Posted on 06/18/2003 1:13:19 PM PDT by RAT Patrol
|
Denver Postal knight
The high cost of congeniality
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 - Rodney King, a famous victim of police brutality, once asked, "Can't we all just get along?" It is noteworthy, however, that King's congenial offer was made after he had sued the pants off the Los Angeles Police Department. That sequence of events is important and should be kept in mind here. The olive branch is often - even usually - offered after a score has been settled. The ongoing national battle over judicial nominees is at a stage where olive branches are decidedly premature. This immensely important battle over who should sit on the nation's courts has barely begun. If the country is lucky, the issue of judicial nominees will become even more prominent and play a big part in the 2004 general election, when one of the issues will be the control of the U.S. Senate, now narrowly in Republican hands. The judicial battle has already been joined. Just last week it was announced that Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., had written two letters to President Bush urging him to agree not to nominate a political conservative to fill the next vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Leahy, who once ran the Senate Judiciary Committee when it was an offshoot of NOW, NARAL and other left-wing lobbying groups, says "consensus should be our goal." Leahy has said a number of remarkably dumb things during his career, but few are dumber than the notion of seeking out a "consensus" choice for the next U.S. Supreme Court justice. Leahy's idea of a consensus candidate would be someone who would swear everlasting loyalty to NOW, NARAL and People for the American Way. He and other Democrats have waited far too long to offer an olive branch. They could have offered it by long ago approving the stalled nomination of Miguel Estrada to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or Priscilla Owen to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Instead, the Democrats in the Senate have effectively imposed a new 60-vote supermajority requirement on these nominations and threatened to use the filibuster on other nominations as well. Leahy might well become the poster boy for the passive-aggressive personality, but he has no standing whatsoever to be the mediator in the fight over judicial nominations. He is not only a combatant, he is a leader of the combatants. The Vermont senator has said, "The courts are the one part of government people yearn to believe is free of politics." What people? The Democrats who reflexively look to the courts to accomplish what the party can't accomplish in duly-elected lawmaking bodies? Leahy is certainly not speaking for Republicans who know full well that the makeup of the Supreme Court is a product of politics. The last two times that nominations to the Supreme Court failed to generate a huge political fight was when President Clinton appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the court. The only reason the filibuster wasn't employed and protests mounted was that the Republicans surrendered without a fight. The GOP, let it be noted, has had plenty of reason to regret those surrenders since. Ginsburg and Breyer have become reliable votes for the nation's political left. That is likely to be even more evident in the days ahead. Several key Supreme Court decisions will be handed down in the next two weeks, one of them dealing with the contentious issue of race-based preferences in higher education. It can safely be predicted that the court will be sharply divided on this issue. Why? Because it is not only a legal matter, it is a political matter. Leahy aside, no sensible person - for the last couple hundred years, anyway - could believe that the work of the Supreme Court is "nonpolitical." American society continues to entrust to the courts a whole variety of matters that could just as easily be decided in other forums. It does so in the everlasting hope that, over time, a proper balance on the courts can be maintained as Republican presidents alternate with Democratic presidents. What Leahy wants to do is abort that cycle by requiring Republican presidents to alter the nature of their appointments to please him and his party. That's insane! Al Knight of Fairplay (alknight@mindspring.com) ) is a former member of The Denver Post editorial-page staff. His columns appear on Wednesday.
|
The author lost me with this fictional sentence.
Leahy is demanding more power for the minority. This indicates that he expects his party to remain in the minority for the forseeable future!
I did read on, and it was a good article. Just wasn't impressed with the lead-off. :-)
Do you mean physical or moral?
I think I can find some room to take him out on a shark trip this summer...an extra 'chum' is always welcome.
;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.