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'm amazed you aren't struck by lightening for accusing ME of baiting a racial trap.
Anybody here can click on your replies and see who the racist is in this little exchange.
1. Brown wanted EQUAL opportunity to compete, not begging for preferential handout solely due to his race. He wanted to get in the golf course where he could shoot 67 on 18 holes, didn't want guilt ridden handicap pity points. ??
2. Today it means treating minority groups (excluding those who excel in edumacashion without the handouts) like some sub-human by saying that they need the extra 200+ points to get on the even ground with the rest of the race. Brown should be insulted.
3. The preferential treatment becomes the very obstacle Brown and the "minority" wanted/needed to overcome.
I am making sense only in my head I know, because I'm not as articulate as you, but it's not my fault. I wasn't given the 200+ extra points.
You're already here.
And to keep the digital record straight, could you be a little specific on these nasty accusations of vile finger pointing of racism.....
Somebody said this about you last night:
a poster makes a vile, offensive, racial insinuation to a comment I made regarding President Bush and conservatism
And they didn't even ping you!
Which remarks were those?
Hehehehehehehe...........
Yep, I've read plenty of his posts in the past and I must say that you are a 'race trap' for not agreeing with him.
Which remarks were those?
If you're Landmark Legal, apparently you call it "splitting the baby to give cover to O'Connor and Kennedy."
Myself, I see that not as a legal argument, but as hyperbole. I've seen better legal arguments from people on this thread that I didn't know were attorneys.
Good response Chong.....
Are you sure that "Brown wanted EQUAL opportunity to compete, not begging for preferential handout solely due to his race"?
I'm with you on that. I think so. That case is so central to this issue that I can't begin to understand why we've ignored it on the conservative side. I see it labeled "judicial activism" in the liberal press. I don't take it that way. Seems to me a fundamental statement, consistent with American ideals. I think the liberal elevation of it has shorn it of its essentially conservative nature.
Nobody's disagreed, anyway, including you.
No, no, you affirm it:
The preferential treatment becomes the very obstacle Brown and the "minority" wanted/needed to overcome.Bing! Twenty points!
This is the third time I have asked you, WHAT INFLAMATORY REMARKS??
Thanks, it shore was, wasn't it?
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