Posted on 11/05/2005 7:31:29 PM PST by Cincinna
HOBOKEN, N.J. -- Among the many problems Democrats in the U.S. Senate have in talking tough about blocking the Supreme Court nomination of Jersey guy Sam Alito are these: (1) Unless he turns out to be a secret partner of Jack Abramoff or a member of a terrorist cell, Alito is clearly qualified for the high court;
(2) They are starting just about 25 years too late.
The shame of and for the leadership of the Democratic Party over the past quarter-century is that they have been unable or unwilling to engage Republicans (and conservatives in general) in battles over ideas. Perhaps the conservatives running the country now are too ideological -- I certainly think that -- but since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Republicans have been the party of ideas. Democrats have been satisfied, foolishly, to focus on personalities rather than policies and programs.
Judge Alito, like the new chief justice, John Roberts, is one more example of the intellectual triumph of the right in American politics. They and other Ivy League conservatives, including Kenneth Starr and Theodore Olsen, who argued for the Republican Party before the Supreme Court that made George W. Bush president in 2000, were attracted to or recruited into the Justice Department in 1981 in a conscious effort to change legal ideas and the makeup of the federal judiciary.
"Band of brothers," they called themselves in those days, a talented cadre who often felt isolated and resentful in the liberal environs of the country's best law schools. Being smart was not enough at Harvard (Roberts) or Yale (Alito) for the young men and women who found themselves and each other in 1981 in the conservative-friendly official Washington of Reaganism.
The same kind of thing happened in journalism, producing a generation of influential conservative columnists including William Kristol (Harvard) of The Weekly Standard and David Brooks (University of Chicago) of The New York Times. All Democrats and liberals seemed able to counter with was comedians, beginning with Al Franken (Harvard), who made his name writing for "Saturday Night Live" and the movies.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, even though Yale Law School graduate Bill Clinton was president for eight years, the Democrats deteriorated into a party of tactics rather than strategy, much less ideas. Now, the loyal if limp opposition is talking about the tactics of defeating an apparently unbeatable Supreme Court nominee, rather than hammering at the incompetence, stupidity and deviousness of a White House waging war and torturing prisoners around the world while American cities sink into the sea.
Even with my own bias toward Republican judges from New Jersey -- my father was one -- Judge Alito would not be my first choice by a long shot. Whatever he really thinks about abortion laws and the rights of employees, I do not like the fact that he is a judge whose tendency has been to restrict individual access to a day in court, at a time when the United States is looking more and more like an emerging police state.
But the idea of making Alito the issue of the day and talk of filibusters and "nuclear options" is political silliness, self-indulgent minority politics. Democrats and liberals should rough up the nominee some, make him define himself, and then make some liberal points about rights of privacy, rights of workers, rights of women.
But, barring revelations unforeseen now, they have to remember that the Constitution gives presidents the right to choose Supreme Court justices. And Democrats should remember, too, that the last two liberal justices, Clinton's choices, easily won the votes of most conservatives in the Senate. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed 96-3. Justice Stephen Breyer was confirmed 87-9.
Excellence counts. Alito seems an example of that; the rest of Bush's governing choices don't. Democrats, trying to figure out how they became the minority, should go back 25 years and more to study how the Republicans became the majority.
Copyright 2005 Universal Press Syndicate
The GOP since Ronald Reagan has been the only party of ideas.
Excellence, as in the case of Judge Alito, does count.
A paraphrase of a famous quote I try to live by:
"Small minds discuss people, average minds discuss events, great minds discuss ideas."
One minor change to what Mr. Reeves has written would make it exactly right. Replace "Republicans" with "Conservatives" and "Democrats" with "Liberals."
At first I agreed with you.....then I realized I misread your quote. I thought it said:
"The GOP since Ronald Reagan has been the party only of ideas."
i.e. Failure to follow through with corresponding action.
"Sometimes a Liberal gets it right... well, almost."
If the libs would ever spend their anti-Bush energy thinking about new and innovative solutions to their favorite causes (poverty, race, environment, etc) then they might come up with some real alternatives to various branches of Conservative thought.
At that point, they'd have something to run on come election time (other than "Bush sucks" which works about as well as Bob Dole's "Clinton Sucks" campaign).
"Now, the loyal if limp opposition is talking about the tactics of defeating an apparently unbeatable Supreme Court nominee, rather than hammering at the incompetence, stupidity and deviousness of a White House waging war and torturing prisoners around the world while American cities sink into the sea."
What, the Dems HAVEN'T been making (more hysterical versions of) this claim? What have I missed?
Stopped reading after that ignorant rant..there is no White House edict to "torture" and Bush did not cause hurricane Katrina..what an idiot..
I think you missed the point.
LOL! That paragraph is the coup de gras. Reeves hasn't changed a bit in twenty years.
An impossible assignment.
Because, first, they'd have to admit that the ideas they've espoused in the past about poverty, race and enviroment were wrong. So wrong, in fact, that they've become the problem which begs for solution.
And admitting they were wrong is something a liberal dares never to do.
Most excellent. I'm stealing it, paraphrased and condensed, to use as my tagline.
Rush Limbaugh explains every day why the Democrats are unable and unwilling to engage conservatives in battles over ideas. The Democrats cannot admit that their agenda is to import Euro-style secular socialism to America, and that their tactics include the removal of religion from public view and the belittlement and destruction of the traditional nuclear family unit. The Democrats can never admit what it is they truly want because they realize that America (at least, the vast America outside of those tiny blue dots that represent parasite nests, er, cities) simply won't buy it.
It is precisely because the Democrats realize that they cannot sell their agenda through the normal course of legislation that they have concentrated their efforts on packing the courts with activist liberal fellow travelers, and then utilized those willing accomplices on the bench to force their agenda, slowly but surely, down America's throat by judicial fiat.
The first and foremost reason, by far, that I voted for George W. Bush was ....the judges. And the fury that erupted when Dubya rolled the dice with Harriet Miers showed me that a whole lot of other people feel the same as me - - it's all about the judges. Now we need to keep our fingers crossed and hope that one of the real liberals leaves the court during the next two years.
Reeves just can't abandon what has always worked for him:
First he laments that, since 1980, Republicans have been the party of ideas while Dims focused on people, i.e., personal attacks - and then he makes personal attacks on the Bush White House! referring to their "incompetence, stupidity and deviousness."
Ya just don't GET it, do ya, Dickie?
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