Posted on 10/19/2005 2:09:36 PM PDT by bigsky
I have finally hit upon a misdeed by the Bush Administration so outrageous, so appalling, so egregious, I am calling for a bipartisan commission with subpoena power to investigate: Who told the President to nominate Harriet Miers? The commission should also be charged with getting an answer to this question: Who was his second choice?
Things are so bad, the best option for Karl Rove now would be to get himself indicted. Then at least he'd have a colorable claim to having no involvement in the Miers nomination.
This week's Miers update is:
(1) Miers is a good bowler (New York Times, Oct. 16, 2005, front page–Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget: "'She is a very good bowler"), which, in all honesty, is the most impressive thing I've heard about Miers so far.
(2) In 1989, she supported a ban on abortion except to save the life of the mother.
From the beginning of this nightmare, I have taken it as a given that Miers will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. I assume that's why Bush nominated her. (It certainly wasn't her resume.) Pity no one told him there are scads of highly qualified judicial nominees who would also have voted against Roe. Wasn't it Harriet Miers' job to tell him that? Hey, wait a minute . . .
But without a conservative theory of constitutional interpretation, Miers will lay the groundwork for a million more Roes. We're told she has terrific "common sense." Common sense is the last thing you want in a judge! The maxim "Hard cases make bad law" could be expanded to "Hard cases being decided by judges with 'common sense' make unfathomably bad law."
It was "common sense" to allow married couples to buy contraception in Connecticut. That was a decision any randomly selected group of nine good bowlers might well have concurred with on the grounds that, "Well, it's just common sense, isn't it?"
But when the Supreme Court used common sense–rather than the text of the Constitution–to strike down Connecticut's law banning contraception, it opened the door to the Supreme Court’s rewriting all manner of state laws By creating a nonspecific "right to privacy," Griswold v. Connecticut led like night into day to the famed "constitutional right" to stick a fork in a baby's head.
This isn't rank speculation about where "common sense" devoid of constitutional theory gets you: Miers told Sen. Arlen Specter (R.-Pa.) she would have voted with the majority in Griswold.
(Miers also told Sen. Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.)–in front of witnesses–that her favorite justice was "Warren," leaving people wondering whether she meant former Chief Justice Earl Warren, memorialized in "Impeach Warren" billboards across America, or former Chief Justice Warren Burger, another mediocrity praised for his "common sense" who voted for Roe v. Wade and was laughed at by Rehnquist clerks like John Roberts for his lack of ability.)
The sickness of what liberals have done to America is that so many citizens – even conservative citizens – seem to believe the job of a Supreme Court justice entails nothing more than "voting" on public policy issues. The White House considers it relevant to tell us Miers' religious beliefs, her hobbies, her hopes and dreams. She's a good bowler! A stickler for detail! Great dancer! Makes her own clothes!
That's nice for her, but what we're really in the market for is a constitutional scholar who can forcefully say, "No -- that's not my job."
We've been waiting 30 years to end the lunacy of nine demigods on the Supreme Court deciding every burning social issue of the day for us, loyal subjects in a judicial theocracy. We don't want someone who will decide those issues for us – but decide them "our" way. If we did, a White House bureaucrat with good horse sense might be just the ticket.
Admittedly, there isn't much that's more important than ending the abortion holocaust in America. (Abortionist casualties: 7. Unborn casualties 30 million.) But there is one thing. That is democracy.
Democracy sometimes leads to silly laws such as the one that prohibited married couples from buying contraception in Connecticut. But allowing Americans to vote has never led to crèches being torn down across America. It's never led to prayer being purged from every public school in the nation. It's never led to gay marriage. It's never led to returning slaves who had escaped to free states to their slave masters. And it's never led to 30 million dead babies.
We've gone from a representative democracy to a monarchy, and the most appalling thing is–even conservatives just hope like the dickens the next king is a good one.
On the contrary, it is sharp and clear: the federal government can enact laws affecting your behavior behind closed doors whenever it falls within the enumerated powers. For example, operating as an enemy spy from within the confines of your boudoir can indeed be made a federal crime. However, the government has no power to snoop in your bedroom to catch you spying without a warrant, obtained with oaths of affirmation upon probable cause.
Thanks for passing that on. If I happen to ever give a damn I'll reply back.
On the contrary, I'm objecting to the word "privacy", which people toss around with only the vaguest idea what they mean by it. The "privacy" guaranteed by the Constitution is sharply defined in the fourth Amendment. The limit defined in the fourth amendment has no limits whatsoever. People say silly things like, "the right to privacy is limited," because the word "privacy" and the fourth amendment are not exactly equal, and it makes them confused.
I think the Founding Fathers saw a right to privacy as so basic to any understanding of liberty that they didn't see the need to enumerate it...that is unless the 4th amendment doesn't already. I'm basing my judgement on the Constitution not what I think God thinks which I would not presume to know. People have been using some form of birth control since time immemorial. If you think preventing conception is playing God then so are fetility drugs which stimulate it. Again if you follow the logic of supporting that sort of goverment intrusion then you have to also be fine with laws forbidding pre-marital sex. That's tyranny.
I think your problem is that you find what goes on in your wildest imaginings of what goes on in other people's bedrooms to be offensive and so you hope that you can pass a law against it.
Every right that we have ends at the beginning of the other guy's noses. I don't think this one is different, and that is not such an unclear concept that it should invalidate this one. For instance, murder, rape, etc. clearly violate someone else's right.
But like I said, I suspect that the problem is that your nose is stuck too close into other folks business and so it is likely to get bent out of shape or smell foul things. Worry about your own problems and you won't have that problem.
She setting up for her next two books:
"Mom, There's a Liberal in My Bed"
and
"How to Screw a Liberal, If You Must."
You said that we (who are defending the notion of right of privacy, which is firmly ensconced in American Jurisprudence by way of the common law) need to define "privacy" for there to be such a right. I stress again, since I didn't get a response the first time, that many of our rights involve somewhat elastic concepts such as speech and religion. We manage to carry on a system of law with those concepts as we do with the notion of privacy. It's not always decided correctly, but that's why we need better judges.
I don't really think I'm qualified. Just more qualified than Ms. Miers, who, it's becoming increasingly clear, is more or less an idiot. For example:
"The judicial branch has its own role to play in the separation of powers. It is part of the system of checks and balances."
"More and more, the intractable problems in our society have one answer: broad-based intolerance of unacceptable conditions and a commitment by many to fix problems."
We must end collective acceptance of inappropriate conduct and increase education in professionalism."
"An organization must also implement programs to fulfill strategies established through its goals and mission. Methods for evaluation of these strategies are a necessity. With the framework of mission, goals, strategies, programs, and methods for evaluation in place, a meaningful budgeting process can begin."
"We have to understand and appreciate that achieving justice for all is in jeopardy before a call to arms to assist in obtaining support for the justice system will be effective. Achieving the necessary understanding and appreciation of why the challenge is so important, we can then turn to the task of providing the much needed support."
"There is always a necessity to tend to a myriad of responsibilities on a number of cases as well as matters not directly related to the practice of law."
"Disciplining ourselves to provide the opportunity for thought and analysis has to rise again to a high priority."
Yes, very shrilly to cover up and make people forget how badly she called the Robert' nomination.
The First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The First Admendment protects speech. Pornography isn't speech, and doesn't merit the First Admendment's protection.
I am trying to steer the anti-abortion crowd in the right direction. Stop attacking the right to privacy and attack the Griswold and Roe v Wade decissions where they are really weak. How does one get from a right to privacy to a right to abortion? That is the fundamental problem in the arugment and I will leave it to a supporter of Roe v Wade to construct that argument. Stop hacking at the stronger links in the chain, links that other conservatives actually support, and attack the weak ones instead.
Sooner or later it must be defined, because the SC will strike down some laws and uphold others. I claim the fourth amendment defines "privacy". You seem to believe there's a larger "penumbra" embracing some personal pet notion of "privacy". I dispute that. Go ahead and carry the burden of proof, and demonstrate it from the framers' words.
I don't know what's funnier. The inevitable defense of Miers, or the inevitable whining that such a defense will occur. Both are equally as predictable.
She compared her to John Kerry! It just doesn't get any lower than that.
I suppose on a technicality, she has consistently blamed President Bush. But you have to admit, she ahs characterized Ms. Miers in some fairly negative ways. Now if it turns out that Ms. Miers is the Carly Fiorina of the legal world, I won't care. ANd in any event, I sincerely hope that Ms. Mires has thick skin and resilient character, because she is taking a brutal beating.
To casually spurn the people who have been taking slings and arrows all these years and instead reward the former commissioner of the Texas Lottery with a Supreme Court appointment is like pinning a medal of honor on some flunky paper-pusher with a desk job at the Pentagon - or on John Kerry - while ignoring your infantrymen doing the fighting and dying.http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/anncoulter/2005/10/05/159561.html
"You seem to believe there's a larger "penumbra" embracing some personal pet notion of "privacy". I dispute that. Go ahead and carry the burden of proof, and demonstrate it from the framers' words."
I don't need to because I know it exists. Actually, tangibly exists. You may not like it, and I suppose if I had to I could put together a brief for your edification, but I know that if I go into any court in the land, and file a complaint alleging a violation of the right of privacy as guaranteed by the federal constitution, it will not be handed back to me with the words "no such right."
I'm not saying "privacy" is confusing; I'm saying you are confused. Privacy doesn't mean whatever you like. As pertains to government intrusion into your private property or your person, the fourth amendment defines what privacy is. As pertains to private citizens invading the private property of others, the law defines this quite clearly as well.
If you do jumping jacks naked with your blinds insufficiently closed, and I stand on the sidewalk pointing and laughing, I have not violated your private property rights--though you will no doubt imagine that I invaded your "privacy", and might even be hare-brained enough to sue me. You would lose. But what led you to sue me was your own confusion over what constitutes "privacy".
I suspect that the problem is that your nose is stuck too close into other folks business...
Pure ad hominem. But your leap from what I actually said, to accusations of peeping tomism, illustrate your confusion about the meaning of the word "privacy". It covers more things in your personal opinion than it covers in the sense of law.
We are not dictating to President Bush..we are asking him to keep his PROMISE. He said he would appoint judges like Scalia or Thomas. I believe he did just that with Roberts. He broke his promise with Miers. He promised.and many of us voted for him for that one promise. Now, if I hear another "conservative" Presidential nominee say he will appoint a conservative Justice, I won't believe him. What Bush has done is to put true conservative politicians in jeopardy.
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