padilla’s lawyer, yesterday, appeared before a federal appeals court, demanding that his client (an Al-Qaeda procurer of dirty bombs) be charged or freed. But the government wants the ability to indefinitely detain enemy combatants intent on murdering Americans. The issue, whether a U.S. citizen seized on U.S. soil can be designated an enemy combatant is sure to come before the Supreme Court soon. The trial court, in South Carolina, ruled for the terrorist Hamdan’s lawyer, something that needs to be reversed. Watch for Roberts to be on the right side–the side of the safety and security of the American people–of that, as he was on Hamdan.
Next time you hear Kennedy, Schumer, militant women’s groups et al squawking about abortion, ask them why they don’t seem concerned with the safety of all Americans (not just pregnant women) from terrorists? The right to life–to live in freedom, from terrorism, etc.–is the ultimate civil right. Remember that. They don’t.
It’s disastrous to use anachronistic 9/10 liberal criteria for a post-9/11 Supreme Court nominee.