Rest In Peace BKO!
Posted on 08/23/2010 11:51:19 AM PDT by CA Conservative
Ted Olson and his anti-Prop 8 media machine have been aggressively leveraging his past associations with conservative legal causes in support of his newfound support for the invention of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. In so doing, they’ve tried to obscure the fact that the position that the Constitution can and should be interpreted to invalidate traditional marriage laws can’t possibly be reconciled with the conservative legal principles that Olson used to purport to stand for. (I’m not addressing here the very different question whether a conservative can soundly support legislative revision of marriage laws to include same-sex couples.)
For anyone who has wondered what really accounts for Olson’s new position, I pass along these excerpts from a New York Times article last week on the influence of Lady Booth Olson, Olson’s wife since 2006:
Lady Olson was more than just a minor behind-the-scenes player in this potentially pivotal case.
“Lady could not have been more supportive of this,” Mr. Olson said in an interview shortly before Vaughn R. Walker, chief judge of the United States District Court hearing the case, ruled on Aug. 4 that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional. “And she’s certainly influenced my views — her ideas, her approach, her feelings.” …
Mr. Olson’s previous wife, Barbara, was a conservative commentator who was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, when she was on the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon. Some friends hypothesize that Lady Olson just might have softened some of her husband’s views.
“In my innermost thoughts, I like to think he thought that on some level, but Ted’s never said that,” Mrs. Olson said. “He’s very proud. He owns his own decisions.”
I think that I’ll refrain from further comment.
Ted Olsen also came out in support of the Mosque location too just to cause trouble. But what bothers me is not so much that he suports same sex marriage, It’s that Olsen wants to be the one to create a new federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage through the judiciary, and then claim it was always in the constitution and we just never saw it. (Just like a liberal does)
Yet with respect to ending the granting citizenship to illegals born here liberals claim we have to actually amend the US constitution, then further claim we want to repeal the whole 14th amendment. Why cant a Republican get on TV and say we will handle the illegal birthright issue like democrats handle creating new rights in the constitution? Appoint the correct judge.
Ann Coulter put it best. If you want to repeal a 10,000 year old tradition of man-woman marriage, at least give us a vote.
“And she’s certainly influenced my views — her ideas, her approach, her feelings.”
So, Obama is looking at a potential judge’s FEELINGS - their ability to have ‘empathy’ for a litigant; and Mr. Olsen, in spite of his own history with Constitutional litigation has, apparently, been influenced - in the “same-sex marriage” issue, by his wife’s FEELINGS.
I recall, how frequently over the years I have counseled younger acquaintances and friends on why, when answering questions on a job interview they should generally not begin by saying “I feel that.............”.
I know, in their mind, they think they are talking about what they “believe”, but even so, the interviewer does not give a $%#@ what you “feel” or what you “believe”; they are looking for what you KNOW, and even if you are not sure, they are looking for what you THINK, in a rational, reasoned manner (not feelings or beliefs). Which always leaves the best answer beginning with “I think..........”.
If the Maxims are true (which they are) that true justice is blind, that we are meant to be a nation of laws, not a nation of men, then how we “feel” about the litigants (either of them) and how we “feel” about the law, does not make for a reasoned judgment about the standing that a law has, as to its Constitutionality. We may not like a law - we think there should be a different one. That is insufficient to judge it unconstitutional.
As the NRO author alluded to, if Mr. Olsen was still a Conservative and yet believed that same-sex marriage ought to be “legalized” then as a Conservative, his “feelings” about the laws on this matter, as they are, would not lead to the “Constitutional” argument he tries to make, because his informed reason, as a Conservative would instead lead him to (1)uphold the Constitutionality of the present laws, while (2)seeking LEGISLATIVE solutions to change the laws.
Certainly, even Mr. Olsen, with all his Conservative history, can discern when an issue is about mere “eligibility” for something, and when it is about the core “definition” of it.
If WE THE PEOPLE - not the judges - are not the authors of that core definition, much less any matter of eligibility, then I can assure you that the lawyers for polygamy, and other forms of marriage, KNOW that the language that will REQUIRE their EQUAL RIGHTS be recognized WILL come forth from the legal arguments of the judges who try to dictate “same sex marriage”, even as they - the judges - deny that is their intent.
I have never met Mr. Olsen, so I can’t say that I know him at all.
But, just as an observer, I have had a concern that Mr. Olsen, having obtained such a high public profile doing work for George W. Bush, and having for quite a few years now been away from that limelight, has, in part, attached himself to the “same-sex marriage” radical judicial agenda, for the media image and hoped-for expansion of his legal client base that the whole thing may bring him. Do I know that to be the case? No. And maybe I am wrong. Yet, given his legal history, it seems strange that even his wife’s feelings alone would drag him into this high profile issue.
Olson was given the cover of the liberal Newsweek magazine to make “The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage: Why same-sex marriage is an American value.”
******
OLSON: “In 1857, the Supreme Court held that an African-American could not be a citizen.”
ANSWER: Exactly to the point of judicial activism. Slavery was the gay marriage (and abortion) issue of the 1850s and decades previous. In the words of Judge Robert Bork, in Dred Scott v. Sandford slavery-owning Chief Justice Roger Taney sought to create “a right (to own slaves) by changing the plain meaning of the due process clause of the fifth amendment.” Bork adds: “Taney did just that, and created a powerful means for later judges to usurp power the actual Constitution places in the American people.” Like, for instance, the people of California who voted for Proposition 8 — only to be told by Olson and Boies, in the style of Taney, that gay marriage is depriving gays of due process. Notably, Bork says this in his book The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law: “How did Taney know that slave ownership was a constitutional right? Such a right is nowhere to be found in the Constitution. He knew it because he was passionately convinced that it must be a constitutional law of the concept of ‘substantive due process,’ and that concept has been used countless times since by judges to write their personal beliefs into a document that, most inconveniently, does not contain those beliefs.”
Substitute “Olson” for “Taney” and “gay marriage” for “slave ownership” and one gets quickly to one of the disagreements to be had with Olson’s argument by conservatives.
OLSON: “In fact, the California attorney general has conceded the unconstitutionality of Proposition 8…”
ANSWER: Sigh. The Attorney General of California is former governor, mayor, state secretary of state and who-knows-how-many-times presidential candidate Jerry Brown. He is in fact running for governor again — and needs his left-wing political base. What else would Mr. Olson expect him to say?
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/01/19/a-rebuttal-to-theodore-olson/1
IS THIS TRUE ??...4 WIVES !!
Parts I & II are here:
http://constitutionallyspeaking.wordpress.com/a-congressional-natural-born-citizen-parts-i-ii-iii/
It wasn’t so long ago that Ted Olson’s name was mud to many progressives. A 2001 salon.com piece labeled him a “partisan legal warrior” and a “shadowy figure” who displayed a “furious obsession with the Clintons” and “dubious conduct in pursuing them” with good friend Kenneth Starr. Ronald Reagan hired Olson as a private attorney during Iran-Contra. And it was Olson who represented George W. Bush before the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore which ultimately landed W. an eight year stint at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Today, Olson is a central figure in the fight for marriage equality, and a damned good one at that. Along with his friend and former adversary in Bush v Gore, David Boies, Olson successfully repealed Proposition 8 last week. This onetime member of the board of directors of American Spectator, former Solicitor General for W., and a guy who himself has been married four times, Olson is a Republican legend and perhaps our strongest ally yet in protecting our right to matrimony.
There have been a number of instances of prominent members of the Federalist Society(in this case Olson) taking positions unpopular with the true conservatives and real Americans.
Another example is Kenneth Star supporting birth right citizenship. Also, there were several feddies supporting the Kagan SCOTUS nomination.
It was only a decade ago that Hillary declared the Federalist Society to be the cornerstone of the VRWC
What is it with men? I'm trying not to male-bash here, but what is it about a woman's influence that can make a formerly principled man ditch everything?
As whoever it was said, "Cherchez le femme".
Barbara, we miss you more than you can know.
Rest In Peace BKO!
Ann Coulter put it best. If you want to repeal a 10,000 year old tradition of man-woman marriage, at least give us a vote”
They will never do that as the sexual deviates lose every time.
I believe you’ve nailed it. Sad. I always admired him when he was married to Barbara, who I greatly admired. Apparently he was just swayed by her.
BKO deserved better than Ted Olsen.
***“And she’s certainly influenced my views — her ideas, her approach, her feelings.”
Mr. Olson can't be persuaded by feelings yet he can be influenced by feelings. So basically he wants to have it both ways according to whichever way works to his benefit at the moment. I pray he comes to his senses. Soon!
What a douchebag. Somewhere Barbara is greatly saddened.
RE the posted Picture in #17:
Wow...what a comparison.
Barbara had smiling, laughing eyes that revealed her heart and soul.
Lady Booth looks EXACTLY like every psycho liberal nutjob you’ve ever seen. Same look in her eyes - the inner light of condescension and psychosis.
Was that mean? Harsh? Do I care? (nope)
Throw them both out of the country.
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