Via Howard Bashman comes this:

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) — A man who got angry with his wife because she wanted to cuddle after sex when what he really wanted to do was watch sports on television was sentenced to death for killing her with a claw hammer.

I’m generally against prison rape, but in this case I’m willing to make an exception. The most appropriate punishment for this guy would be to let some tattooed dude named Spike have his way with him, and then show him a football game — which he would watch from the comfort of his La-Z-Boy electric chair.

Matt Drudge is reporting that the New York Times is digging into the adoption records of John Roberts’s children:

The NEW YORK TIMES is looking into the adoption records of the children of Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

The TIMES has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts’ two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals.

Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants.

Both children were adopted from Latin America.

A TIMES insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper’s “standard background check.”

Bill Borders, NYT senior editor, explains: “Our reporters made initial inquiries about the adoptions, as they did about many other aspects of his background. They did so with great care, understanding the sensitivity of the issue.”

(Via Confirm Them, which is newly blogrolled.)

Now, keep in mind: Drudge gets stuff wrong.

But, as we wait to see whether the story is confirmed by a more reliable source, let’s agree on the obvious: if the story is true, it is outrageous. There is no possible legitimate excuse for this.

To my leftist readers especially: can I get an “Amen”?

P.S. I think I know where The Times may be going with this: although they were adopted from Latin America, the skin of Roberts’s children appears to be white, not brown or black. My understanding is that, generally, parents seeking adoptions can specifically request children of a certain race — and generally do.

So, if Roberts’s children are white, perhaps he and his wife requested that. Is that the NYT‘s proposed “gotcha”? If so, my statement stands: it’s outrageous.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt quotes the response that the New York Times is giving to inquiries (thanks to commenter Andrew for the tip):

Dear Reader,

Thanks for writing to us.

While the public editor does not usually get involved in pre-publication matters, Bill Keller, the executive editor of the paper, told us that he would not stand for any gratuitous reporting about the Roberts’s children.

He said that as an adoptive parent he is particularly sensitive about this issue.

In addition, a senior editor at the paper wrote, “In the case of Judge Roberts’s family, our reporters made initial inquiries about the adoptions, as they did about many other aspects of his background. They did so with great care, understanding the sensitivity of the issue. We did not order up an investigation of the adoptions. We have not pursued the issue after the initial inquiries, which detected nothing irregular about the adoptions.”

Sincerely,
Joe Plambeck
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

Hugh responds:

What is “gratuitous” as opposed to “appropriate reporting” on a nominee’s children. Who were the “initial inquiries” made to and for what purpose? What does with “great care” mean, and how did that “sensitivity” end up on Dr[u]dge.

Looks like some staff got ahead of Keller and way ahead of public opinion, and the cover up is under way. But there’s a lot of admission in the response –admission that the paper did indeed think it appropriate to dig into the adoption, and all the scurrying in the world won’t obscure that.

It certainly looks like we do have an admission, of sorts. But many questions remain. Hugh has articulated the main ones. I don’t think this story is going away. I am very interested to know more about what digging The Times did before Keller put a stop to it — and why they ever thought the subject was an appropriate avenue of inquiry to begin with.

UPDATE x2: A leftist named TBogg takes issue with Drudge. He says he thought the kids were from Ireland. They sure don’t look like they’re from Latin America.

This TBogg fellow also has this charming observation:

I’m waiting for an article that questions a man and his wife building high-powered careers, marrying late, and then, in their mid-forties, adopting infants to accessorize their public profiles. When these kids are graduating from high school, their parents will be in their sixties. I’m all for adoption, but I cringe when I see middle-aged successful couples adopt children to decorate their lives in an effort to “have it all”.

Nice.

I’m all for blogging, but I cringe when I see some cretin like this pretending to read the minds of people who must adopt to have children.

UPDATE x3: I like Jeff Goldstein’s take on TBogg (it’s Jeff Goldstein, so don’t be shocked if there’s profanity):

One wishes TBogg would have cringed first at the crass clairvoyance of his own petty suggestion and saved us all the trouble of having to read the fucking thing.

Yup.

UPDATE x4: Welcome to any readers visiting here from a Google search. If you like what you see here, please bookmark the main page and return often.

Howard Bashman has announced the winner of his contest to identify the most dumb-ass question anyone could ask Judge John Roberts. The winng entry came from the “Unused and Probably Unusable” blog:

If you were Chief Justice of the Supreme Court along with John Souter, Terrence Thomas, Anthony Scalia, Nino Kennedy, Ruth Day O’Ginsberg, John Paul Jones, William Brennan, and your former boss Bill Rehnquist, and a case involving abortion and capital punishment came before you on an appeal from a panel upon which you sat, and you believed you would be committing a mortal sin by hearing the case but not deciding it, and you’d gone duck-hunting with counsel for appellants but the Founders and the French would agree with the other side, would you recuse yourself if your wife had signed but not been involved with drafting of one of the amicus briefs?

And the runner-up came from Cassandra of the “Villainous Company” blog:

Regarding your extremist and highly controversial decisions in Rancho Viejo v. Norton and Hedgepeth v. WMATA, the American people have a right to know:

If an endangered pregnant Southwestern arroyo toad were arrested for eating a single French Fry on the DC Metro while en route to obtain an illegal third trimester abortion, would your Catholic beliefs force you to recuse yourself from the case? Furthermore, would the fetus qualify as a protected class under the 14th Amendment, or would you apply rational basis review as you did in Hedgepeth, thereby condemning the hapless toad to a lengthy stay in the DC detention center and depriving the mother of the right to control her reproductive destiny?

Congratulations to the winners.

I’m not sure why the L.A. Times thinks that a story titled Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Case is front-page news. He wasn’t the lead counsel on Romer v. Evans. He simply helped prepare briefs, and helped prep the person who argued the case. Moreover — just like when he signed a brief that called for Roe v. Wade to be overturned — he was doing his job as an advocate, which doesn’t necessarily say anything about his personal views of the law in this area.

To me, it’s a big: Whatever.

But I can’t see how it hurts him. Maybe some social conservatives who don’t understand a lawyer’s job will get their panties in a twist. (Do social conservatives wear panties?) Maybe Ann Coulter will write another column about how Roberts is just another Souter-in-waiting.

If anything, all of that will probably improve Roberts’s standing with the general public.

Go check out Michael Barone’s blog, the whimsically titled Barone Blog.

Just kidding. I mean about the title being whimsical. (“Barone-Headed Blathering” would have been whimsical. “Barone Blog” is kind of, I dunno, serious and white — you know, like Michael Barone himself.) But I’m serious about your visiting the blog. Looks like it will be a good one.