Posted on 10/04/2005 7:33:33 PM PDT by jdm
Edited on 10/04/2005 7:41:50 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
Good point(s).
BTW, has anyone discussed this particular problem--what happens on the first day of Miers' job? Having never been a judge before will she know what to do without having to ask around the office for tips and pointers? (Yes, even the brightest bulbs and the sharpest tacks need on-the-job training.) So, who will give Miers her measure of training and what lasting effect will it have, if any?
To my mind, the arc of her career could be determined by whoever is sly enough to take Miers under his/her wing at the SCOTUS. Granted, it could be Scalia, but it could just as easily be Ginsburg. Of course, an experienced appellate court judge wouldn't have this problem.
Thanks for the preamble on the ESA and Child Safety Acts, but each bill must be taken on its own. I don't see the trade-offs on signing the CFR. At least from a conservative point of view, the bill was clearly unconstitutional. The President took an oath to uphold the Constitution and not pass the buck to SCOTUS.
1) He voiced his objections at all. Had this been the toon, he would try to expand it and craft it so that it would affect primarily conservatives while leaving the libs untouched.
That kind of logic does not pass muster. Voicing objections and still signing the bill is a difference without a distinction. The net effect is the same, i.e., the bill became law.
2) He is trying to appoint Justices that will strike out the most offensive parts of this travesty and keep the good ones. Or maybe even the whole bill. In any case, he is doing what he possibly can to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I am sure that appointing Justices was not part of the plan. It was an act of political expediency with a view towards the 2004 reelection campaign. Hoping SCOTUS will "strike out the most offensive parts of this travesty" is not leadership or political courage.
And it is absolutely ludicrous to grant an all or nothing veto power to the Presidency when the Supreme Court gets to strike down parts of a law as unconstitutional as opposed to the entire thing.
Ludicrous? Odd choice of words. Try Constitutional. In any event, there was nothing salvagable in the CFR bill. All we need in campaign finance reform is complete disclosure.
To prevent more CFRs, it is important that we try to get this power to the Presidency and if need be, the Courts as well. If this "all or nothing" veto is in fact delinated in the Constitution, we should amend it ASAP.
The President does not have the power to veto portions of bills and pass the rest. By doing so, it would give any President the power to rewrite legislation and thwart the intent of Congress. Regardless, GWB made a big mistake in signing the CFR. He had the power to veto it and his veto would not have been overturned. The buck stops in the WH in this case, not SCOTUS.
I think either would be insulted if you classed them with the "intellectuals." George Will, on the other hand, does sometime affect a "French" tone. (
"Intellectual"," orginally referred to a class of French scribblers at the turn of the last centutury.)
The McCain/Graham bloc promised that if either Brown or Owen were nominated they would prevent the nuclear option. IOW, JRB would have been successfully filibustered. If the Democrats filibuster Miers OTOH, the McCain/Graham bloc will go nuclear.
The "unintended consequences" of picking a fight at this time include (1) not having pro-choice O'Connor replaced by the time the two abortion cases are heard, one of which is related to the partial birth abortion ban which has extremely strong bipartisan support, (2) energizing the extreme left lobbies and the Democrat base, (3) alienating the RINOs whose votes are crucial to keep the tax cuts and trim the budget to pay for the federal government’s share of rebuilding the Gulf coast.
Politics is about winning, not fighting. Reagan also made progress in baby-steps, but the sum of his initiatives changed the world.
My two cents....
If you've ever attended any event at an ivy league law school, you know the floors can barely withstand all the pathetic name dropping. These people cannot go to the bathroom without coming out and claiming three famous people held the paper for them, and of course told them they were doing a better job than three other famous people. These types are nauseating and the reaction to Miers really reminded me I don't like the conservative elites very much.
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You're right. While I can somewhat understand the emotion, it is beyond foolish to follow through with it. There are those who are immature enough to do it, however.
I do not subscribe to the notion that Miers is a mediocre nominee. Quite to the contrary, I see her as a very strong Christian conservative from Texas. The court has not had someone like this nigh onto a hundred years.
I too am a strong Christian conservative from Texas, about her age. Further, her profile tells me that she is pro-life, pro the right to free exercise of religion, pro the individual right to keep and bear arms, pro individual property right.
That is 180 degrees reversal of the secular humanist and socialistic trend of the court for decades which has created a hostility towards the unborn and hostility towards public religious expressions and the right to bear arms grossly limited and right to property as if a grant or lease from the government. All of these were new law caused by treating the Constitution as a living document.
You may consider her a legal lightweight – and frankly it wouldn’t matter to me if she were a dog-catcher with the same profile. On the Supreme Court, her vote carries just as much weight as Ginsberg or Souter – and as the swing vote, even more so.
I agree class bigtroy has a lot to do with it.
If our side picked a fight by nominating an obvious uber-judicial-conservative, the McCain/Graham gang would not have prevented a Democrat filibuster and noone would have been seated in time for the two abortion cases coming up, one of which challenges the ban on partial birth abortions. We know which way O’Connor would rule.
If their side picks a fight by filibustering a stealth candidate such as Miers, the McCain/Graham gang will support the nuclear option which won’t help with the abortion cases, but will make any appointment thereafter much easier.
Again, I play to win not to fight. Thus I support Bush and his candidate Miers. Or as the parable goes, never start a fight but always finish one.
A genuine conservative who takes seriously their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution will not be basing their votes on foreign law, or casting votes that undermine the Constitution in any way. When I say results are what matter to me, that is what I mean.
Many here want a strict social conservative so that Roe v. Wade can be overturned. That's fine by me. But I'm more interested in returning to the original intent of the Constitution. That is what I hope to see in her answers before the committee.
As I said, I'm keeping an open mind and am giving GWB the benefit of the doubt. I'll know more as the confirmation process unfolds. Should I become dissatisfied with what I hear, I'll call my senators, one of whom is on the Judiciary Committee.
"SHE IS TOO OLD FOR THE POSITION. He should have started with someone around 48-51 yrs old max."
I totally agree. And that just proves to me that she's a "placeholder" pick. He obviously wants someone that is going to be replaced within a few presidential terms. This is a real "let the next guy decide" pick.
Isn't Miers to the extreme right of SDO? What's the problem?
LOL! You don't get it do you?
For Gods sakes man, the Donner party were survivors, and you are mocking them with your little Donner party quip.
They did what they did to survive!
You run around here calling people Donner party conservatives, yet you don't realize it was a legendary story of survival!
You keep calling them cannibals implying they did this out of being stupid and mean. LOL! They're party SURVIVED! You are obviously suggesting the GOP roll over dead, along with you.
Wake up pet.
Not nearly as pithy as yours, but here's some words to live by from Ayn Rand:
"I don't like people who speak or think in terms of gaining anybody's confidence. If one's actions are honest, one does not need the predated confidence of others, only their rational perception. The person who craves a moral blank check of that kind, has dishonest intentions, whether he admits it to himself or not."
You're scenario is definetly plausible. My only beef was describing it as "probable".
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