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Maybe you are right. But it really sounds more like it's Kool-Aid talking . . . |
Posted on 05/20/2004 10:13:51 PM PDT by dts32041
If it were not for his fondness for tax cuts, and his pursuit, however flawed, of the ongoing war on terror, I can't for the life of me think of a good reason to vote for George Bush this November. OK .. The Poodle's name on the ballot would be a fairly good reason .. though I'm not sure reason enough.
You've probably heard by now, but George Bush has once again managed the nearly impossible physical feat of handing his head to the Democrats ... again. He gave up; ran for the hills; threw in the towel; bailed. Tragically, didn't really get anything of real value for his craven surrender. He gave the Democrats almost a complete victory.
The issue this time is the nomination and confirmation process for federal judges. Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution grants to the president the authority to appoint federal judges “with the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” Every legal scholar not employed by Harvard of the Senate Judiciary Committee will tell you that a majority vote in the Senate would constitute consent. The president makes his choice; the nomination goes to the Senate, and the Senate votes. If a majority votes for confirmation, we have a new federal judge.
That was then, this is now. When the Democrats lost control of the Senate in the 2002 elections they decided that a simple majority vote would no longer be good enough to confirm a judicial appointee. Over the years leftists have depended on judicial activism and fiat to enact much of their agenda. The future of their anti-individualist, big-government designs depend largely on the left's ability to keep Constitutionally oriented judges off the federal bench. Since they didn't have a Senate majority, they needed a new rule. To keep constitutionalists off the bench Daschle and Company decided to change the Constitution to require a super-majority for a judicial confirmation. Sixty votes. No less.
Does Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 provide for a super majority in any Senate proceedings Yes, but just one; the ratification of treaties. So there goes your argument that there is nothing wrong with requiring 60 votes to confirm a judicial nomination.
For two years now Daschle and Company have been preventing votes on the floor of the Senate for confirmation of many of Bush's judicial nominees. Never before in our history has a minority party prevented confirmation votes on judicial nominees that had the necessary majority vote waiting for them.
Never. The Democrats were showing a crass level of complete disrespect for the Constitution of the United States and for years of Senate tradition. We shouldn't be surprised, though. When it comes to reacquiring their Senate power, it is clear that neither the Constitution nor the successful conclusion to our war against terrorism and the restructuring of Iraq can be allowed to stand in the way.
As it turns out, the Constitution gives the president a bit of an out when the Senate is acting up like this. Move on to Clause 3. The president can make recess appointments. This Bush did with two judicial nominees that the Democrats had filibustered, Pryor and Pickering. You must know that this didn't sit too well with Daschle and Company. How dare the President of the United States use a constitutional procedure to prevent them from blocking a confirmation vote? Their response? They proceeded to bring virtually all presidential nominations, even the ones they liked, to a complete standstill.
Let's review here. I'm not trying to waste space, but there may be Democrats reading this column. In government schools, we must be careful not to leave them behind when we get into even the most moderately complicated situations. We will call this "back up and repeat essential points" as the "No Liberal Left Behind style of writing.
A. The Democrats modify the Constitution by requiring a super-majority vote for the confirmation of certain judicial nominees.
B. The president responds by using the perfect constitutionally legitimate exercise of making a recess appointment.
C. The Democrats, outraged at the president's legal use of his Constitutional authority, bring nearly all Senate business to a halt in retaliation.
D. The president promises to stop any further recess appointments during this term if the Senators will only do the job they were elected to do.
This is leadership When George W. Bush was sworn in he swore an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Just how are you preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution when you promise to stop using a constitutionally legitimate procedure to prevent political opponents from defying the Constitution.. and for this we get a quick confirmation of about 27 judicial nominees whom the Democrats didn&'t object to in the first place Wow!; What a deal!
Senate Democrats must be getting a real chuckle out of this in their private gatherings. Time after time they have rolled George Bush. Protectionist trade rules for the steel industry, obscene spending increases for hopeless government schools, even the left's current political showpiece of the 9/11 Commission hearings.
Neal Boortz loves Neal Boortz!
FOR ALL OF US HERE WHO WENT CRAZY WHEN BONNY FRANK USED HIS APT AS A SEX SHOP, PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE AS OUR CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT ALLOWS SUCH ACTIVITIES IN OUR AMBASSY IN ROMANIA.
The foreign service goes limp. Bush appoints a flaming fag as embassador to Romania!!!!
As U.S. Ambassador Michael Guest prepares to end his mission to Romania later this year, retrospectives on his service are likely to accentuate the positive. Under his watch, the government in Bucharest remained firmly in the “New Europe” camp: Romania contributed troops to the Iraq War, joined NATO, and was usually strongly aligned with America.
But other observers of his tenure paint a less glowing picture, believing that a changing of the guard at the U.S. embassy is long overdue. Guest’s critics charge that his ambassadorship has sent a different message abroad than most Americans would care to transmit, exporting not democracy or free markets but the sexual revolution.
When Bill Clinton selected the homosexual hot dog heir James Hormel to become ambassador to Luxembourg, it was a highly controversial move. Senate Republican leaders placed a hold on the nomination and forced Clinton to grant Hormel the assignment through a recess appointment. However, criticism of George W. Bush for appointing Guest, an openly gay man, to the post of ambassador to Romania was muted. While party loyalty was a major factor in this contrast, it was also the case that some senators objected to Hormel not due to his sexual orientation as such but rather because he was considered likely to use his ambassadorship as a government-sanctioned platform for gay-rights advocacy. There were no similar concerns about Guest, who was a 20-year career diplomat, lifelong Republican, and former Reagan administration press aide.
Yet some Americans serving their country in Romania contend that a transformation in the embassy’s culture took place nevertheless. As the gay marriage debate raged at home, taxpayers began to foot the bill for a de facto civil union in Bucharest.
When Guest was sworn in, Secretary of State Colin Powell recognized his male partner, Alex Nevarez, during the ceremony. Nevarez traveled to Romania with the new ambassador and moved in to live with him at the official diplomatic residence. He accompanied Guest as he presented his credentials to Romanian President Ion Iliescu.
Nevarez was an active participant in both formal and informal embassy events, where he would be introduced to attendees as Guest’s partner. Insiders recalled him attending a Marine Corps ball with the ambassador (something that would have been impermissible for the Marines themselves) and being mentioned in invitations, including a draft of one to be sent for a Fourth of July party at the ambassador’s residence.
All of this would have raised eyebrows as recently as the Clinton administration. One of the main arguments against Hormel was that his lifestyle would offend the Roman Catholic majority in his receiving country. The Orthodox Christians who predominate in Romania have also traditionally disapproved of homosexuality, yet our government sent them an ambassador whose partner is treated as the equivalent of a spouse.
This cultural innovation was not without impact on embassy staff. Cdr. William Dempsey was a career naval officer serving in Bucharest as chief of the Office of Defense Cooperation, managing $40 million in U.S. assistance to the Romanian armed forces. A devout Evangelical Christian and father of five, he had been accustomed to his post being a family-friendly environment. After Guest began his mission, the persistent recognition and endorsement of same-sex partners prevented him from participating in certain events to avoid having to explain homosexuality to his young children.
Dempsey met with Guest to discuss his concerns and identify himself as a source for a January 2002 Family Research Council newsletter article critical of gay activism at the embassy. Guest had reportedly told his staff members that he knew his homosexuality would invite some controversy and was willing to talk to people who were concerned.
Dempsey recalls that the two men had a civil conversation about these issues and the ambassador asserted that he was not interested in promoting any type of “homosexual agenda.” Dempsey told Guest that it was less a matter of his intentions than the tone his behavior set, arguing “as the ambassador, you are the agenda.”
Others put it more strongly. “Suddenly it was like there was a club running things,” said one Foreign Service veteran who had been stationed there. “If you weren’t part of the gay clique, you did not belong.”
According to these observers, Guest’s presence made Bucharest a more attractive assignment for other gays in the Foreign Service. They report that other people’s partners were recognized at embassy events alongside men’s wives and women’s husbands. Advertisements for the annual Christmas party invited not just spouses but partners. Guest set a precedent that would be followed by others, with the cumulative result of lending government support to positions taken by gay-rights advocates.
To be sure, the U.S. embassy in Bucharest under Guest is not the only place where officials grapple with the issues surrounding diplomats and their same-sex partners. A national organization, Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies, lists “increasing opportunities for same-sex partners accompanying personnel on assignment overseas” and securing taxpayer-funded health insurance and benefits for the “partners and children of lesbian and gay employees” in its mission statement. Colin Powell has met personally with GLIFAA representatives. Although the electorate continues to debate the merits of government-sanctioned domestic partnerships, they are increasingly supporting them with their tax dollars among government employees.
But the environment in Bucharest does demonstrate the extent to which official recognition of such partnerships has institutional support within the government despite disagreement among the general public. Some Americans posted there felt that it was not feasible to challenge these new practices involving diplomats’ same-sex partners and would therefore not register their complaints.
For his part, a few months after Dempsey made his objections known, he was informed that he would be moved out of Bucharest early. Despite receiving the highest possible marks on his last performance evaluation, conducted before Guest arrived in Romania, he was told verbally that he had become “disruptive to the collegial atmosphere” at the embassy. Officially, however, his reassignment was not attributed to his criticisms of Guest, and Dempsey emphasizes that there was never any formal reprimand or penalty against him.
Others who have worked in Bucharest claim that the cultural shift at the embassy was not limited to the formal approval of same-sex relationships and make graver charges. These witnesses claim that promiscuity among some Americans stationed in Romania increased to levels that threatened to jeopardize the mission’s reputation and subject U.S. government employees to blackmail. They stated that some diplomats were engaging in homosexual relations with Romanian citizens and other foreign nationals.
Such dalliances led some to ridicule the U.S. diplomatic presence in Romania as the “pink embassy” and the “Bucharest bathhouse.” A letter sent by a group of Romanian NGOs and individuals to President Bush and Secretary Powell in January named high-level appointees responsible for having “transformed the U.S. diplomatic addresses in to havens of debauchery,” and further alleges that “(b)ased on reports and pornographic photos circulating around newspapers…” they “… use their privileged positions to corrupt young Romanians, paying them for sexual relations, by both cash and visas to the U.S.” The signatories of this letter include the Union of War Veterans, the National League of December 1989 Combatants, and three former Romanian parliament members.
An erstwhile gay lover of a former high-ranking official at the USAID mission in Bucharest has described such conduct in a sworn statement. He says that he lived with this official for four years in his government housing under the guise of serving as household help. There he claims to have witnessed U.S. government employees engaged in lewd acts and entering into other compromising positions.
According to his deposition, these acts included multiple sexual encounters with young Romanian men, some of whom may have been minors. The high-ranking USAID official’s taxpayer-provided residence was said to be the site of wild sexually charged parties where participants allegedly used drugs and viewed pornography. He states that this official has made sexually explicit photographs of himself available on the Internet. He accuses other officials of paying for sexual favors as well as offering foreign nationals visas in exchange for money or sex. Asked for comment, the USAID press office said it was unaware of any such allegations. Calls to the Inspector General’s office were not returned.
This goes beyond moral and cultural tensions over homosexuality. If true, these serious betrayals of diplomatic responsibility are incompatible with the professional climate required to represent this country abroad effectively. Contrary to a firm U.S. policy against illicit sexual liaisons and the corruption of minors, they would constitute illegal acts using taxpayers’ property and money with the potential to harm national security.
In addition, our national reputation has suffered enough recent damage in Romania due to the case of Kurt Treptow, a prominent historian the U.S. embassy in Bucharest placed on the Fulbright Commission. Yet Treptow was a convicted sex offender. He videotaped himself engaging in sexual acts with children as young as seven, some of whom were allegedly orphans, and was sentenced to seven years in Romanian prison for pedophilia and child abuse.
Bucharest Business Week, an American-owned English-language newspaper that has been persistently critical of Guest, has published stories arguing that the incident was not a mere oversight but a symptom of a larger problem with the climate of the embassy. In its tenacious coverage of the scandal, BBW has reported that Guest’s former public affairs officer, Kiki Munshi Skagen, had her writings published by Treptow’s publishing house and then helped select him for the commission. While embassy officials dismiss claims that this was a conflict of interest, saying that personal knowledge should only enhance awareness of a candidate’s qualifications, this familiarity apparently did not help disclose Treptow’s criminal behavior.
Defenders of the U.S. mission have responded by claiming that the BBW is journalistically irresponsible and sensationalistic, attempting to create a scandal where none exists. The embassy’s current public affairs officer, Mark Wentworth, has described the publication as “inexplicably inclined toward” conspiracy theories. But the incident remains a potential drag on Romanian public perceptions of the embassy.
This obviously does not necessarily mean that appointing an ambassador of a certain sexual orientation leads directly to a total collapse in standards of behavior, as even some critics of the current state of affairs at the embassy in Bucharest concede. Dempsey, for example, told TAC he had no direct knowledge of any of the more lurid allegations and does not believe that Guest would condone such activities.
Whoever is posted as U.S. ambassador to Romania will be responsible for maintaining acceptable standards of conduct. Whether redefining marriage and the family to include nontraditional arrangements would have any impact on their ability to do so is something Americans are presently discussing. There is a reason this debate is occurring and why bureaucrats with control of taxpayer dollars and an international platform should not seek to circumvent it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How did this 60 vote nonsense get passed. Did the Dems vote on this change before the 2002 election? And what RINO a-holes went along with this travesty?
52 posted on 05/21/2004 1:21:14 AM PDT by 3catsanadog (When anything goes, everything does.)
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It's funny that here on FR, people constantly wring their hands over these "deals," yet NRO (I think) quoted a prominent unnamed Democrat as saying that every time there is a deal, it looks initially like the Dems win, then, by the end of the week, they figure out they've lost. I see no downside to this IF Bush planned no more recess appointments.
60 posted on 05/21/2004 6:07:46 AM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news.)
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OL, The calculus goes something nlike this.
What did Bush give up? Recess appointments for the remainder of this congress. (108th, Daschles words.)
Now, that bears a little examination. One, in order to recess appoint someone, they need to be willing, so If you want to criticise the president, find one of his Appointees, out of the list of Contrversials, that will Leave a secure bench for a one year deal.
That's first. Secondly, this congress will adjourn permanently sometime in december, Making way for the 109th.and ending his deal with Dasshole, who s/b on his way out anyway.
Now, The president by virtue of having half a dozen nominees filibustered, can still paint the Dems as obstructionists (his best line on the stump), he gets 25 more Judges on the bench who are more likely to be more conservative, net, then are already there, moving the judiciary rightward, while giving Daschle a fig leaf to cover them with their base, but one that doesn't counter the obstructionist charge.
Also, on an aside, the kinds of judges Daschle will still be obstructing will hurt him in his campaign against Thune. HE is trading off the ability to raise extra money, praying that it wont hurt him in actual votes.
So in reality Bush gives up nothing, gets a whole lot in return. Fairly impressive bargaining.
"Can someone come up with a rational explanation why GW would cave like this?"
Sure, I will tell you. After Bush wins in November he is going to pay back all the RATS that stabbed him in the back over the last four years.
By agreeing to this, he gets his judges approved. So now that is another issue off the table. Depending on the election results for both the presidency, senate and house, the WH can safely ascertain what they will need to do about the court system over the next four years.
If Daschle loses this all becomes irrelevant. Bush as always is playing poker. If Bush loses, it also becomes irrelevant because the Senate still has a Republicn majority, Bush's judges are in office and the RATS won't be able to fill any high court seats either.
At worst this is a stalemate.
It is already irrelevant. The 108th COngress will end in December.
You all are going to drive me crazy.
President Bush has done a great job on his nominees. He said he would stop making recess appointments IF the Dems would stop blocking the votes. That is all. How in the world do you interpret that as caving in?
Has everyone gone nuts here? It seems like everyone on both sides spends his or her days looking to see if there is any minor blemish on the President to attack. He may not be perfect, but he is pretty darn good and a far cry from the alternative.
Why are you all so quick to sound like you are writing for the Guardian, or for the Kkerry cmpaign. Does that help your cause in any way, shape or form?
Unfortunately he was out flanked by the Dims on that too. In exchange for a cut now and a few headlines, he let them get automatic tax hikes in the future, without even proposing them much less voting for them. Therefore they will get to raise taxes without any responsibility for them whatsoever.
Pretty smart politics,,,,,,not.
1) Force a "real" filibuster by the Dems? (Do you really think Chaffee and Snowe would maintain party discipline in such a confrontation?)
2) Stop all Senate business on anything else until these are approved? (And that's going to look how, exactly, to the public? Like the GOP is "doing nothing.")
The public does not understand this constitutional nuance, and if you think going to the wall over this is that important, you are asking for a Dem sweep in the Fall. Just speaking political reality. It has been the same in numerous confrontations in American political history: the answer NEVER lies in trying to win a constitutional position, but rather ALWAYS lies in defeating the opponent at the ballot box---i.e., get more than 60 conservatives.
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Maybe you are right. But it really sounds more like it's Kool-Aid talking . . . |
Were the steel tarriffs genius? Was CFR genius? How about surrendering Fallujah so that the terrorists can use it as an organizational base unimpeded? How about apologizing to the King or Jordan for the incompetence and deviancy of a few soldiers in Abu Gharib? I think all the above and more are stupid and so is this "deal" unless the White House got something extra, like say no future fillibusters against his nominees. In the end, those 27 won't be worth the votes lost because Bush caved.
That is not to say that the admnistration hasn't done many good and smart things, for example finessing the west coast shipping strike. But genius? No, I don't think so.
The opinions of anyone who calls the President "Jorge" can be dismissed out of hand.
Can someone come up with a rational explanation why GW would cave like this?
Yes.
He needs their support to authorize another $50 Billion (at least) to be spent over in Iraq. It is not a popular position and there are at least 4 gop senators who are not supporting the additional spending.
Rational? yes?
actually getting 55-57 Repubs should make the libs cower enough to get nominees through. If it doesn't then even more libs will lose next time.
Actually, my comments to trillium were in regard to my post 34 and his response. My post 50 was a comment on his debating tactic in general, which is to declare that unless you dedicate a work week, and a career change, to investigating an issue, you don't know what you are talking about (when you disagree with him), but he won't actually explain himself. My original comments didn't actually include the recess appointment issue, but a host of others which I do think reasonable conservatives would find at least questionable or unpalatable.
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