Morning copy 9.15.2005

Iraq

Two dozen Iraqi police are killed in a second bloody day in Iraq, al Jazeera.

Roberts

Los Angeles Times on Judge Roberts:

Despite Roberts' reticence on several fronts, a somewhat more complete portrait of the 50-year-old federal appeals court judge and former Reagan administration lawyer emerged. At times, his newly expressed views seemed at odds with those contained in the thousands of pages of memos and musings he wrote as a government lawyer two decades ago.

The lede in the New York Times, and the subsequent grafs, paint the process in more contentious tones. But:

But Judge Roberts, by the end of a second long day of careful, unflappable testimony, appeared in comfortable position for a confirmation vote next Thursday in the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee and, many Republicans predicted, a strong vote the following week in the full Senate, where Republicans have a 10-vote majority.

The Washington Post paints Roberts as conservative, but not to the point of Scalia, LINK and also has an article on the combativeness of Democrats, LINK.

New York Times analysis on Arlen Specter's ire:

In a series of decisions, many written by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist himself, the court declared unconstitutional acts of Congress that had been passed by broad bipartisan majorities.

Laws permitting public employees to sue state employers for discrimination on the basis of disability and age, and also giving women access to federal court to sue rapists for damages, ran up against the court's new definition of the limits on Congress's power and the justices' insistence that they alone have the final word in interpreting the Constitution.

"I take umbrage at what the court has said, and so do my colleagues," Senator Specter told Judge Roberts.

How John Roberts is following precedent and crafting his own for the second nominee, New York Times.

United Nations

One more Bush administration sea-change -- OK, not really -- this week, the tone with the United Nations. Washington Post:

"We must help raise up the failing states and stagnant societies that provide fertile ground for the terrorists," Bush said.

Bush then ticked off a series of U.N.-sponsored initiatives to help promote human dignity and prosperity, saying the United States has a "moral duty" to join in the effort. In effect, Bush used the speech to marry the United Nations' goals of defeating poverty and disease with his vision of fighting terrorism by promoting democracy.

Since the start of his second term, Bush has tried hard to reach out to a world that has been dismayed with the foreign-policy choices and actions of his first term. He has traveled four times this year to Europe, the heart of anti-Bush attitudes, though polling by the German Marshall Fund has indicated that the charm offensive thus far has failed to resonate with many Europeans.

Katrina

A major presidential address tonight, calling for more spending. Washington Post:

The president will call on Washington to resist spending money unwisely, but some in his own party are already starting to recoil at a price tag expected to exceed $200 billion -- about the cost of the Iraq war and reconstruction efforts.

The New York Times report:

[T]he president's first major speech on the hurricane, would not be a State of the Union "laundry list" of proposals. Instead, they said, it would focus more generally on Mr. Bush's vision for the reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, with the federal government playing a supportive role to what White House officials are calling a "home-grown" plan that must be created by city and state authorities.

San Francisco Gate's article on the forgotten parish of St. Benard's:

"I guess nobody knew we were here," said St. Bernard Parish Councilwoman Judy Hoffmeister, who on Wednesday recalled being trapped on the roof of a building, awaiting rescue, on the night of the storm. "Why wouldn't somebody say, 'Where's St. Bernard.' "

At first, the only rescuers on hand were the residents and officials of St. Bernard Parish. Two days after Katrina hit, a team of Canadian Mounties from Vancouver showed up to help, and a sprinkling of officials from neighboring parishes paid visits, but it would be days before there was any sign of assistance from the United States government.

Yes, Vancouver Mounties were more aware of the Mississippi river's towns than the Federal Government.

The environmental impact in the Houston Chronicle:

"This is the largest natural disaster that we believe the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and nation has faced," EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson said during a media briefing Wednesday.

One more link...

Germany's pre-election woes in The Guardian:

Germany's postwar economic miracle is a distant memory. Its unquestioned economic, educational and sporting superiority over Britain, and so many other countries, belongs to a previous, more confident generation of Germans. The numbers suggest that it is low-unemployment, low-tax, post-industrial Britain, with its job-hopping, free-spending citizens and penny-pinching Treasury that is the success story now; high-unemployment, high-tax industrial Germany, with its rigid labour market, parsimonious populace and free-spending government, that is the failure. "Oh, you're still building your own cars?" the 40-year-old Mini seems to say. "Yes, we used to do that. Now we just make them for other people."