Posted on 05/12/2005 7:12:21 AM PDT by mathprof
The main liberal criticism of Justice Priscilla Owen, who will likely be the test case for the Democrats' judicial filibuster, is the allegation that fellow-justice Alberto Gonzalez once accused her, in a court opinion, of "judicial activism." We conclusively refuted that claim here. Gonzales did not so refer to Owen's dissent--as he has repeatedly said--and, more important, it would be absurd for anyone to claim that Owen's dissent, which deferred to the fact-finding by the trial court, and advocated affirming the judgment of the trial court, as previously affirmed by the Texas Court of Appeals, was somehow a case of "judicial activism."
Today we got this email from Mark Arnold, one of the top appellate lawyers in the United States, and a Power Line reader:
When Schumer first announced that the Democrats planned to focus on the record of judicial nominees, and oppose only those that were too extreme, my reaction was that it was a lot more fair than the tactics they used on Thomas -- if it were honestly carried out. I finally got around to reading the Gonzales concurrence and the Owen dissent in Doe, and you are absolutely right. No honest person could possibly think that his judicial activism shot was aimed at her dissent. That dissent had nothing to do with what the statute meant.
No competent lawyer could read Gonzales' opinion as a rebuke of "judicial activism" on the part of Justice Owen. Yet the mainstream media have consistently repeated as a "fact" the Democratic talking point that Gonzales so criticized Justice Owen. This is an extreme case of journalistic malpractice. And, without this absurd fabrication, the Democrats have nothing to justify their fiibuster of Justice Owen. Is anyone in the mainstream media paying attention to what top legal experts are telling them?
The fundamental fact is that, to "liberals", the facts don't matter. The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR. Another way of putting it is that "there is no such thing as 'the long run'." That is, "in the long run" - when the chickens threaten to come to roost - we will change the subject.Changing the subject is the fundamental propaganda power of the Establishment which is Objective JournalismTM; what an acolyte of the Establishment said yesterday need not, as the Clinton mouthpieces used to say during the troubles (1993-2001), be "operative" today.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate
Even if you take the allegation of "judicial activism" as true, the nerve of them to criticize her for it is laughable. Anyone can see right through this. What a joke. The Dims have lost this fight, and I think we will see a Constitutional rule change sooner rather than later.
The slimey democrats crooks do not like her because she is not malleable and will not to their bidding nor kowtows to their insane hate against our Constitution and Bill of Rights.
editing submitted for your review...
"... the mainstream media have consistently repeated as a 'fact'"
And .. the media is counting on the public being too stupid to figure it out - after all we're just a bunch of Bible-thumping Jesus-freaks - and how could we ever figure out how to find the texts of those court proceedings.
Well, of course - but I have reference to the fact that political power grows out ofthe barrel of a gunmass media. Or as Hayek put it, socialism is the death of truth.
It makes no difference what "top legal experts are telling them". In their mind, the Democrats must win and the Republicans (and Priscilla Owen) must be defeated.
That is the MSM's "value system".
Dick Lugar is on C-Span right now and he's so boring and goofy I THINK I'M GOING TO THROW UP. It's about John Bolton. I can't stand it.
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