Posted on 06/02/2005 9:09:46 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Will President Bush show John McCain and the rest of the ‘Filibuster Five’ why it’s unwise to pick a fight with a Texas Cowboy?
Or, like every moderate Republican (and the French they work so hard to emulate), will Mr. Bush, Senator Frist, and company simply surrender?
In the battle for the judiciary—undoubtedly the most important non-terrorism related issue we face—the American people need to know which George W. Bush is going to show up at the shootout.
Will it be the man that supported McCain’s campaign finance reform bill in an effort to set a new 'tone,' let Ted Kennedy write the education bill in an unreciprocated attempt at bi-partisanship, and called the Minutemen 'vigilantes' in order to kiss up to Mexican President Vicente Fox?
Or, will it be the man who promised (and delivered) justice for the 9/11 attacks in Afghanistan, gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave Iraq before sending the military to remove him (a process that also ended up taking about 48 hours), and has had the courage to take the fight to Al Qaeda all over the world?
Will the President treat the filibustering of his judges—and the pathetic 'compromise' that followed—as just another disposable domestic issue he’s willing to lose? Or, will he expose the filibusterers, compromisers, activist Supreme Court, and the politicians aiding and abetting them as the judicial dictators that they are and defeat them?
It matters because both wayward parties involved in this case—the Senators subverting the President's constitutional right to nominate judges of his choice and the activist courts themselves—are blatantly overreaching their assigned constitutional duties.
Let’s begin with the members of the McCain Mutiny (as Pat Buchanan referred to them), which submitted the following demands in their vaunted 'compromise' that toppled the nuclear option.
"We encourage the Executive Branch of government to consult with members of the Senate, both Democratic and Republican, prior to submitting a judicial nomination to the Senate for consideration."
What's wrong with that, you ask? Nothing, unless you stop to read the Constitution.
After all, according to the Constitution, the President has the sole authority to nominate judges of his choice.
Only then does the Senate obtain the responsibility of giving that nominee an up or down vote, providing McCain and his liberal fan club ample opportunity to torpedo unqualified nominees "under extreme circumstances."
If the President must suddenly get the Senate's approval before nominating a judge, why not also force him to consult the House of Representatives? While we're re-writing the Constitution, why not get the United Nations in on it too?
Working to change the Constitution without first amending it is the very definition of constitutional activism.
What’s really scary is that the more dangerous component of this scenario is the unconscionable amount of judicial activism within the Supreme Court itself.
In his brilliant book, Men In Black, Mark Levin succinctly chronicles the Supreme Court’s history of constitutional treachery. Levin uses four landmark cases to expose the dangerous activism of the court, as well as uncovering the “harmless” methods used by the Men In Black to force liberalism on a sleeping country.
First, using the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, Levin showed how the Supreme Court—in particular Chief Justice Roger Taney—discarded the constitutional right of Congress to pass legislation banning slavery in territories acquired through the Louisiana Purchase.
Levin writes that Justice Taney somehow discovered in the Constitution “an unenumerated right to slavery.” In Levin’s words, Taney, “overruled Congress’s power to ban slavery in the territories and imposed his own view on the nation.” (Levin, 15)
The second landmark case used by Levin as a poster child for judicial activism was Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, where, “an activist Supreme Court upheld a state law that mandated segregation, and forced a private industry (in this case the railroads) to separate individuals on account of race.” (Levin, 16)
The result was the segregationist law—the idea of “separate but equal”—that stood until it was overturned in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education.
In Korematsu v. United States (1944), the Supreme Court blatantly violated the 5th Amendment—“no person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law”—by upholding executive orders by Franklin Roosevelt that resulted in the forced internment of more than 110,000 law abiding Japanese-American citizens.
As Levin writes, “Rather than applying the clear language of the Constitution, this activist court simply upheld FDR’s policy.”
Of course, the final landmark decision Levin utilized to make his case was Roe v. Wade, in which Levin chronicled how liberals on the Supreme Court systematically moved the United States from a country with widespread laws banning abortion, to the “abortion on demand” culture in which we currently live. Levin’s account of the Court’s manipulation as they tiptoed over the top of the Constitution is infuriating.
Levin explains the incredible danger of activist courts with a clarity rarely heard:
“When Congress or state legislatures pass laws with which a large segment of the public disagrees, the people have numerous outlets for recourse. They can lobby their representatives, raise funds…organize grassroots movements…and support or oppose candidates for public office based on their viewpoints.” (Levin, 18)
Conservative groups—angry with the Republican members of The McCain Mutiny—are currently mobilizing such efforts.
Levin continues, “But if the Supreme Court issues a decision holding unconstitutional, say, a federal statute prohibiting partial-birth abortion, as it did in the 2000 case Stenberg v. Carhart, there is precious little tens of millions of citizens who oppose this grievously brutal procedure can do to influence the decision. It has been handed down from on high, wrapped in constitutional language by justices who are appointed for life and institutionally immune from accountability.” (Levin, 18)
In our representative republic, it is the American people who decide the direction the country should take, not nine lawyers wearing black muumuus.
As Levin states, “These are not questions for the nine un-elected justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to decide. They are questions for the people to resolve through their elected representatives.” (Levin, 72)
Liberals can’t stand the people of this country being in charge of the political process. Like supporters of all oppressive forms of government, liberals believe that they—the elite among us—are the only ones capable of leading the country in the right direction.
The Left can’t stomach the fact that Americans support conservative principles at the ballot box, and refuse to accept the patriotic heritage of the United States. They ignore the obvious superiority of the capitalist system, as well as the moral religious backbone through which our laws and system of government was based.
Their inability to control the country through the legislative branches of government has left them with only one forum to spread liberalism in our society—through Mark Levin’s Men In Black.
John McCain’s posse could have taken a gigantic step toward rectifying a court system that is out of control. Instead, they chose to stake their political lives on a compromise with liberals.
Now, if I could just get Senator McCain to return my phone calls, I’ve got some ocean front property in his home state of Arizona that I’m dying to sell him.
About the Writer: Matthew Holmes is a North Carolina based columnist. His articles have been featured in the North Carolina Conservative, ChronWatch.Com, World Net Daily.Com, News Max.Com, Opinion Editorials.Com,>/b> and other media outlets. He can be reached at blade729@msn.com
Great article...
Unfortantly, I think Bush will do exactly what he said he will do, and that's to leave the management of the Senate to the Senate.
I have no hope Bush will do anything.
Now Frist might... but I wouldn't bet any money on it at this point.
I won't be holding my breathe. He is not exactly a fighting man, IMO.
"Now Frist might... but I wouldn't bet any money on it at this point."
Frist is weak. Let's face it, we approached this crucial fight with a weak Senate Majority Leader and a Judiciary Chair whose finest achievement was leading the fight against Bork (according to his book Passion for Truth, published in 2000.)
As the fight approached, the most powerful man in the country declared himself neutral.
It could all be coincidence, but I think RINOs inside the party help set up these terrible decisions. Of course, stupid, uninformed or gullible Republican legislators and executives still have to fall for these blunders.
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