Posted on 04/28/2008 11:06:57 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
Sunday night on “60 Minutes,” Lesley Stahl interviewed Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Half of the interview was excellent, reviewing his history from his childhood in New York City. The other half of the interview, on his judicial philosophy, was dreadful.
Several times, Stahl attacked Scalia for his judicial theory of “originalism,” while leaving parts of his comments on the cutting room floor. She displayed a lack of knowledge about the Constitution. She referred to Scalia’s theory as fixing the meaning of the Constitution as the intentions of “people who ratified it over 200 years ago.” That echoed the comments of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg used in this interview.
The important point, which Scalia probably made in parts not aired, is that the Constitution was last amended in 1992. The 27th Amendment, proposed as part of the Bill of Rights, was finally ratified then. The opposite point by Justice Ginsburg and Lesley Stahl was that times change, and therefore the Constitution must change. Ginsburg even said to Stahl, and Stahl nodded in agreement, that “we the people” did not include “people like us.”
More than a third of the state legislators who acted to ratify the 27th Amendment were women. The Constitution itself makes all who act at any time to amend the Constitution, equal in importance. Article V provides for amendments to the Constitution. Either Congress or a new Convention can propose amendments, “which shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified....”
The Constitution DOES change as times change, but it does so legitimately only when that change happens with “the consent of the governed.” Apparently, Lesley Stahl has not read the Declaration of Independence lately, either. In Jefferson’s immortal words, the first political right, immediately after the unalienable rights from our Creator, is this:
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed....”
The idea that the meaning of the Constitution can be varied by the act of just five people on the Supreme Court, is a direct assault on the theory in the Declaration and the law in the Constitution. Only amendment as provided in Article V includes the “consent of the governed.”
If Lesley Stahl had really done her homework, she might have read George Washington’s Farewell Address to the American People. In it, he wrote, “the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.” He meant the amendment process. He did not mean the vote of merely five Justices of the Court.
Lastly, Stahl attacked Scalia for his part in Bush v. Gore, the case concerning Florida’s election of Presidential Electors in 2000. Scalia pointed out that this was not a narrow decision. The vote to find that the Florida Supreme Court had violated the First Amendment was 7-2. The mainstream media, many of whom were rooting for Al Gore to win the election, reported it as a “5-4 decision.” In truth, the vote on the remedy was 5-4. The vote on whether Florida’s high court had violated the Constitution, was 7-2, exactly as Scalia said.
Stahl said that the US Supreme Court’s decision “handed the election to George Bush.” Scalia’s reply as broadcast, said, “the election would have come out the same way.” Since I’ve read all of Scalia’s opinions and practiced in the Supreme Court, I’m sure that Scalia stated the facts as well as the law. He certainly referred to the one-year, million-dollar review of the Florida vote by several newspapers, led by the New York Times. That review concluded, as Scalia said, that under the scenario sought by Al Gore, George Bush would have won that election without the Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore.
The last item that Stahl did not read in the Constitution was in Article VI, that the Constitution is “the supreme Law of the Land,” and all judges and courts are bound to follow it. It must be the “supreme Law,” for otherwise the Constitution would have a different meaning in different parts of the nation. But that also means it is binding even on Supreme Court Justices on the subject of amending the Constitution.
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About the Author: John Armor wrote for the American Civil Rights Union the only brief in Bush v. Gore which urged the Court to “strike the Florida Supreme Court’s decision” and “do nothing else.” That is what the Court did, 9-0, the first time it took up Bush v. Gore.
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John / Billybob
I agree with your opinion completely. I heard the interview on CBS radio, saw it on 60 minutes and read the transcript.
The written exchange is better than the other two. Ms. Stahl’s sarcasm and snide attitude don’t tarnish Scalia’s well-reasoned answers in the written version.
Unfortunately reason and logic don’t necessarily come through a distainful questioner’s attitude. TV and even radio are the wrong media for Scalia.
What is the point of a Constitution if it does not have a fixed meaning upon which one can base and judge governmental action? That is why the Ginsburgs and Breyers of this world are so dangerous.
Scalia was outstanding last night! I wish everyone had seen it. He put Leslie in her place a couple times. These liberal media types just don’t get it.
There should be no "cutting room floor" when dealing with 60 Minutes or any other of the left's propaganda arms. Always have your own videotape made AND get a 100% complete copy of all tapes made by the interviewers as a condition for the interview. If they know you can rebut them with their own unedited videotape, they are less likely to edit your words beyond recognition.
Yes, that is my understanding of the meaning of having a constitution; rights and processes which do not change haphazardly over time as the whims of the people flutter hither and yon.
Listen to Ginsberg and Stahl and you end up with a feminist constitution, a White constitution, a Black constitution, a constitution of the proletariat, and . . . .
Near-sighted liberals (excuse the redundancy) want a ‘living’ Constitution subject to the whimsy of the courts only so long as the whimsy of the courts favor them. They can’t seem to comprehend a world where judges, unfettered by legal restraints, might not support abortion, affirmatice action or tax funded social engineering. While conservatives contemplate, as did our founding fathers, a long term, stable government that ensures economic prosperity by protecting individual initiative, the liberals espouse the quick fix to social ills, both real and imagined, without regard to equity or stability in the long run. That’s why liberals beget socialists who beget communists who ultimately abandon the rule of law and resort to force and terrorism to endure.
This is the assumption of the Constitution. The actual wording and meaning of the law contained in the Constitution (the intended meaning of which can be derived from the many source documents written by the authors of the Constitution) cannot be changed without an amendment. However, the application of these laws are fluid and are malleable as the times change.
The liberals, who by-and-large, don't believe in God, find it impossible to understand the very fundamental truth of our country's philosophical foundation: Our rights of life, liberty, and pursuit are God-given and therefore inalienable. They are not man-given. The liberals don't like this and can't even understand this. They certainly do not want to be tied to the Constitution, which has always been our greatest protection against tyranny. The liberals are fascists that show themselves as such - they're really lovers of tyranny.
I loved his point that the Constitution was INTENTIONALLY HARD TO CHANGE,
and that was the POINT of having a Constitution.
Almost by definition, gov’t authority is going to be filled with those that seek to use it to impose their will on everyone else, and not by those who seek to have it leave us alone.
They have an education system that teaches YOUR kids that there is no Creator, and therefore their rights come from an institution of man, not from a Creator,
and therefore those rights may be just as easily curtailed by an institution of Man.
It's no accident.
Everyone should stop sacrificing their kids on the pagan altar.
Scalia ate her lunch.
Re Bush v. Gore: When she called the Supreme Court decision a political decision, he schooled her. A decision ABOUT the laws of the political process is NOT the same thing as a political decision. And he reminded her that it was AL GORE who made it an issue before the courts.
I continue to maintain that Gore's petition to the courts, and Bush's subsequent lawsuit, represented nonjusticeable political questions, whose resolution is clearly provided for in Article II and Amendment XII.
At the worst, there would have been two slates of electors transmitted to the seat of government of the United States from Florida, one appointed constitutionally (by the Legislature) and the other illegally (by the SCoFLA). The Congress would then have resolved the issue, as they are entitled to do.
This had absolutely nothing to do with the courts, and they should have stayed out of it.
The last time I watched "60 minutes" was in 1969, when Frank Winchell from GM was "interviewed" about the Corvair trials. They didn't edit the answers, they edited the questions. The new questions made the answers appear opposite of what was actually said.
The result was that GM said 'never again' will they be subjected to such editing. Of course, GM hasn't been on "60 minutes" since then.
God gave you buckets of brains, family taught you how
to spend those brains. Awesome
Why? Because Leslie does not understand the Constitution first of all and its original intent, and second, neither does she understand the complexities behind rulings behind Constitutional Law cases even though the Articles and Bill of Rights are pretty much straight foreward.
I admired and at the same time was saddened to hear Scalia say that some time back he was frustrated and bored with his job because to him, it seemed like the daily grind was more repetition to explain the logic and fact behind his descents.
I admit he's right, though different cases, the same underlying logic, fact and interpretations are explain week in and week out in the courts.
I wonder just how many hours Ms. Stahl has sat in silence listening to Supreme Court cases?????
explain=explained
Good work, John!
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