Editor’s note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you’d like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily’s exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT!
At today’s White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer about last week’s Supreme Court decision striking down Texas’ law against sodomy, and the spokesman confirmed, for the first time since the decision was handed down, that President Bush supported the statute as governor of the Lone Star State.
Today’s exchange began with Fleischer noting that WND’s White House correspondent was occupying the Washington Post’s chair since no one from that paper was using it.
WND: Ari, the Washington Post –
FLEISCHER: Lester of the Washington Post. (Laughter.) You’re in their seat.
WND: I own part of the Washington Post.
OTHER REPORTERS: Ooooh.
FLEISCHER: I’d like to hear that story.
WND: Four shares. Four shares. The Washington Post reports, “During the last presidential campaign, whenever George W. Bush was asked what he would seek in a Supreme Court appointee, the first name he brought up as his ideal was Justice Antonin Scalia.” Justice Scalia’s dissent in the Lawrence versus Texas sodomy case notes that “every single one of these laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, adultery –
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Question?
WND: – fornication, bestiality and obscenity is called into question by today’s decision.” And my question is, does the president now think that Justice Scalia is wrong about the Court’s overruling a law of the state of which he was governor?
FLEISCHER: No. The president said what he said because he meant it. When he was asked what justices he admires most, he answered that question, and that’s because the president meant it.
ABC NEWS: But he did support it.
FLEISCHER: Go ahead, Terry.
ABC NEWS: He did support that law.
FLEISCHER: On this case, the administration did not file a brief because it is not a federal matter. As governor of Texas, the president supported the law in his capacity as governor of Texas, correct.
Next, WND asked Fleischer about another recent controversial Supreme Court decision.
WND: The president expressed his approval of the Supreme Court’s upholding by one vote the practice of considering race in admissions to the University of Michigan Law School, but that university’s most nationally known students, their football team, selects players on the basis of ability alone, with no regard whatsoever for race. And my question: Does the president believe that if the law school uses race in selection, the football team should, too, because law is more important than sport?
FLEISCHER: Lester, you’ve asked this question before. I think you used –
WND: No – a different version.
FLEISCHER: I think you asked about a baseball team. Last time you made the reference to a baseball team, not –
WND: That was the Texas Rangers. I’m talking about Michigan.
FLEISCHER: That’s correct. That’s why I said you’ve asked the question before. Lester, the president’s answer is well-known. The president applauded the Court decision because it recognized, just as he does, the importance of diversity on college campuses. There’s room to disagree about whether or not race should be a factor in achieving diversity. The president has said that he thinks that the best way to achieve diversity is through race-neutral means. And the Court did as the president sought and it struck down quotas as a way of achieving diversity. They differed – the president and the Court differed on the law school application.
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