Roberts Assures President He's Fine

(CBS/AP)  Chief Justice John Roberts told President Bush Tuesday he was doing well after sustaining a seizure at his Maine vacation home, the White House said.

Mr. Bush called Roberts Tuesday morning.

"The chief justice assured him that he was doing fine," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "The president was reassured."

Roberts "sounded like he was in great spirits," Snow said, relaying details of the phone call.

Doctors who examined Roberts called the episode a "benign idiopathic seizure," meaning they found no tumor, stroke or any other explanation.

Roberts, 52, had a similar, unexplained attack in 1993.

The seizure Monday caused the chief justice to fall on a dock, where he sustained minor scrapes, Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said.

Once at the hospital, he underwent a "thorough neurological evaluation, which revealed no cause for concern," Arberg said.

She said he was kept overnight at the Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport for observation.

"Idiopathic means they really don't know what caused it," Dr. Emily Senay told CBS' The Early Show, and added that the seizures could have a genetic component to them.

By definition, someone who has had more than one seizure without any other cause is determined to have epilepsy, said Dr. Marc Schlosberg, a Washington Hospital Center neurologist who is not involved in the Roberts case.

Whether Roberts will need anti-seizure medications to prevent another is something he and his doctor will have to decide. But after two seizures, the likelihood of another at some point is greater than 60 percent.

Epilepsy is merely a term for a seizure disorder, but it is a loaded term because it makes people think of lots of seizures, cautioned Dr. Edward Mkrdichian, a neurosurgeon at the Chicago Institute of Neurosurgery and Neuroresearch.

Still, Mkrdichian said anyone who has had two otherwise unexplained seizures is at high risk for a third, and that he puts such patients on anti-seizure medications.

"Having two seizures so many years apart without any known culprit is going to be very difficult to figure out," agreed Dr. Max Lee of the Milwaukee Neurological Institute.

The incident occurred around 2 p.m. on a dock near Roberts' summer home in Port Clyde on Maine's Hupper Island. He had just gotten off a boat and was returning home after running errands, Arberg said. Port Clyde, which is part of the town of St. George, is about 90 miles by car northeast of Portland, midway up the coast of Maine.

Roberts was taken by private boat to the mainland and then transferred to an ambulance, St. George Fire Chief Tim Polky said.

"He was conscious and alert when they put him in the rescue (vehicle)," Polky said.

Named to the court by President Bush in 2005, Roberts is the youngest justice on a court in which the senior member, John Paul Stevens, is 87. Mr. Bush was informed of the hospitalization by his chief of staff, Josh Bolten, the White House said.

Roberts is the father of two young children.

CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod reported that the 1993 episode, which occurred while Roberts was playing golf, did not come up during his confirmation hearings because it was thought to be an isolated event.

Larry Robbins, a Washington attorney who worked with Roberts at the Justice Department in 1993, said he drove Roberts to work for several months after Roberts' seizure that year. Robbins said Roberts never mentioned what the problem was and he never heard of it happening again.

In 2001, Roberts described his health as "excellent," according to Senate Judiciary Committee records.

Roberts became chief justice after the death of William Rehnquist in September 2005, although Mr. Bush had first chosen him to take Sandra Day O'Connor's seat when she announced her retirement earlier that year.

Roberts has led the Supreme Court to a more conservative stance. Helped by Justice Samuel Alito, who won confirmation in early 2006, conservatives have won twice as often as they lost on the Roberts-led court. The 2006-07 term brought limits on abortion rights, restrictions on school integration programs and greater freedom for political advertising.

Roberts earlier served as an appellate judge in Washington and spent more than a decade before that as a lawyer at the Hogan and Hartson law firm, where he specialized in arguing cases before the Supreme Court.

Roberts also served in the Reagan and Bush administrations in the 1980s and 1990s. He was a clerk for Rehnquist after graduating from Harvard Law School.

Roberts spent a couple of weeks in Europe in July, teaching a course in Vienna and attending a conference in Paris. He was at the court in Washington late last week.

[antoniof123]

I wasn't concerned at all I don't know this guy so why do I care. LOL........

[sandzz-2009]

Moreover, the job of the Court is not to legislate, it is to interpret the intent of those that wrote the Constitution. Thats how document interpretation works. It is not interpretation to say that well if I had written it I would have done X, or we should presume rational actors do X; that would be document construction. You would not be ascertaining the intent of the parties. Constitution construction is not within the realm of the Court.

[sandzz-2009]

Toldyouso21,
Nothing is as dangerous as an evolving Constitution because there is nothing holding back the Court from usurping complete power. After all how would one check on the Court? By passing a Constitutional Amendment which would then be within scope of judicial review? Ya...The Court is the most dangerous branch if not bound by something. That something is precedent and tradition.

Further, your argument is just as destructive to your position. After all, if there is nothing wrong with 'evolving' why not 'evolve' in the other direction? I.E. over-rule most civil rights decisions along with the privacy decisions. If the Constitution is indeed a thing that should be read at the moment and not at some moment at time--such as its drafting--why not read it to mean that there is no privacy because we have evolved in a higher society that now values safety more than our privacy. We also value our safety more so than individual rights and we decide to discriminate against certain groups to serve that purpose. Why not do that? After all, there are no absolutes as you say. Careful consideration of your own position will help you avoid these little pit falls.

[toldyouso21]

Yes, of course, I should take my cue from the likes of you who feel that God has his hand in hurting this Administration by giving them disease. Are you sure you're an independent or are you Jerry Falwell reincarnate?
Posted by mudrose at 12:16 PM : Jul 31, 2007


Of course God does mete out punishment to those who do evil, especially those who do evil while pretending to serve Him. It is all in his little handbook--look under his headings on smiting and you will find this to be so.

But here's the kicker: God is an equal opportunity smiter. He not only will take care of the Bush debacle, but all you little guys who worship and serve Bush are in for an azz whupping too. He's gonna get ya--and your little dog too. Lmao

[toldyouso21]

Yes, of course, I should take my cue from the likes of you who feel that God has his hand in hurting this Administration by giving them disease. Are you sure you're an independent or are you Jerry Falwell reincarnate?
Posted by mudrose at 12:16 PM : Jul 31, 2007


LOL. Nope, don't feel you should listen to me. I said think--if you can. That would mean you would ponder on the issues, come to conclusions without help, and THINK of the ramifications, meanings and import on your own. Not what I say, or what Rush or O'Reilley or Bush says. YOu would put 2+2 together and decide if it really was 4 or if anyone whose version said it was 22 could be right. Thinking means using your own abilities to rationalize and ponder data, not relying on being spoonfed a response. As for the Jerry Falwell comment, you know better. He was a neo con--if I was a reincarnation of him, I'd have to pry mine and every other cons *** from your lips just in time for you to turn around so we could stuff it up your mudrose.

[toldyouso21]

Hmmm, substantive due process is also not one of those founding principles. Funny, ha? These are just a fee that are popping around in the posts a lot.
Posted by sandzz at 02:25 PM : Jul 31, 2007


some of our right leaning posters are forgeting that our founding principles are not and never were intended to be absolute or definitive. That at the most, our founding fathers felt they would be a foundation to a working and equitable Democracy not a work written in stone with no need for improvment. with the right foundation, one can build on sound principles, to that end, and in recognizing that for the sake of growth everything must evolve and change or become stagnant and die, we must and indeed have embraced reinterpretation and redefinition to fit the events, circumstances and actual lives of the times we live in.

No process is absolute or static, the best are sound enough to fit many future events, but the best of foundations also requires the best of applications and therefore, require minds that can embrace and adapt to the new challenges facing an evolving Republic and not try to apply archaic principles or meanings to present circumstances. I mean, who among the founding fathers (who often had slaves and fathered children by them) that when they said all men were created equal--would eventually apply that to humans that were not white? Evolution. change. flux. dynamic--it can be a good thing.

[sandzz-2009]

Some of our left leaning posters cite but forget this country's founding principles. Abortion is not one of them. Homosexuality is not one of them. Big federal government is not one of them. Big state government IS. The founding principles were that the states should be able to govern themselves, something that is being continually eroded if not by the executive or the legislative branches, then by the judicial with some new due process creation. Hmmm, substantive due process is also not one of those founding principles. Funny, ha? These are just a fee that are popping around in the posts a lot.

[antoniof123]

Hillary is going to love all this new found power the neo cons will give her in 2009 when she and Obama are elected. LOL.....

[hungry1968]

Posted by mudrose at 12:23 PM : Jul 31, 2007

You really are delusional. The Republicans don't advocate big government? Do you know that Dick Cheney's staff is BIGGER than Bill Clinton's when Clinton was the President?!?!

Who cares if gay people want to get married? Does it affect you? Not unless you're gay and want to get married.

The left doesn't believe in unfettered abortions. They believe in s*ex education and birth control. The republicans think that s*ex should be discussed at home and not school, and so they try to ban it whenever possible from being taught in schools. If and when it doesn't get taught at home, for whatever reason, then the kids are forced to learn on the street. The result? Many more pregnant teenagers than necessary.

But don't worry the "Department of Faith Based Initiatives" that Bush created will whip out it's Bible and save us all by praying!!

In spite of your claims of a SMALLER GOVERNMENT, the biggest bureaucratic monster EVER created is the DHS. Also the "Department of Family Planning" and the "Department of Faith Based Initiatives" are both new cabinet level departments created by Bush. Kind of shoots down your theories of "smaller government" and "government mandated morals", huh? What's next - "The Department of Anti-Christian Police"?

[mudrose-2009]

Also, I must have missed in the last Democratic debate where they discussed, "what we can eat, how much, where we can live, and what light bulbs we can use, who will get health care, who will die not getting it, we will have thought police, hate crimes laws..."
Hey wait a minute! Aren't hate crimes laws a good thing!?!
Posted by hungry1968

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