What does John Roberts believe?

Thu, 21 Jul 2005 04:03:00 +0000

President Bush's selection of Judge John Roberts to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court at first blush seems like a political masterstroke. The president has chosen an extraordinarily accomplished lawyer, one who has worked with, and is well-liked by, lawyers of both parties and who has a moderate, judicious demeanor. His background and training are of the highest caliber: He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Harvard Law School, and he has had a distinguished legal career both inside and outside the government.

But closer examination suggests that the president may be playing by yesterday's rules, in which mere qualification and demeanor might have been sufficient. President Bush has made ideology a critical basis for selection of his judicial nominees, and Democrats in the Senate have responded in kind. Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, in particular, has argued in the context of lower-court nominations that the Senate need not and ought not to confirm judges who refuse to divulge their own views about the meaning of the Constitution. And already he and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who, like Schumer, sits on the Judiciary Committee, have said that they have an obligation to find out what Judge Roberts thinks about the most important constitutional questions, including the scope of the constitutional right to privacy, which the Supreme Court has held protects a woman's right to choose abortion but which justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas reject.

Size matters

Tue, 12 Apr 2005 18:32:00 +0000

At 6:30 each morning, Mike Salvini wakes up and pads downstairs to check his e-mail. That's always how he starts his day, because someone out there might need help. Could be this someone hadn't warmed up sufficiently, or had pulled too hard or bent himself at a strange angle, but now something's wrong. And no man likes to have pain shooting up the shaft of his penis. So Mike tries to answer questions as often as he can, to reassure, to coax, to motivate. And then he goes into the bathroom, eases himself onto the toilet, places a length of industrial plastic pipe across his thighs, pulls his penis up and over the pipe and slooooowly cranks it forward, like a winch.

With each millimeter, he can feel the skin stretch, masking the slow seismic drift of internal tissue. Another tug. Now hold. One, two ... He wrestles the monster for 60 long seconds before releasing the tension. This is the tunica traction stretch, the first exercise of Mike's day: Eighteen hours and three workouts later, he will fall into bed, a fraction closer to his ultimate goal. He once had a healthy 6-and-a-half-inch erection; now he sports a 10-and-a-half-inch heart-stopper. Stretching himself along a ruler, he damn near exhausts its hash marks.

Salon.com > Peter Rubin

What does John Roberts believe?

Size matters