samuel alito and john roberts reflect themode rebl rt cossnoe he ittasue c t m ter court. it is a more conservative court than william rehnquist ever left. boouebenbey ca >>stdo bos cedeh, d bs wth the story of the botched oath that everybody remembers so well, but none has ever really told the sry an i , innok teinor i, t lset u ewo protagonists; barack obama and john roberts. and the parax is that the man o clmed hedida ha tuprt icola t be the baseball umpire who didn't want to change th rules have precisel reversed positions. it is obama who is trying to ral ngch ti t ur >> guest: well, it all begins with a misdirected e-mail. melo -cajots and his staff vy rt yt culywre he gotoid he w ath, very carefully had his staff e-mail it to the congressional campaign, theonsi inauralomee roevrwdt a presint-elect's office. so obama did not know how roberts was going to divide the oath. and ifou seehe se e us ope rebexpdm t,ob v uncharacteristically got flustered, and that was the problem. >> host: do they have any kind of a personal relationship? >> guest: none. none. juonte.,rly

they had a great relationship with up until she voted to confirm justice samuel alito to the supremewin, so it was sort of done politically. they burned a bridge with her, and the counter to that, what i use as an example of a single issue advocacy group, that i think is being really smart about this, is gay rights advocates, particularly on marriage equality who had a huge victory when gay marriage passed in new york. four republicans crossed party lines and they did that because the human rights campaign which worked very hard on this brought together a bipartisan coalition of democrats and republicans, they got big republican donors to say to those four republicans who will back you up when you make this vote, they went to the party leadership in albany who was against gay marriage, and they said you got to come to the forefront for a vote. the same thing i think could be applied at the federal level and the state level with all of these values that are taking place across the country, and i think it's overnight that they start thinking that way. >> couldn't the argument be that p

replaced by samuel alito. who takes a dimmer view on affirmative action. the way to avoid makes decisions is to make avoid making a decision on race. three years ago, the supreme court came that close to striking down a major part of a voting rights act that said states with a history of discrimination have to get permission from the federal court before they make any changes in any voting procedures. that one is hanging by a thread. and the supreme court will look at it again. then another big issue before the court is the gay rights. this in the guise of defense of marriage act. the law signed by president clinton which says for federal purposes marriage can only be before a man and a woman. just yesterday, the justice department asked the court to take the case. last friday, republicans asked the court to take a case from the northeast involving a challee in which a federal appeals court struck it down. said it was unconstitutional. right there, richard, you have the makings of another blockbuster case. the supreme court is by no means shying away from

attorneys, including a current supreme court justice, samuel eliteo. -- alito. his academic credentials are as impressive as his record, and after a career at yale university, he excelled at new york university's school of law where he was a member of the law review. just a few years ago, in 2008, the new jersey law journal honored him as their lawyer of the year. and i'm confident if confirmed, his work as a judge will earn him similar praise. so this fine nominee is, thank goodness, finally getting the vote that he deserves. he's going to be great on the bench. he's eminently qualified and will make an exceptional judge. mr. president, in newark a federal courthouse carries my name. when it was dedicated, i requested an inscription that i authored and believe in so deeply be placed on the wall and it reads the true measure of a democracy is its dispensation of justice. i firmly believe that there is where we see the equalizer, and citizenship in this country. as the quote demonstrates our country's core belief in equal and just representation before the law. o

now republican senator mike lee of utah, former law clerk for now supreme court justice samuel a hraoet too. alitolcome back to the program. there was a split among conservatives, some defending chief justice roberts, saying he did write and opinion that reviewed to expand commerce powers. other folks are saying you're looking at the wrong sections of the opinion. if you look at what the court actually held, it is basically an expansive power without limit upped the taxation powers of the congress. >> that is exactly right, megyn, and that's why it's concerning to so many people who love liberty in america. people who understand that the government exists to serve the people, and not the other way around. this is yet another example of a supreme court facilitating the unfettered expansion of congress' power. congress was as you remember, megyn supposed to be a legislative body with powers that you few and defined, not numerous and indefinite. the modern supreme court has flipped that on its head and we've got to reign this in and do it for the political process by elect agnew government, a new set