Posted on 10/15/2005 3:15:52 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Did Bush promise to appoint a justice like Scalia? CNN's Bash busted an "urban myth" with a myth of her own, while Fred Barnes changed his story -- then changed it back again
For six years, political figures and interest groups on the left, right, and center, along with reporters and commentators, have noted that during his first presidential campaign, George W. Bush promised to use Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as the model for his nominations to the court. Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes was apparently the first to report this, in a July 1999 article for that magazine. For six years, Barnes and countless others repeated this fact, and neither Bush nor any of his aides seem to have ever challenged it -- in fact, Bush did not contest Al Gore's statement in a 2000 presidential debate that Bush had made such a promise. But in recent months -- when two vacancies gave Bush the opportunity to actually make nominations to the Supreme Court -- an apparent effort to walk back the promise has been under way, with Barnes himself playing a key role through a series of inconsistent statements about his own article.
Most recently, CNN White House correspondent Dana Bash narrated a segment on the October 12 edition of The Situation Room that purported to debunk the "urban myth" that, while campaigning for president, George Bush said that his Supreme Court nominees would be in the mold of Scalia. Bash claimed that the "myth" of Bush's Scalia comments was based on a November 1999 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press in which, as Bash noted, Bush praised Scalia but didn't promise to appoint a justice like him. Bash then said that during a 2000 debate, Gore, Bush's opponent, "connected the dots" -- falsely suggesting that Gore was the first to interpret Bush's Meet the Press comments as a promise to appoint a justice like Scalia. Finally, Bash provided a clue about the source of recent efforts to walk back Bush's promise by stating that "[a] longtime time Bush aide confirms to CNN Mr. Bush didn't actually publicly pledge a Scalia or a [Clarence] Thomas, but they made no effort to clarify."
Contrary to Bash's claim, Bush's Meet the Press appearance was not the original basis for the assertion that Bush promised to appoint a justice in the mold of Scalia. Under the headline "Bush Scalia," Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes wrote in his magazine's July 5-12, 1999, issue:
WHO IS GEORGE W. BUSH'S IDEAL JUDGE, the model for nominees he'd pick for the Supreme Court? Antonin Scalia, that's who. In public comments, of course, Bush has declared his desire, if elected president, to choose judges who interpret the Constitution strictly, and Scalia qualifies on that count. Appointed by President Reagan in 1986, Scalia is one of the most conservative justices on the high court, and is part of the minority that favors overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion. But when asked about the kind of judge he would really want, Bush was quite specific. "I have great respect for Justice Scalia," Bush said, "for the strength of his mind, the consistency of his convictions, and the judicial philosophy he defends."
Bush singled out Scalia in response to a written question I submitted to his presidential campaign. Some Bush aides thought he might cite Clarence Thomas, nominated by Bush's father, President Bush, in 1991, as the model for his judicial appointments. Every bit as conservative as Scalia, Thomas would likewise reverse Roe v. Wade. But Thomas is more controversial as a result of sexual harassment charges made against him by Anita Hill. Bush is not an admirer of his father's other nominee, David Souter, now one of the Court's leading liberals.
Barnes stood by his reporting for six years. Media Matters for America can find no example of either Barnes or any Bush aide correcting the July 1999 article through mid-2005. In fact, Barnes has repeatedly reiterated the point that Bush said he'd name a justice like Scalia -- and has done so as recently as this year...
Excerpted, read the rest here: http://mediamatters.org/items/200510130005
The "in the mold of Thomas and Scalia," if it exists, will be in the 2000 campaign,
Jim thanks for researching this, discussing it and posting it. Hope we find out if he actually said it.
If Bush didn't say it, he or his staff should have corrected Barnes, instead of using it to their advantage by leaving it to everyone's imagination.
Then again, politicians use every misquote and misinterpretation by the Press if it works to their advantage.
“In the short run, the pool of potential nominees is likely to shrink and change in composition. A president who wants to avoid a battle like mine, and most presidents would prefer to, is likely to nominate men and women who have not written much, and certainly nothing that could be regarded as controversial by left-leaning senators and groups. ……The tendency, therefore will be to nominate and confirm persons whose performance once on the bench cannot be accurately or perhaps even roughly, predicted either by the President or by the Senate.”
We see that his prediction has come to pass. Only the President knows who and what Harriet Miers is. The politicizing of the court has brought us to this position where we can only trust the man we elected.
Found an earlier one. This one from the Bush/Gore debates. Gore made the allegation and Bush did not deny or correct it:
"GORE: And Governor Bush has declared to the anti-choice groups that he will appoint justices in the mold of Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who are known for being the most vigorous opponents of a woman's right to choose."
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/debates/transcripts/u221003.html
Biology? You're kidding, right? People go into bio because they can't hack the math.
"Bush is a politican and a skilled one not be misunderestimated. He has been quite ambiguous on SCOTUS appointments for years as it turns out."
And that was supposed to be a good thing. Slip it under the radar, if you will.
As we see now, if you don't hold politicians to some sort of standard, they don't have incentive to follow through. For judicial nominations, it's incredibly important, from now on out, to ask your representative to take a hard, known stand, before you pledge your vote.
No more of this "incremental" garbage.
Gene Hackman: "You just shot an unarmed man!"
Clint Eastwood: "He should have armed himself."
Absolutely right. Either a proven originalist or a proven intellect....Miers is neither.
Yep. That is the alternative. I suppose he didn't promise strict constuctionsists either, since that's what conservatives are looking for and Scalia and THomas happen to be benchmarks to disambiguate "strict constructionist."
Exactly.
Yep. Then DiffEq and Linear ALgebra for the 4th. BSME
I hope that put this part to rest ... but I doubt it
Don't go there. I'm really tired of the supergeniuses around here.
LOL
Oh, you had one of those DiffEq/LinAlg classes for the Engineering majors. Usually low-order stuff. Plug-n-chug.
Rush discussed this in depth after the Bill Bennett crap started. Anyone who is a member of Rush 24/7 can follow the link and read about it.
A solution would be for Congress to limit the scope of what the SCOTUS can deliberate on.
As most of this Republic's history has shown, there is the tendency to push controversial problems into the courts, and away from the political arena.
GWB choosing to avoid things like same sex marriage, abortion, affirmative action, emminent domain and so on, is continuing to avoid these issues by opting for "non-politically polarizing" figures for the SCOTUS.
He sure has egg on his face this time. There *are* issues of the day which need to be hammered out, and can't be pushed away forever. The political process is here to deal with them. Abdicating your duty will only result in very poor poll ratings and intra-party conflict.
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