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Posted on 06/21/2004 7:19:32 AM PDT by Alissa
2nd Circuit’s Calabresi Also Compares Bush’s Rise to That of Hitler
WASHINGTON — A prominent federal judge has told a conference of liberal lawyers that President Bush’s rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler.
“In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States…somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power.That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power,” said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan.
“The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy,” Judge Calabresi continued, as the allusion drew audible gasps from some in the luncheon crowd Saturday at the annual convention of the American Constitution Society.
“The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual,” the judge said.
Judge Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, said Mr. Bush has asserted the full prerogatives of his office, despite his lack of a compelling electoral mandate from the public.
“When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing,” he said.
The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to their political views, expel Mr. Bush from office in order to cleanse the democratic system.
“That’s got nothing to do with the politics of it.It’s got to do with the structural reassertion of democracy,” Judge Calabresi said.
His remarks were met with rousing applause from the hundreds of lawyers and law students in attendance.
Judge Calabresi was born in Milan. His family fled Mussolini in 1939 and settled in America. In 1994, President Clinton appointed the law professor to the federal appeals court that hears cases from the states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
An opinion written by Judge Calabresi in 2000 rebuked Mayor Giuliani’s administration for failing to respect First Amendment rights.
“We would be ostriches if we failed to take judicial notice of the heavy stream of First Amendment litigation generated by New York in recent years,” the judge wrote. Allies of the mayor denounced the opinion as a thinly veiled political attack on Mr. Giuliani, who was then a candidate for the Senate.
Judge Calabresi made his comments from the floor during a question-andanswer period that was part of a panel discussion on the impact of the upcoming election on law and policy.
“I’m a judge and so I’m not allowed to talk politics. So I’m not going to talk about some of the issues that were mentioned or what some have said is the extraordinary record of incompetence of this administration,” he said.
Two Republicans on the panel politely rejected Judge Calabresi’s contention that Mr. Bush has overstepped his bounds.
A White House counsel under President George H.W. Bush said Judge Calabresi suggested the war in Iraq was a bold and inappropriate use of power without noting that the president’s policy initially enjoyed broad bipartisan support.
“It was approved with a pretty solid vote from Congress,” C. Boyden Gray said. Mr. Gray said conservatives believe Mr. Bush has been too cautious on issues like Medicare reform.
“If anything, he’s been too shy of doing things,” the attorney said.
A top Supreme Court litigator, Jay Sekulow,said it would be unwise to place limits on Mr. Bush’s authority simply because he did not win the popular vote.
“To say that a person who comes in under an Electoral College vote but not a majority of the popular vote and they’re somehow relegated to president-minus,I think is a very dangerous precedent,” said Mr.Sekulow,who is chief counsel for a conservative legal group,the American Center for Law and Justice.
One of the Democrats on stage endorsed Judge Calabresi’s comments.
“I absolutely obviously agree with what Judge Calabresi was trying to get at,” said a former chief of staff to Vice President Gore, Ronald Klain.
On Friday evening, Justice Breyer addressed the group. His presentation was more restrained. He detailed his thinking on the affirmative action cases the court recently decided. However, most of his remarks consisted of a celebration of the respect that most Americans show for the high court’s rulings.
“Ignoring the court isn’t done in this family,” the justice said.
During a session on corporate crime, a prominent class-action lawyer, Melvyn Weiss of Manhattan, warned that tort reform and similar measures could wipe out the plaintiffs’ bar.
Brandishing a copy of a Manhattan Institute report on trial lawyers, Mr. Weiss said, “This is what we’re up against, ladies and gentlemen, and if we don’t fight it, we’re dead meat.”
Another panelist said stockholders who said little about corporate governance in the 1990s share some of the blame for the recent corporate scandals.
“We were all making money. We weren’t out there saying, ‘Get ‘em Mel. Go get ‘em, Mel,” said a former attorney general of Massachusetts and a former president of Common Cause, Scott Harshbarger. He praised New York’s attorney general for his investigations.
“Elliott Spitzer has not drilled a dry hole yet,” Mr. Harshbarger said.
At another discussion, liberal lawyers said it was hypocritical for Republicans to push federal caps on damages in state tort cases while maintaining that they favor limited federal government.
Pathetic.
Typical action for a Bush Hater.
Lawyers are nervous - Bush must be doing something right...
But of course. One of the grave weaknesses in our system is its susceptibility to politicization of the courts. Clinton (and FDR before him, by threatening to pack the court by expanding the number of judges) were two of the very worst in this regard. The judicial legacy that a corrupt president (in the sense of selecting judges on highly partisan political grounds) causes lives on for a long, long time.
The real question is..
How Do They Become Judges??
Why is this clown a judge? So it was perfectly fine for the Florida Supreme Court to CHANGE THE LAW in the middle of an election but wrong for SCOTUS to pimp-smack them down, in favor of the rule of law?
Oh, no! Politics has nothing to do with his comments </sarcasm!>
Another jurist who thinks he's a legislator.
Yes, he IS suggesting Pres Bush is Hitleresque.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have made the analogy.
Amazing that a federal judge cannot understand exactly what the Supreme Court did. They did not choose the winner- the voters of Florida did.
Now there's a surprise ;-)
"First, kill the lawyers." Shakespeare
The takeover of the American Legal System by Lawyers and Judges sympatheic to the highly socialistic Democratic Party is similar to the bureaucratic, Marxist takeovers of economies throughout the 1900's.
Judge Calabresi was born in Milan. His family fled Mussolini in 1939 and settled in America. In 1994, President Clinton appointed the law professor to the federal appeals court that hears cases from the states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
I knew he was a Klintoon appointee before getting to this paragraph. Another radical &%#@*! Klintoon judge!
In Essex County, New Jersey, circa 1969, I worked for a judge as a Court Attendant.
This judge admitted that he got the appointment because he and his wife gave $20,000 to the Essex County Democrat Party.
Quite simply, that, or methods close to that, are how every judge is appointed, or allowed to run for election. (when electing is the method of selection)
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Calabresi's views are absolutely in line with virtually every single NYC professional I ever met while working there. They really believe their ravings, too, it's kind of scary to listen to. People there practically walk around crying every time a Republican wins high office, which is one of the reasons our victories are so delicious.
Send him an email, his addy is above.
And this is Guido's high note?
Uh huh...
I know the driver saw the "Bush-Cheney" sticker on my beatup S-10 (290,000 miles on it).
About all I can say to your post (besides thanks) is that the votes got counted three times. And thank God for the Electoral College.
When you fight the last war, you can't win the current one. I only hope that the dems keep this up.
They just can't get over the 2000 election. It is the issue that every interaction with Bush is framed and they just can't stop thinking and actively arguing about it.
They're sick...and I do mean mentally ill.
Wow, a mob judge speaks out. Likely high on coke when he did.
Do you even know what their point is about Bush/FL/Supreme Court? I honestly don't know what they're getting at.
Gore won the popular vote nationally, Florida showed a victory for Bush, which gave W the Presidency, bogus charges were made about Florida voting, recount after recount was called, Florda's official declared Bush the winner, the Supremes ratified the election's results, and Bush is President.
So what is the critics' point? I'm serious. Do they think there should have been endless recounts? There have been, and not one has shown Gore the winner. Do they think the Supremes should have said Gore is President because of popular vote? The Constitution says it is the electoral college, not popular vote, that decides the issue. Should the country have all waited while an entire re-election was held in Florida?
What is their point, really?
Dan
Who is this guy?
Everybody who thinks the USSC 'selected' GWB should be asked if it was OK for Al Gore's lawyers to go running to the Florida Supreme Court to overturn the Florida Election results. It was Gore who made the first move in the legal battle which ended with the embarrasment of the Florida Supremes.
Calabrisi had a transient moment of lucidity. Maybe he'll have another one. Meanwhile, anything he says should be suspect, as the ravings of a hysterical lunatic, just to be on the safe side.
Faln 16 judge??
This guy is 180 degrees off. The press tried to elect Gore for more than two years with every conceivable method of recount they could come up with and couldn't do it. All of Gore's legal wrangling was pointless, he could never change the election only postpone the outcome.
Typical liberal. When he doesn't get his way, the cosmos is in crisis.
Of course it's fine. The lefties say so! ;-)
BTW, what part of Ohio are you located?
$710.96.. The price of freedom.
THAT ABOUT SAYS IT ALL AND EXPLAINS IT ALL
And this man sits on a Federal Court of Appeals. Have they all lost their minds? Comparing the Supreme Court to the King of Italy? Whereas the decisions of the SCOFLA were completely consistent with the law? Is there some way to get this ignoramus declared non compos mentis and removed from the bench?
A perfect case for impeachment - NOW!
“That’s got nothing to do with the politics of it.It’s got to do with the structural reassertion of democracy,” Judge Calabresi said."
Another way of "structurally reasserting democracy" is the overwhelming re-election of "W"......an alternative which seems to have eluded this lib dimwit. A big electoral sweep in November might help focus his attention.
That's pretty bad, but at least he's not teaching Criminal Procedure or Constitutional Law.
First they took over the American education system, now they are taking over the American judicial system.
"“That’s got nothing to do with the politics of it.It’s got to do with the structural reassertion of democracy,” Judge Calabresi said. "
Riiiiiight, no politics involved here folks....move along, nothing to see.......
And how do we get them off the bench
Impeachment. They are appointed for life! What a mistake. They should be held accountable for their actions; however, very few judges are ever impeached.
Well.....it appears to me, that the guy stated his view on politics just one sentence after stating he wasn't allowed.
So much for the "rule of law". I realized some time ago....it only applies to those who actually "respect and honour" the law.
Sigh......
"There's a difference between reputation and character" - Bill Clinton, at the National Prayer Breakfast, claiming that his character was "between me and my God"
Gasp! He looks like an a-hole so therefore he must be one!
Talk about speaking through the side of your mouth! What a snake.
Typical.
These people never mention the Florida Supreme Court and its reversals of (Democrat!) lower court judges whose decisions favored Bush.
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