Posted on 11/08/2002 9:07:18 PM PST by Utah Girl
MATTHEWS: We have the Republican Caucus, the Republican Party on here, ideologically speaking, the most far right group ever to assemble, I think. G. Gordon Liddy, Patrick J. Buchanan and Bob Dornan are whooping it up here. We’re going to be joined right now by Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee. Mr. Racicot, thanks for joining us.
MARC RACICOT, RNC CHAIRMAN: My pleasure. Thank you.
MATTHEWS: Are you going to try to appease these wild Indians I got here of the political right or what are you going to do? Are you going to give them an anti-abortion judge that can drive Nita Lowey and the left crazy for the next couple of months?
DORNAN: We all have Irish blood, including the host.
MATTHEWS: It has nothing to do with that (UNITELLIGIBLE). Mr.
Racicot, you’re not Irish, so speak on.
RACICOT: I am Irish. My grandmother was a good Irish person...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh God.
RACICOT: ... and Catholic as well. So I think we all have some disqualifying characteristics.
MATTHEWS: OK, let’s move on to the subject...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Judgeships are probably the hottest question in the country because when you put a judge up, you have to-they basically now have to say OK, I’m pro for abortion rights or I’m anti abortion rights, I’m choice or I’m life. How do you avoid that fight if Sandra Day O’Connor, for example, retires or one of the other judges retires in the next couple of months?
RACICOT: Well, I think you focus upon what the constitution contemplates and that is whether or not they’re qualified by reason of experience and training, and then you talk about the constitutional principles that have been articulated throughout the many generations that the court has sat and heard cases like whether or not you’re going to observe precedent.
There’s a reason for having the rule to observe precedent, and that is to bring about stability in the law. There’s a reason why courts are not consigned with the responsibility to legislate...
MATTHEWS: OK, can we get beyond...
RACICOT: ... because of stability.
MATTHEWS: ... that? I accept all that as sort of backdrop or background music, but the fact is the Republican Party has made a commitment to the far right crowd, to the religious conservatives of this country, to outlaw abortion. Will they make good on that promise?
RACICOT: I don’t think that there’s been any commitment of that kind. What this president has talked about is recommending to the Senate judges who are qualified by reason of their experience and training, and judicial capacity. These people that have been presented to the judiciary committee like...
MATTHEWS: Right.
RACICOT: ... Priscilla Owen or Miguel Estrada, these are people who are highly qualified. They have unanimous recommendations from the American Bar Association; they’re well qualified. These people ought to be considered and ought to receive a vote. The reason they didn’t is because those who control the committee were afraid the Democrats would vote for them too.
MATTHEWS: If all the people in the deep south, and I’m talking about pretty much up to the northern tobacco south, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, all across the south and what you might call the Bible Belt-I don’t mind calling it that-all voted Republican for governor as well as senator, a huge sweep on the red part of the map from last time. You don’t think that’s a mandate to outlaw abortion by the president, by putting pro-life judges on the bench? You don’t read it that way?
RACICOT: I don’t believe that you can distill it that simply, Chris.
I think there are a lot of reasons to explain that. Number one...
MATTHEWS: You don’t want to admit that one of the reasons is abortion?
RACICOT: I don’t think that it’s an expressed requirement or an express expectation. I mean I’m pro-life. I would like to see judges who construe the law in reference to that issue with a great deal of firmness, conviction and faith in the innocence of human life, but I’d never required that when I made an appointment.
I didn’t have that as a litmus test. I listened...
(CROSSTALK)
RACICOT: ... to what it is that they had to say about how they were going to be a judge.
MATTHEWS: OK, thank you very much, Marc Racicot, Republican National Chairman. Back to the panel. Does everybody agree with that? I hear you Bob Dornan. Aren’t you amazed to hear that the RNC chair is basically pooh-poohing the idea that this is a big priority question?
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
I've read several editorials today bemoaning this fact also. It is going to get really nasty for President Bush's judicial nominees, but at least they will get a vote on the Senate floor.
If one approaches the debate over abortion from the standpoint of life support, the issues splay out as to when is the individual life in the womb a human being entitled to life support based on our founding documents. Taking such an approach removes the room for demagoguery that the vile leftists of the democrat party want to spew. If our nation would debate the issue of when is there a human in the womb who is on life support and to end that life support is to kill a nascent individual human, then a paradigm shift in protection of life would occur, and occur very quickly since the despotic democrats can't win by defending arbitrary removal of life support (serial killing) when they've been championing life support mandated by court order for men who father a child.
I've noticed that. It may have something to do with the fact that, since they cannot bear offspring, they seek to kill the offspring of others in retaliation for the fact that nature has left them so wretched.
Just a thought... :)
It's an interesting problem, I think. After all, a single cell is alive. Concerning primary - that is, physical - characteristics, no one can argue that a fetus isn't alive.
Of course, what the Stalinists insist on, then, is a definition of life that doesn't include biology (something along the lines of "personhood" or consciousness). Such a definition, however, fails to meet much of a standard, because there are always exceptions to secondary characteristics.
They're been able to convince a lot of people that a fetus isn't alive by force of repetition alone. To anyone who's interested in reason, however, that isn't quite enough. That is what they're afraid of.
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