Posted on 01/17/2003 4:09:44 PM PST by TLBSHOW
White House Brief Stops Short of Bush Speech
January 17, 2003
Folks, I really don't relish the next words, sentences, and paragraphs, which you will read on this page or hear from my mouth in the audio links below. There is some angst today in the conservative legal community over the University of Michigan case and the brief filed by the Bush administration late Thursday night near the midnight deadline, and how this brief differs in scope from the president's amazing speech.
Now, the mainstream press, of course, is late to pick up on this. We have several wire reports, which I read on Friday's program that lead with lines like, "President Bush is siding with white students in the most sweeping affirmative action case…" And they don't think they're biased? President Bush is siding with white students? No, President Bush is siding with the Constitution. It's the Fourteenth Amendment, which is being largely ignored by those in the mainstream press. He's siding with the Constitution, not siding with white students or white people or white anybody.
That being said, our legal advisors here at the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute have read the brief filed by the Bush administration. We've studied it, and this position is not nearly as sweeping as that taken in the president's speech. In short, he does support overturning the policy of Michigan, but stops there and goes no further. The administration's brief contends that the admissions policy at Michigan does violate the Constitution, but the brief does not say that the use of race violates the Constitution. And that's the key.
Race-based anything violates the Constitution. No such discrimination is allowed, but the brief doesn't attack that, it only attacks the specific admissions policy at the University of Michigan. The Constitution does not outlaw all forms of discrimination, but it does prohibit discrimination based on race, and in some cases it discriminates or prohibits discrimination based on gender and religion.
The brief does not challenge racial preferences in college admissions. It accepts, in fact, the fact that race-based diversity is a constitutionally proper goal. So in the brief, as opposed to the speech the president made, the administration is not opposed to the goal, but merely Michigan's practice by which it was achieved.
Here is the upshot: The president's compelling speech certainly suggested he was taking on the whole issue of race-based preferences. This is why everybody was so excited. This is why you want a conservative in the White House, to stop a mess like affirmative action. It pits groups of people against each other and it stigmatizes people who benefit from it. There's nothing positive about it. The president's opponents predictably in their criticism certainly suggested that he was taking on the issue of race-based preferences.
After hearing the president speak, and from that reaction from the left, the press, pundits and all the rest of us concluded that Bush was challenging racial preferences in college admissions. But his administration's brief - I'm sorry to say, folks - doesn't do that.
Listen to Rush...
(…compare media reports of the president's position, with the actual brief) (…continue the legal analysis of the brief filed by the White House)
Read the Articles...
(AP: Bush Brief on Affirmative Action Due) (USA Today: White House to oppose Michigan policy of race-based admissions) (Reuters: Bush Lawyers Urge Top Court to Back White Students)
Read the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution...
I think he was just too optimistic about what could be done with this case at this time.
I can't fault his Constitutional reasons for his opinion of how the case should be handled- as usual they are right on IMHO.
And I hope we soon have the judges, and justices, that will rule as the Constitution requires.
Could it be that our president wishes to allow his opponents the opportunity to rabidly support quotas?
President Bush IS leading...and he's doing so in a time that is vastly different from Lincoln's. ~ Lincoln HAD to push his principles through with his elbows and shoulders. ~ because it was the most effective way to pierce the fog of war.
Today, while we live in a moment when the overwhelming number of Americans are ready to end Affirmative Action as it is now written ~ this same majority is not prepared to appear unconcerned about "minorities".
Lincoln's principles are alive and they are well. It is up to us to encourage them by using the tools available to us in the times in which we live.
President Bush is doing this; and I support his convictions and applaud political acumen.
But I'm no Lawyer or do I pretend to be. I was just hoping for a little more input from Mark
Could be, he does have a way of exposing them for what they are.
STRATEGERY :-)
Yes, friend, Rush is wrong on this one...he's fallen prey to two political traps: ~ frustration and short-sightedness.
That and stupid argument. Would someone please tell me the meaning of Brown v. Board of Education today???
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