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The Situation Room
Roberts Confirmation Hearing Continues; Hurricane Katrina Aftermath
Aired September 13, 2005 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: It's just the top of the hour now.
The hearings expected to resume. They're taking a little break right now, the Senate Judiciary Committee. John Roberts taking a break himself. He's been answering questions, basically with the exception of a one-hour lunch break or so, a little bit more than an hour, since 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
We're watching also other developments including the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. But let's go up to the Capitol Hill right now.
Joe Johns, our congressional correspondent, is standing by. Update our viewers who may just be coming home, turning on the TV, want a little fill on what has happened so far in these confirmation hearings, Joe.
JOE JOHNS, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well we've had an interesting day. It's gone, Wolf, just about the way you would expect. John Roberts in the hot seat taking questions from Democrats and Republicans. Quite predictably he has said that he supports the notion of stare decisis, or what is settled precedence in the law.
He's also said, importantly, to some folks that he does believe there is a constitutionally protected right to privacy. Of course, that's come up again and again here on Capitol Hill, in part, because, back in 1981, he wrote a memo while working over at the White House, questioning the right to privacy. Some said he's, clearly, in his view there is. Now what does that mean? People are debating that out in the hallways right now during this break.
And one of the key questions, of course, has been whether the right to privacy means there's a right necessarily to an abortion.
Of course, people taking different views. The critics of Roberts saying he hasn't gone far enough, he hasn't been clear. They say he's avoided question after question, particularly on the area of abortion.
There are others who say he is going only as far as he can go.
Of course, those are the people who would be his supporters here on Capitol Hill, suggesting he can't say too much, because presuming he does get to the Supreme Court, he may have to face this question in the law when it comes to the court. And they're saying he needs to stand down and not answer those questions.
That's basically the story here. He's taken questions in a variety of different ways and he will be taking some more before this session ends.
BLITZER: It's going to go well into the night tonight and then tomorrow they will do it all over again. Joe Johns reporting for us. Thanks very much.
Were going to go back to the Senate Judiciary Committee once those hearings resume. They're in a recess, they're in a break right now. And once it resumes, we'll go back there live.
The other important story we're following, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Earlier today over at the White House, the president met with Iraq's President Jalal Talabani. In the course of their joint news conference, Mr. Bush was asked about the federal response to what happened in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Listen to what Mr. Bush said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Katrina exposed serious problems in our response capabilities in all levels of government. And -- to the extent that the federal government didn't fully do its job right, I take responsibility. I want to know what went right and what went wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: That's the first time the president made that statement. He's scheduled now to address the nation on Hurricane Katrina, Thursday night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. It will be down in Louisiana. CNN, of course, will have live coverage of that.
Our Tom Foreman is here. We're getting new video. Look at this video, Tom, coming in. Clearly, certain parts of New Orleans remain under water. These troops going down in a little motorboat, presumably looking to help individuals, find individuals who need help, and the more grim task of looking for bodies. At least right now it seems never ending, but it will end at some point.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And I think one of the important things, Wolf, as we look at this video is, really, you can see more of the orderly fashion in which it's happening now. That earlier rush for the first five, six, seven days of just rushing to try to get people out seems to be brought under a little bit of control. And pictures like this one are becoming important. I want to go to the map and show you why. If we look on the satellite image --
BLITZER: That helicopter is bringing sandbags in to help fill up those holes in the levees.
FOREMAN: Exactly. And this is working. If you look as we zoom into New Orleans here, areas of New Orleans -- this is the river down here. Right down in this area is the Superdome. All of those things that you've known so well throughout this coverage, French Quarter, Superdome -- all of this area in here not long ago was very wet. I'll zoom all the way in.
Remember, right around the Superdome in this area, around all of these high rises that we're talking about, we had a lot of standing water. And that water now, by and large, appears to be gone. So all of this downtown area, where you have all of the big buildings, they were surrounded in here. You couldn't even get from the Superdome to the Convention Center over here. Now that has largely dried out.
Just as importantly, to the north of that, all of these neighborhoods, the mid city areas, all the way out to the lake, all of this was soaked with water. Now much of the area we're flying over now is dry or nearly dry. The closer you get to the lake, you start getting into more of the neighborhoods that are still under water, but not as much as they had before. So a systematic approach has been achieved here.
I do want to point something out about the levees, though. It's been very interesting. "Times-Picayune" is asking a question that a lot of officials are asking down there now.
BLITZER: That's the main newspaper in New Orleans.
FOREMAN: Sure. A terrific newspaper. They're asking a question. Why did some of these flood walls break the way that they did? It's a mystery that's occurring in the middle of all of this. As you know, there's a lot of investigations going into many things. Some of these were concrete flood walls that broke and helped flood areas like this. Some were pure levees, others were concrete flood walls. And they're not sure why that's going to happen.
Look again on the right there. Some of the drier areas we're talking about, some where the water has dropped enough, or that hasn't been as much water. Important changes. It is getting better there, lifting a lot of spirits. The last thing you mentioned, Wolf, was something we talked about the other day. We talked about the deaths at the nursing homes south of town.
BLITZER: Let's watch this. These bags are about to drop. These sandbags. They bring them over the area. You see the water beginning to gust, and they're trying to fill those holes in there. Then they'll cover them up. This has been going on now for almost two weeks, about 10 days or so. And it clearly does make a difference. But you can see that flood wall. You can see that levee where it simply broke. Look at this.
FOREMAN: Right. And all of this -- that's exactly what we're talking about. The concrete wall right there on the right, you can barely see a part of it. That's what they're asking the questions about. Why did those break? Because some of those were manmade devices designed specifically to resist this kind of impact by water. There have been theories about barges cutting loose, hitting them and breaking them out.
But the important thing is as stability comes to this area through efforts like this, as the water goes out, as we noticed just a minute ago, what you're seeing more of is what we talked about the other day -- this is New Orleans -- remember we talked about that nursing home where the tragic deaths occurred. That's down south of New Orleans down here, in this area. Down around this bend in the river. We said a few days ago, and now it's coming quite true.
Now that these areas are becoming stabilized and they can move a little more easily, they're starting the process of investigating why the levees collapsed, why flood walls collapsed, and why people like those in the nursing home wound up being left there and whether or not anybody was at fault beyond what the storm did. Many, many, many things to be investigated and that, along with the recovery, is going to take many months.
BLITZER: And there's also some suggestions that the water went over the flood walls, and just the wind and whatever was surging that water, was just simply too much for the system that had existed.
FOREMAN: No question that happened to some degree. And that is a major cause of levee collapse. In flood walls, one of the questions is, though, why did some of them break in the middle as opposed to somehow breaking and toppling over this way. That's what has people puzzling over whether or not they had ships, or boats, I should say boats -- it's not ships in this area -- boats or barges that cut loose and that somehow became projectiles on the water and slammed into those flood walls and broke them open.
BLITZER: All right. We'll continue to watch this new video coming in.
We're also standing by -- we expect the Louisiana attorney general to be making a statement shortly on whether he is going to go ahead and file criminal charges in connection with the St. Rita's Nursing Home where they found more than a couple dozen bodies -- whether there was criminal activity that could have been responsible for those dead people. We'll monitor that.
We're also standing by for the resumption of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings of Judge John Roberts to become the next chief justice of the United States.
We got a busy day here and we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: Welcome back. We're going to go back to the Senate Judiciary Committee, once the hearings resume, Judge John Roberts' confirmation hearings, as the chief justice of the United States
But in the meantime, we're getting new video coming in from New Orleans, clearly showing large parts of the city remain under water. On the other hand, we're also seeing large parts having been dried out. The water pumps are working.
And let's take a look at these pictures that we're seeing right now. You see these cars still stranded, Tom Foreman, as we watch these rescue workers on the scene. It's still a very, very sad situation. FOREMAN: It is. It's going to be amazing, to find out in the end, how many cars were lost in this, because a lot of people down there -- particularly in recent years, there's been a greater trend toward building homes up a bit. So even people who got out with, say, one of their cars or something, had to leave another one outside -- their home may be OK, but their car may have gone under water.
There's some other interesting news that's very sad to hear, if we look at the satellite picture again. We've talked a lot about St. Bernard Parish. I want to remind everybody where that is. This is New Orleans proper over here, with the French Quarter and the Superdome, all of that. But if you go into this area over here, this is getting into St. Bernard Parish, Chalmette, Arabi, working class neighborhoods here.
A levee broke right up in here, and a lot of water filled into this area, along with water coming in from Lake Borgne over here, and from Lake Pontchartrain up north here. It came in here, here and here. And now, we're getting word that an awful lot of the homes in St. Bernard are simply going to have to be bulldozed because they had so, so much damage to them. And clearly, a lot of fatalities in that area.
What is emerging, very much, is a tale of east side/west side in this. This is the east side of town with all this damage. But when you move over here, with all the reports of Metairie and Kenner, big suburbs out here, and out of uptown, which is this area right in here, which is the old New Orleans part, and the French Quarter and downtown, limited damage there. That area will be bouncing back. A lot of people there are getting quite eager to go home right now, because they think it's about time they get back there, whereas folks in St. Bernard are going to have a much longer haul of it.
BLITZER: We'll continue to watch these live pictures. You see these areas of New Orleans still remain under water. About 40 or 50 percent of the city now estimated to be under water. That's impressive, given the fact that only a few days ago, 80 percent of New Orleans was under water. The latest official death toll in Louisiana that we're getting, Tom, is 423 deaths. That's a lot of people dead in Louisiana, but it's not close to the 10,000 that had originally been feared.
This is the University of New Orleans, lakefront campus that we're seeing right now. That's the picture. You're familiar with that university. You worked in New Orleans for several years. You know the area quite well. Maybe you can locate it on the map and show our viewers where that is?
FOREMAN: UNO is out right in this area. This is the lakefront of the -- of Lake Pontchartain. UNO is located out there. Very popular campus with a lot of people. This, by the way, is one of the smaller airports that was used for a lot of people flying small, one-seater planes, also on the lakefront. This area was hit very, very hard. This is UNO right over here, the university we're looking at. Hit very...
BLITZER: That's the University of New Orleans. FOREMAN: Right, exactly. University of New Orleans, on the lakefront there. And UNO did strike a very good deal, as I understand it, up in Baton Rouge, where many of their professors...
BLITZER: Check out the -- check out the campus.
FOREMAN: ... many of their students will be going up there. Yes, this was a very growing concern here. A lot of students there, a lot of adult students, as you would expect -- people who wanted to go back and get extended degrees or more education who were in the workplace. So that's an important place to get back up and running again. And the damage there is, I'm told, not really insurmountable. They had several feet of water, but it's the kind of thing they can clean up and repair and get the campus up and running again. Not sure how soon they can do that.
Although, among the schools that we're actually considered about here is also Tulane and Loyola. They're in the uptown area. They were not hit real hard. That's this area of town over here. This is Audubon Park, which is the big park right there. Tulane and Loyola are right here uptown.
Tulane one of the biggest private employers in New Orleans. There's about 5,000 people working there. So the Tulane people are working very hard to get up and running again. And their students, of course, are scattered all over the place. But I talked to one just this weekend who said she had been at Tulane two days, moved all her stuff in, went away, hasn't been able to go back yet. But she's absolutely committed to -- saying the minute they say she can come back, she's going to rush right back down there and go to school.
BLITZER: But based on everything I'm hearing, those universities, whether the University of New Orleans or Loyola or Tulane University, their students are just, by and large, trying to get into some other campuses in their hometowns. A lot of the kids, for example, in the Washington, D.C. area who were at Tulane are now studying at Georgetown or George Washington or American University, University of Maryland. I assume that's happening at so many other parts of the country, as well.
FOREMAN: And many schools have extended terrific deals to these kids -- under the circumstances, you call them terrific -- where they have said, come to our campus. You're not going to pay any extra fees, you're going to come to school here. You've suffered enough. We'll make it work in the meantime.
Interestingly enough, some of the professors who were chased out of New Orleans have gone to other schools, where they've also been taken in to teach courses, because the academic community all over this country realizes this is a big problem, and they'll try to help these people out, and then see if it's next semester or the next semester before they can go back.
BLITZER: Let's take a look at this new video that's coming in and see if we can get a better handle on what's going on. You see the flood water right there and you see some rescue workers. It looks like they have some supplies in those little motorboats that they're trying to deal with some sort of situation. I don't know if you have a better handle on what -- you see in the middle of the screen there, you see an individual being carried on the back of a rescue worker. What do you sense is going on, Tom?
FOREMAN: I can't make much of what's going on here, but I will tell you what matters to me about what's going on here, look how low this water is. We're talking about areas in this town. We didn't see a whole lot of pictures -- not that long ago, we were seeing nothing but water that was four, five, six, seven feet deep.
Now you're starting to see these pictures which, frankly, when I lived in New Orleans, often you had just a big rainstorm and if one of pumps that surround the city for some reason gave out, you would see this kind of flooding. Not as wide as that, but you'd see some areas of flooding like this. So this is actually very encouraging stuff to people who live there. They've all said to me, every time we see those shots of the water pumping out, that's what excites them.
And now, what are we hearing? A few weeks maybe before most of the town is dry. That's a big improvement over a week ago when we were still being told maybe two months.
BLITZER: They have to still make a decision -- the authorities, federal, state, local -- on the long-term fix for New Orleans. And just to remind our viewers, this is a city below sea level. And even if they start rebuilding the homes and getting the workers to come back to their offices into their plants, they have to figure out how they're going to deal with potential floods down the road in case another hurricane makes its way across the Gulf of Mexico.
FOREMAN: And I'm not sure, Wolf, in the grand scheme of things, what can be done about that, other than massive rebuilding of the levees and considerably higher than they were. That kind of project is not going to be accomplished in six months. That's going to involve years, many, many millions of dollars and some luck. Because while that's happening, you don't want another storm to come up and hit the city and undo all the work that's being done.
You've got a big area -- when you look at this town, look at how many neighborhoods we have seen in the course of this, huge area with a lot of water running through canals, and bayous, and rivers, and marsh lands nearby, all of which has to be addressed. One of the problems in New Orleans East, one of the reasons flooding happened there is because the levees there were lower than they were elsewhere. All of that has to be built up.
BLITZER: And let me just remind our viewers, we are also expecting the Louisiana attorney general to make some sort of announcement pretty soon on what may have happened at St. Rita's Nursing Home.
You're familiar with this story, Tom. Give our viewers a little background on what happened in the past few days there.
FOREMAN: Well, what happened at St. Rita's -- I'll show you once again where St. Rita's is. If you move down the river from New Orleans, this is the French Quarter in New Orleans, this whole area in here. If you move down the river from that -- I will see if I can rotate us around. here and just show us what we're talking about.
If you go and move down this river, you can get to where St. Rita's is. This is New Orleans now, and I start moving this way, you'll see that St. Rita's is down around this bend further south of town. It's actually not terribly far from where the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station is, right there, where they've been staging a lot of rescue operations.
It's right down here south of town. You can see from this angle how low this area is, how close Lake Borgne is and look at all the marshland all around it here. All of that was coming up this way as the storm came in, and St. Rita's was right in this area right here, so you can see what it was surrounded by.
The question being, why were more than 30 of the residents ultimately left there to fend for themselves? All signs are they did try to fend for themselves, tried to seal off the windows, seal off the doors, but you can't stop water like that. The water came in, apparently went all the way up to the ceiling and those people died there.
So the big question the attorney general and everybody else are asking down there, why in the end did those people stay? Did they stay because there really was no other way? Or did they stay because somebody dropped the ball -- somebody who was supposed to get them out, supposed to look after them, did they not do their jobs?
BLITZER: All right. Stand by for a moment. We're getting a new update on Tropical Storm Ophelia right now. Jacqui Jeras, our meteorologist, is just getting that information. What are we learning Jacqui?
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's been upgraded to a hurricane again, Wolf. This is Hurricane Ophelia now. The winds are around 75 miles per hour. The hurricane hunters flew into the storm and found a small area with surface winds around 75 miles per hour on the northwest side of the storm, so Ophelia still not making up its mind. It's now a hurricane, 75 mile per hour winds. Wolf.
BLITZER: All right, Jacqui. Thank you very much. It's going back and forth. Hurricane, tropical storm, now back to hurricane, 75 miles an hour. People in the Carolinas have to watch that very closely. We will as well.
We're going to take another short break. Much more of our coverage.
We are watching what's happening in the state of emergency in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
We're watching now Hurricane Ophelia as well.
Also the Senate Judiciary Committee resuming hearings, questioning of John Roberts to be the Chief Justice of the United States.
We're here in THE SITUATION ROOM watching all these stories. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: We're watching the hearings, the confirmation hearings of John Roberts to be the chief justice of the United States before the Senate Judiciary Committee. These hearings have been going on since 9:30 this morning. They are going to on for several more hours today and then, once again, all day tomorrow.
Let me start with Jeff Toobin, our senior legal analyst. Give us a few thoughts. What struck you today as significant?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: I think, as always with the court, abortion and politics is at the center of people's concerns. Right off the bat, Arlen Specter asked about Roe v. Wade and about the right to privacy. And John Roberts, somewhat surprisingly at least to me, quickly and rather enthusiastically embraced the concept of a right to privacy in the Constitution, said it's been interpreted that way for 80 years in the Supreme Court. He did not necessarily say that it extends to include a woman's right to choose abortion.
BLITZER: But explain to our viewers that are not intimately familiar with the nuances here, why should that be surprising that he supports the right to privacy?
TOOBIN: Conservatives in legal circles have said for a long time, the words right to privacy-- words do not exist in the United States Constitution. They aren't there. So there's no reason to interpret a right to privacy, so there is no way to find a right to a woman's -- to choose abortion.
BLITZER: And the significance is that the position he took today could be different than some of the other current members of Supreme Court.
TOOBIN: Robert Bork was defeated in 1987 in large part because he said there was no right to privacy in the Constitution. Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- and to a certain extent William Rehnquist -- have made their judicial careers saying there that is no right to privacy in the Constitution. So, Roberts appears to be staking out a position somewhat to their left.
BLITZER: So let me bring Jeff Greenfield in. So if moderates are looking for some hopeful signs about John Roberts, this presumably would be one?
JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SENIOR ANALYST: Yes. But here's where I'm a little more hesitant. The key to this is that this began in 1965 when the court said to Connecticut, you can't ban married people from using contraceptives. Two of the judges on that Supreme Court said this is really is a stupid law, but we can't find anything in the Constitution that would prohibit it. We can't find this right of privacy. But in '73, the court said this right of privacy protects a woman's right to an abortion. And a year-and-half-ago, this court said this right to privacy means a state can't punish heterosexual or homosexual sodomy.
And Justice Scalia in an incendiary dissent I think it's fair to say, said, you know what? If this is your definition of what the Constitution protects, it also mandates gay marriage, more or less, and it bars all laws based on moral disapproval, including prostitution and he listed a whole bunch. So that for a lot of the conservatives, the judicial conservatives, the idea of the right of privacy has led to the creation, in their view, of rights that you can't find really in the Constitution.
Mr. Toobin and others might see what Justice Roberts -- what the future Justice Roberts said today as a hint about Roe v. Wade. I thought he was careful to talk about the right of privacy in a way a little different from what the more liberal justices had done.
BLITZER: The other issue that came up, the -- whether some of the other issues including Roe versus. Wade, the abortion decision, may be settled -- may already be a settled matter. And he did stake out a position on that. He was pretty forthcoming on that.
TOOBIN: Again, starting with the questioning of Arlen Specter first thing in the morning, Specter made the point that Roe v. Wade has been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court 38 times. He brought a big chart to that effect. And he said, you know, you believe in precedent, don't you? Doesn't this tell you that Roe is settled precedent and should be affirmed?
And Roberts again, didn't go that far as to say well, it's settled and I'm not going to disturb it, but he did rather enthusiastically say precedent is very important. And even if you disagree with the underlying decision, sometimes -- not always -- sometimes it's important to have stability in the law, have people's settled expectations met. So precedent is a very important factor.
BLITZER: The nominee, John Roberts is 50 years old. He's a Harvard Law School graduate. He's now being questioned by Senator Russ Feingold who's 52 years old. Both, by the way, went to Harvard Law School at the same time, the senator questioning John Roberts right now.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
JUDGE JOHN ROBERTS, NOMINEE, CHIEF JUSTICE, U.S. SUPREME COURT: You've touched upon an area in which I cannot comment under the -- that case is still pending. It's pending before the Supreme Court under the Judicial Canons of Ethics, Canon 3-A-6. I'm not supposed to comment publicly in any way about a case that's still pending.
SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD, (D) WISCONSIN: I'm not asking you to comment on the case. I'm asking you why you think somebody who I represent would care enough about this issue that they would say this should be disqualified? In other words, characterize what is the issue in the case that would make somebody that concerned that they would make such a statement?
ROBERTS: Well, the issue involves the same sort of issues that you began the discussion with -- the question of civil liberties in war time. And certainly I understand people having strong views on that particular question. But whether the decision on the merits was correctly resolved or not or anything about it, I'm just absolutely prohibited from talking about it by those Judicial Canons. There's even an advisory opinion that explains that that Canon applies to Senate confirmation hearings. So my ethical obligation not to comment publicly on a case that's still pending prevents me from saying anything more.
FEINGOLD: Of course, I respect your judgment on these matters. But I believe that it's important that a nominee indicate a sense of why people in this country might have some anxiety at this point about the difficult events that have occurred since September 11 and how it creates a climate sometimes of fear, in particular, fear of government --
BLITZER: All right. We're going to take a quick break from this hearing. I want to go to Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- the attorney general of Louisiana making a statement on that St. Rita's Nursing Home case where several dozen bodies were found.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
CHARLES FOTI, LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL: ... still going through this process. We've asked for family, workers, witnesses to come forward as part of initial press release that we released maybe a week or so ago. Some people did come forward and we're still questioning them (ph).
On recovery and arrival at the nursing home, we recovered 34 bodies. Now, there was -- there's some discrepancy between was there 32, but we do have 34 bodies in the process of trying to be identified. Those other bodies could be family members. They could be someone who took refuge. But if we know that a great majority of the nursing home patients were still there.
Because of all of these facts -- and I'm not at liberty at this time to go into everything that we know, we prepared an arrest warrant that was signed by a judge in St. Bernard Parish. We talked to their lawyer and today they have turned themselves in and are currently incarcerated while awaiting whatever bond procedures will happen at the East Baton Rouge Parish Jail. They are charged with 34 counts of voluntary -- involuntary homicide.
Now this does not mean they're guilty. Obviously, everybody around knows that that's a charge. Persons are only guilty after a trial of the facts. Part of the problem, we have -- we feel we have criminal negligence -- whether they did not follow the standard of care that a reasonable person would follow in a similar circumstance. Because of these facts, we presented the arrest warrant to the judge. The judge read the arrest warrant, and felt that we had alleged enough facts that we could proceed to the next step, which is the arrest of these people. I'd like to say our nurses -- there's a hospital that some people died in. We are going to investigate that also. And that happened in the city of New Orleans. OK? The duty that the state owes to the people is to make sure -- to preserve and to protect their life. When you as a son or daughter, granddaughter, grandson, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, put someone in a nursing home or any hospital, you expect them to receive reasonable care to care for their life and provide for their medical needs. When you accept that patient, you have a duty and a standard of care to provide to these people. In this case, we felt it was not done. The determination of that will be by a court of law, as it should be.
But I also wanted to reemphasize a warning, that we will investigate each and every one, and will not hesitate, either civilly or criminally, to bring a prosecution or file a lawsuit to protect the interests of our senior citizens and those people that are not able to care for themselves that need round the clock care.
The pathetic thing is, in this case, once again, is that they were asked if they wanted to move them. They refused to move them. They had a contract to move them. They did not. They were warned repeatedly both by the media and by the St. Bernard Parish emergency preparation people that the storm was coming. In effect, they resulted -- I think that the action resulted in the death -- their inaction resulted in the death of these people.
I can't really answer too many questions, because this case is in a trial phase. But I wanted you to know about it, and I wanted also for you to sort of spread the word that in any other hospital or nursing home or care facility that we have where people feel that there's some problems, we will investigate and take the necessary and appropriate action to protect a patient, and to safeguard the family members to feel that they're getting the type of care that their parents or their loved ones or their friends are getting the type of care that's needed. I will try to answer any questions.
QUESTION: All right. What's the max they can face?
FOTI: I actually did not look at it. I guess -- Chip Coulter from my office will tell you that. This case has disturbed me so much. I mean, my father just died in May this year. He was 93 years old. And I know that the grieving I went through was (ph) and just really not over it. But to think that those family members are people that could have been saved, I mean, they may have undergone some hardships and there may be stress, but they would be safe. And there was a great possibility that they would be alive today.
So I really didn't look at those normal things, that you say. You know, we're going to get them or do anything right, because that's not really the point. The point is I feel a deep empathy, just as you would feel, if that was your parent or your sister or brother that you couldn't care for -- but you loved. And you put them someplace for safeguard. And so that is the reason why we did it.
(CROSSTALK)
FOTI: I'm sorry.
QUESTION: The people who perished, were there any ones who survived in the nursing homes? Or did everyone --
FOTI: No. There's one case where a relative went to it and said the water came up all at once, and he grabbed a mattress, and he and his, whether his father or grandfather, floated out and were rescued. So there were people that survived from that. We're sorting through that now, because of the great difficulties of communication with St. Bernard Parish, their isolation. In point of fact, as a parish, St. Bernard Parish suffered worse than anybody else.
I mean Orleans Parish has all the news, and I'm from Orleans Parish, and you know you can understand. But we have potentially that whole parish that was wiped out. I mean, the parish president said the other day there's not a house that's inhabitable there. So there is also -- they had a problem with one of the plants that was there, other kind of contamination. You have everybody in St. Bernard Parish is now displaced. And that is really a truly tragic event for those men and women and children that lived there.
QUESTION: About tenant health care, are we there, I know you said you were investigating --
BLITZER: All right. We're going to break away from this news conference. The attorney general of Louisiana announcing two individuals, the owners of St. Rita's Nursing Home, charged 34 counts of involuntary homicide -- criminal negligence.
Our Mary Snow is outside. She's in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, right now. Mary, fill in our viewers on the background a little bit.
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the bodies had been discovered last week. And what the attorney general had indicated in previous days is that what was holding up this investigation was the fact that they could not find the owners. The attorney general's office had said on Friday that they had appealed to the owners to come forward. And then he made an indication yesterday that things were moving along, saying that both those owners turned themselves in this afternoon. A truly disturbing and horrifying find by searchers last week.
And if you didn't hear the attorney general say this, he also said that he is going to investigate the deaths at a New Orleans hospital. I believe there were 42 bodies discovered at that hospital. And he said if there are any other large amount of deaths at a health care facility, that they too will be investigated.
Wolf.
BLITZER: All right. Mary, thank you very much. Mary Snow is in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for us.
Jeff Toobin is our senior legal analyst. Give our viewers a little sense of what that means, involuntary homicide, criminal negligence, 34 counts specifically referring to the 34 bodies that have been retrieved from that St. Rita's Nursing Home.
TOOBIN: Every state has somewhat different laws regarding these kind of crimes. But the general idea here, when you hear the term negligence is a lack of care, a lack of reasonable behavior on the part of the owners here. It is not murder. It is not intentionally killing these people, but it is not doing what the law requires, which, according to the government's charge, is so bad that it's a crime.
And, you know, obviously, the staggering number of deaths is something that would make this much worse because, you know, you should certainly take a certain amount of care if you are responsible for 32 or 34 people.
BLITZER: This is new video, by the way, that's coming in right now, video you see behind me. Along the coast of New Orleans, you see a military -- I believe that's a military vessel there. Maybe it's not. But what is that?
Maybe it's a casino that has been moved off the -- this is Biloxi in Gulfport, Mississippi, along the Mississippi coast. That's one of those casinos that simply was rocked off of its base in that -- along that Mississippi coast.
Jeff Greenfield, the president will be delivering an address to the nation Thursday night from Louisiana at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. And today at that news conference, he announced that he taking full responsibility. "I take full responsibility" he says, for the mistakes that were made. How do you think that's going to play?
GREENFIELD: I was thinking about this because there's a tradition when things go really bad for the people in charge to sometimes either do it or not. And I was thinking in past cases after the Iran-Contra story, Ronald Reagan unusually said, I take responsibility for this.
It's unusual because a lot of times what politicians say is, mistakes were made. And the passive -- the way that is said passively leaves out the pronoun. I made mistakes. I remember in 1969, in a tough mayoral re-election campaign, John Lindsay of New York cut commercials where he used the phrase, you know, that was a mistake -- a way to acknowledge to people, look, I'm not going to try to pretend nothing bad happened.
And I think part of the beginning of rehabilitation, if that's the right way to put it -- the federal government's reputation and the administration's -- is to flat out do this.
You remember when Janet Reno stepped forward and said I accept responsibility in the wake of the Waco disaster, where 93 people were killed. She actually got points for that. Some people might have thought, well, maybe that meant she should resign.
So the idea of somebody stepping up and taking responsibility is seen by a lot of people as act of leadership, but in this case, I think this is what happens.
TOOBIN: Jeff, is the president saying, I take responsibility? Or is he saying I made mistakes? Is there a difference?
GREENFIELD: He said, "I take full responsibility" for whatever went wrong. Now, it's true that he didn't say I made mistakes. It's in the same sense that John Kennedy after the Bay of Pigs -- although in that case, it was his responsibility.
But I think it's a kind of a demand, whether it's the media demand or the political community, they want to hear leaders when something goes wrong say, I'm not passing the buck.
You remember the famous sign on Harry Truman's desk, the buck stops here? I think that's what he was saying.
BLITZER: All right. We're going to take another quick break. We're going to continue to watch this story, what's happening along the Gulf Coast.
It's now Hurricane Ophelia off the coast of the Carolinas. No longer a tropical storm, it's been upgraded to a hurricane. We're watching that. We're also watching the John Roberts confirmation hearings. Lots going on.
You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
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BLITZER: Welcome back. Tropical Storm Ophelia is now formally, officially, Hurricane Ophelia. It's off the coast of the Carolinas. This is the latest update that we're getting from the National Hurricane Center in Miami. We've got some live pictures I want to show our viewers.
This is South Carolina. You can see the surf beginning to get going and we're tracking Hurricane Ophelia right now. Just what the country doesn't need, another hurricane right now. Fortunately, relatively speaking, it's only a Category 1, about 75 to 80 miles an hour, which is a low Category 1 hurricane.
Now, let's go back to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican is asking questions of John Roberts. Let's listen in.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
ROBERTS: I learned a great deal, yes.
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: OK. So if I was trying to figure out who John Roberts is and a little bit about him, I will ask this question: Write the legacy of Justice Rehnquist for a minute or two. What would you say if given that task?
ROBERTS: Well, you know, I think if you were able to ask him, he would talk about being a grandfather, being a father...
GRAHAM: I'm asking you.
ROBERTS: ... being a husband.
GRAHAM: I'm asking you.
ROBERTS: But the important point is that those were important things in his life and he appreciated the need to recognize that those are the most important things. With respect to the law to which he devoted his professional life, I think a big part of the legacy that he leaves is a Supreme Court in which all of the members respected and admired him because of his fairness in administering the court and conducting the important responsibilities like managing the conference and assigning opinions.
GRAHAM: You can go back in history and look at what other chief justices did.
Some were -- in terms of that administrative responsibility -- some were disasters.
You look at Harlan Stone, his idea of running the conference, he said what he thought, then the next senior justice said what he thought. Then Justice Stone critiqued that. Then the next justice, and then Justice Stone critiqued that. And the result was the conferences went on for days and everybody ended up hating each other.
So he ran a good ship. I think we all agree with that. And his colleagues respected him, whether they disagreed with him or not.
But the basic question is, when you write about the legacy of a Supreme Court justice, you write more than about being a grandfather -- more about running a tight ship, especially chief justice. Would you agree with the idea that, from a conservative point of view, he was the gold standard?
ROBERTS: I think he was a very effective advocate on the bench for a view of the Constitution that is one of limited and separated powers.
GRAHAM: Do you share that view?
ROBERTS: I do. I think that the -- now, I have to tell you that whether as a judge on the court of appeals or if I am confirmed on the Supreme Court, I will certainly be my own man. And there are...
GRAHAM: No one is doubting that. No one is doubting that you will not try to be fair. But the big thing, 30,000-foot view of you, is that when you look at Judge Roberts, you're looking at someone in the mold of a Rehnquist. Is that a fair assessment?
ROBERTS: Well, you know, I admire the late chief justice very much. But I will have to insist that I will be my own man and I hesitate to be put in anybody's mold. And I would certainly approach the cases according to the judicial philosophy that I have developed over the years.
In many respects, it's similar to his, in its recognition, I think, of the limited role that judges should have, an appropriate modesty and humility, a recognition that...
GRAHAM: The idea of a dramatic departure under your watch from the Rehnquist era is probably not going to happen, is that true?
ROBERTS: Given my view of the role of a judge which focuses on appropriate modesty and humility, the notion of dramatic departures is not one that I would hold out much hope for.
GRAHAM: I know people don't like being labeled, "Put me in that category." But I'm in a business where people label me all the time. But I ask for it, I run for office.
But we do tend in our business of politics to try to label people, particularly when we're talking about judges.
When the president introduced you to the United States, to the people of the United States, he said you were a strict constructionist. Do you know what he meant by that and why he chose to use those words?
ROBERTS: Well, I hope what he meant by that is somebody who is going to be faithful to the text of the Constitution, to the intent of those who drafted it, while appreciating that sometimes the phrases they used, they were drafting a Constitution for the ages, to secure the blessings of liberty for their posterity. They were looking ahead. And so they often used phrases that they intended to have...
(CROSSTALK)
GRAHAM: Does that term make you feel uncomfortable?
ROBERTS: No.
GRAHAM: Now, from a 30,000-foot view of things, it seems to be that we're going to have a referendum on the Reagan era here, which I welcome. I sort of enjoyed it. He won 49 states. He did pretty good. You were part of the Reagan era as a young lawyer. When I use the word -- term -- Reagan revolution, what does it mean to you?
ROBERTS: Well, it means to me generally a change in attitude. President Reagan always presented an optimistic view. He always told us that the best days of our country were ahead of us. And he reasserted basic fundamental truths in areas like foreign relations. We are going to stand up to the Soviet Union. We're proud of our system of government. That's the right approach, not the Soviet approach. And people who have come of age after the Berlin Wall has fallen sometimes don't understand what it meant at that time.
GRAHAM: When it comes to the law, what does the term Reagan revolution mean to you?
ROBERTS: I think it means a belief that we should interpret the Constitution according to its terms -- that judges don't shape policy; that judges interpret the law and that legislators shape policy; that the executive branch executes the law.
GRAHAM: Does it also mean that when you talk about affirmative action and you set up a quota system, that's not right?
ROBERTS: President Reagan's policy was opposed to quotas, which were much more rigid at the time.
People need to appreciate 24 years ago, the idea of a quota was a rigid set-aside. We now have the recent Supreme Court decisions talking about consideration of particular factors as one factor in an affirmative action program.
President Reagan was in favor of affirmative action and he was opposed to quotas.
GRAHAM: When it comes to voting rights, as I understand -- and we talked a lot about it, and we probably know more than all of us ever dreamed we would know about the Voting Rights Act -- that you were implementing a policy of President Reagan that wanted to pass the Voting Rights Act in its form that you received it. Is that correct?
ROBERTS: The proposal was to extend it for the longest period in history without change.
GRAHAM: And we've been through a long discourse about the effect and intent test. I think you've explained yourself very well that the Supreme Court in the Mobile case said the intent test applies to Section 2. Is that right?
ROBERTS: Section 2.
GRAHAM: But politics took over after that, didn't it? Because the effect test no longer -- that's not the test. Isn't it some compromise between Senator Kennedy and Senator Dole?
ROBERTS: There was a compromise in the test under Section 2, which is articulated in a paragraph describing what the criteria are, including a caution that this should not be read to promote proportional representation, which was some of the concern that the attorney general and President Reagan had.
GRAHAM: So between Dole, Senator Kennedy and President Reagan, a new test was called the totality of the circumstances?
ROBERTS: Yes.
GRAHAM: Now, when you said that you -- Senator Kennedy said something I thought was very important: -- that courts should not stand in the way of elected officials who are trying to right wrongs.
And the point I'm trying to make here is that you were picked by a conservative president because you have associated yourself with the conservative administrations in the past, advising conservative presidents about conservative policies.
And there's another selection to be made, and you're going to get the same type person.
And you can -- I'm not even talking to you now. (LAUGHTER)
To expect anything else is just not fair. I don't expect -- I didn't expect President Clinton to pick you. It's not because you're not well-qualified, not because you're a good person; just a different political, legal philosophy.
Now, that's what we're going to have to come to grips with here.
Justice Scalia -- do you consider him conservative?
ROBERTS: Yes.
GRAHAM: Do you think you're more conservative than he is?
ROBERTS: Oh, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't...
GRAHAM: Well, he got 98 votes. And I think you're a conservative, but I think you're one of the great minds of our generation, of our time. And I'm dying to find out if you get any votes on the other side.
Time will tell.
BLITZER: All right, we're going to take a quick break. We'll continue to watch this hearing. We'll be right back.
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BLITZER: We're in THE SITUATION ROOM every weekday this time. We'll be back tomorrow, special time, 9:30 a.m. Eastern, for the resumption of the John Roberts confirmation hearings. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.
LOU DOBBS TONIGHT starts right now. Lou standing by in New York. Lou?
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