Conservatives Hold Rally for Roberts
BLITZER: Welcome back. In the culture wars this Monday, the conservative group Progress for America announced a 14-state two-week tour promoting Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Roberts' friends, former colleagues and legal experts will barnstorm the country in the lead up to his confirmation hearings, schedule to begin September 6. Many Roberts supporters turned out yesterday for the church-based event Justice Sunday II. Let's bring in our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley, who's watching all of this. That event did not necessarily turn out to be all about Judge Roberts, did it?</s>CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It didn't. It started out long ago, it was sort of conceptualized as a time to talk about Judge Roberts. The problem has been along the way, as you know, there have been a couple things that have become worrisome to conservatives in the party. We certainly didn't hear any negative John Roberts talk, but we heard things like, well, it would appear that he's non-controversial, or so far he seems to be all right. Obviously, there were some on the right that were concerned about the news that John Roberts did some pro bono work for a gay rights group that won a landmark Supreme Court decision, but I think it's more what they don't know at this point. So there's some caution there that perhaps there wasn't before. They're waiting on the hearings. They certainly weren't opposed to him, but this was not a rah, rah. Let's all go do it for John Roberts.</s>BLITZER: So there's some concern, at least there's some concern he could be, from their perspective, another Justice Souter, David Souter, someone who -- who went in with high expectations from the conservative perspective but didn't turn out like that.</s>CROWLEY: Exactly. I mean, there's some hesitation there. It's pretty clear.</s>BLITZER: What about the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist? He was so prominent at this first rally they had -- it was only about a month or so ago. At this one, I take it he was invisible?</s>CROWLEY: Wasn't there as a matter of fact. Look, certainly if we extrapolate here, what we find is that Bill Frist did go to Justice Sunday I. It created quite a controversy, as a matter of fact. But he obviously, if he runs for president, this has been a man that has courted the conservative part of the -- conservative Christian part of his party. He then comes out and takes a new position on stem cell research, allowing broader embryonic stem cell research than most conservatives, many in this group, would like. He doesn't come to this one. Now what are we told? We're told, well, he was at the last one, so he didn't really need to be at this one. But you can certainly read in that and don't even have to extrapolate, because they said beforehand they're very unhappy with Senator Frist about the stem cell research decision.</s>BLITZER: Do they have plans for a third such rally? Or is this it?</s>CROWLEY: I can imagine they do have plans, but right now I'm not sure they're on the drawing board.</s>BLITZER: Thanks very much, Candy. It's been a rough year politically for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Will new allegations make it even rougher? Coming up, we'll go live to Los Angeles for what could be the California governor's newest political problem. And hail to the saxophonist. The former president, Bill Clinton, putting out his own CD. That's right. We'll tell you what tunes are on the disk. And later, this woman making history over at the White House. There she is. We'll tell you what's going on.