Posted on 10/19/2005 2:09:36 PM PDT by bigsky
Truer words were never spoken.
If the point is not to screw around with keywords, let me know when that policy gets fully implemented. "Midlifecrisis" and "Morebushbashing" seem to be still up as keywords, though they're obviously just plain cheerleading for Miers, insulting Ann specifically and all the folks who disagree with the Miers nomination generally.
Ping.
OK, I stand corrected. But her exaggeration aside, the SC hears dozens of cases each year, and most of them (as Ann said in an earlier column) are dry-as-dust rulings on........
Sigh. To find a good example of a "dry-as-dust ruling," I found myself reading Rehnquist's year-end summaries, and completely lost heart for this debate. The 2004 summary, for example, is so full of self-serving claptrap, including an appeal for increased funding of the judiciary and a defense of judicial activism... I surrender. The robed ones rule us, and changing them will take generations. Ain't gonna happen. I give up.
The qualifications for serving as a Justice on the Supreme Court were deliberately left a little vague. Over the past half-century, the selections have been what is politically popular with the US Senate at that time.
Mercifully, the cabal in the Senate that thwarted Robert Bork has been pushed tothe side, and no longer has the power they once did. But that oligarchy has been pushed aside by the "Gang of Fourteen", who have styled themselves the voice of "moderation", whatever that means. Mostly that "BUSH HAD BETTER LISTEN TO US, BY GOLLY!" So he did.
Thus do we have Harriet Miers. Apparently innocuous, a meek Aunt Bea, it would be like kicking your older sister.
There never was a first choice that would take the seat. And was prepared for the heat. This was a HUGE head fake by Bush.
The better answer to the privacy issue is the one in your post about the tenth amendment. If we understood and returned to the enumerated powers of the federal government, then we wouldn't be worrying about RvW, or a federal invasion of privacy.
On the other hand, the states, under the original understanding of the Constitution, had inherent power and authority to regulate health, safety and morals. That Utah and Massachusetts might have different laws on the moral issues of the day would not have surprised the founders.
Hard core pro lifers (and I'm one of them) are likely to say that well they don't want Massachusetts to have a liberal position on abortion. I agree that that is not optimal. But it is not nearly as bad as the current situation where MA and NY are dictating to the rest of the country including Utah, Louisiana and Oklahoma that they must tolerate all abortions.
The federal structure set forth in the Constitution resolves most issues.
""Due to their mismanagment, the WH has got a fight with a far less qualified and accomplished candidate. What a complete waste"
Truer words were never spoken."
Wait...I thought this was a brilliant stealth pick by the political geniuses which was going to whiz through, burn the liberals, impress the moderates, and unite the conservatives?
By trying to avoid a fight with liberals and moderates, it appears that the WH has found itself fighting conservatives...as well as moderates and liberals.
Hard to imagine anyone else getting this triple crown, eh?
Now...all that said, I don't really think this nomination is in trouble. She's just getting a little ribbed. I anticipate that she'll pass something like 70 -30.
All I can say that if she doesn't make it because she comes across as incompetent, or if she doesn't make it because either the liberals or the conservatives REALLY decide to fight, then, it is beyond me as to how everyone can think that GWB/Rove are such geniuses when it comes to political judo. Time will tell.
"a meek Aunt Bea"
chortle
Nominating this woman is hardly "doing his job" as he promised to do. The supposed animus against Ms. Miers is not personally motivated against her. It is the supporters of Ms. Miers who seem to be unable to offer anything in her defense to actually demonstrate a qualification to perform even minimally in the position to which she has been nominated. The best defenses offered by the White House have amounted to second-hand or third-hand assurances of how they think she may vote, at best. In their relaunch of the candidate (not a good sign when you have to relaunch a nomination because of the original response) the Administration official quoted couldn't come up with anything specific except that she's a good bowler. While that may have seemed like an awesome qualification at the time, people who take nominations to important positions (as opposed to members of the Bush cult of personality) beg to differ. It may comfort you to try to dismiss valid criticisms of this and several other nominees (remember the days when this Administration's nominees were actually qualified?) as arising from some sort of personal animus, but you'd be wrong. And the defenses offered so far do not address the substantive defects of this nominee and the nomination process as currently operating at the White House.
"You apparently don't know the definition of "tangible.""
Au contraire
tan·gi·ble ( P ) Pronunciation Key (tnj-bl)
adj.
Discernible by the touch; palpable: a tangible roughness of the skin.
Possible to touch.
Possible to be treated as fact; real or concrete: tangible evidence.
Possible to understand or realize: the tangible benefits of the plan.
Law. That can be valued monetarily: tangible property.
Apparently the concept of tangible is not tangible to you.
Anyway, you have me confused ("folks like you") with someone who thinks the right of privacy is defined by the fourth amendment. I don't. It's in the ninth amendment as I said at the beginning, and it mainly encompasses concepts that derive from the British Common Law. I don't know why you keep throwing the fourth at me, and talk about buggering someone. Rights don't prevent you from being subject to criminal laws of general applicability.
Just like my right to free snickers bars.
I guess Ann never heard of the Fugutive Slave Act or the Compromise of 1850 that strengthened that Act. Slaves were forcibly taken from free states back to slave states as a result of this Act. The Dred Scott decision involved a slave who was taken by his master to Illinois, a free state.
The forcible taking of slaves from free states to slave states as a result of the Fugitive Slave Act was one cause of the embitterment between the freedom-loving North and the slave-loving South.
If Ann is going to savagely attack Miers's legal credentials, then she should be prepared to face savage attacks as well. This sarcastic comment of hers that is flat-out wrong shows her to be ignorant of legal matters, and more of a shrieking head TV novelty act than a series legal commentator.
"Just like my right to free snickers bars."
I know you really don't like to admit when you're wrong, none of us do, but now you're just being silly. As each of your attempts to support your initial contention, "there is no right of privacy" gets knocked down, you get farther afield and ultimately resort to this. It's sad really.
Your cohorts have made it clear that homosexual sex performed in private is Constitutional, and in particular that anti-sodomy laws (of the sort passed in all the framers' home states) are unconstitutional. Does your interpretation of the ninth amendment support or oppose this viewpoint? What about prostitution? If those can be illegalized, what judicial standard distinguishes those behaviors from the ones that can be?
That's what elections, not judges, are for. Better to have errant elected officials ousted in an election for writing bad laws than to enable errant judges (appointed for life) legislate from the bench using ficticious Constitutional language.
I should go easy on Ann, because in her desire to trash Miers she actually BELIEVED (trusted) Arlen Specter to give an accurate account of a conversation. Normally Ann would know better.
Ann's fault.
Constitutional law CAN use common sense. Common sense says that when the constitution says "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" that it means that people have a right to keep and bear arms.
That's not common sense, that's an interpretation of the plain text of the constitution. Contrast that the constitution doesn't say "the right of the people to keep and use birth control devices shall not be infringed"
"Your cohorts have made it clear that homosexual sex performed in private is Constitutional, and in particular that anti-sodomy laws (of the sort passed in all the framers' home states) are unconstitutional."
I wasn't aware that I had any cohorts.
"Does your interpretation of the ninth amendment support or oppose this viewpoint?"
Oppose of course. Anyone who would think otherwise would have to be a judicial activist.
"What about prostitution? If those can be illegalized, what judicial standard distinguishes those behaviors from the ones that can be?"
There is no constitutional basis to prevent states from enacting anti-prostitution laws, including the right of privacy. Next?
Waitaminnit--it sounds like you understand the 14th amendment correctly, which changes everything. SCOTUS interpretation is that the 14th amendment imposes the bill of rights on the states, then you are saying the FEDS can't "violate our privacy," except where it falls within the enumerated powers, but that the STATES can do so. For example, a federal anti-prostitution law would be unconstitutional, but a state anti-prostitution law would be constitutional.
If that's your position, then we essentially agree--and you don't believe there's a "right to privacy" after all. I.e., you believe that there is at the federal level but that there is not at the state level.
"If that's your position, then we essentially agree--and you don't believe there's a "right to privacy" after all. I.e., you believe that there is at the federal level but that there is not at the state level."
Well I always was talking about the federal level because we were talking about a USSC Justice. But I take your meaning re the 14th. The States may or may not have their own right of privacy depending on their constitutional history (California explicitly does). I don't believe the federal concept of the right of privacy has ever been imposed on the states through the incorporation doctrine (which I also oppose).
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