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 just find it funny that Todd blames Bush, even when the Bush administration wrote a brief against the Michigan Law school affirmative action program.
And that Todd is silent that the swing vote was a Reagan appointee, O'Connor.
Todd by your "reasoning" isn't Reagan the socialist.
This waffling nonsense keeps the issue murky until after the 2004 elections. Then, with a few more Senate seats in the GOP camp, the President can get his nominees through. He better find some judges with backbones that remain strong and brains that don't go fuzzy. We don't need SCOTUS deciding: What makes up the game of Golf", "How many admission points can I based on race before it's illegal", etc. We need judges who will issue clear, firm decisions and stay out of legislating from the bench.
Will/Should there be an official welcoming party to the Bushbots' club/clique for Todd come May 2004? Will there be a vote on his being admitted, or does his act of voting for Bush automatically make him a member of the Bushbots?
LOL! Todd you don't even have a 100 cents(a buck) in your head. The Bush administration wrote a brief against the Michigan law school practice, and yet you blame him and not the Reagan appointee and swing vote, O'Connor.
Your sad, hypocritical, and fruitless agenda is out in the open for all to see.
But in Dane's little parallel universe it's all Ross Perot's fault. Go figure.
Well most people on FR, IMO, know Fred, that you can't figure yourself out of a paper bag, so here it is again.
Perot helped elect Clinton. Clinton got to appoint 2 Supreme Court Justices(Ginsberg and Breyer), who were integral in this decision, as was Reagan appointee O'Connor and Bush 41 appointee, Souter.
But Todd wants to blame GW Bush exclusively, which brings out his hypocrisy or naive ignorance on the machinations of Supreme Court selections.
But, what the hey you and Todd can have your ignorant political orgy, putting all the blame on GW, even when the facts are pointed out to you.
And from the bizarro Todd world, you are basically stating that you don't believe what you post.
JMO, Todd, get out of your bizarro world.
Yes and from your reply #332, it is that you don't believe anything you post. JMO, you post to bring the focus to you while using third parties words as your own.
And it was not about me
JMO, but everything you post on FR is about you and only you, Todd.
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