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Posted on 01/17/2003 4:09:44 PM PST by TLBSHOW
White House Brief Stops Short of Bush Speech
January 17, 2003
Folks, I really don't relish the next words, sentences, and paragraphs, which you will read on this page or hear from my mouth in the audio links below. There is some angst today in the conservative legal community over the University of Michigan case and the brief filed by the Bush administration late Thursday night near the midnight deadline, and how this brief differs in scope from the president's amazing speech.
Now, the mainstream press, of course, is late to pick up on this. We have several wire reports, which I read on Friday's program that lead with lines like, "President Bush is siding with white students in the most sweeping affirmative action case…" And they don't think they're biased? President Bush is siding with white students? No, President Bush is siding with the Constitution. It's the Fourteenth Amendment, which is being largely ignored by those in the mainstream press. He's siding with the Constitution, not siding with white students or white people or white anybody.
That being said, our legal advisors here at the EIB Network and the Limbaugh Institute have read the brief filed by the Bush administration. We've studied it, and this position is not nearly as sweeping as that taken in the president's speech. In short, he does support overturning the policy of Michigan, but stops there and goes no further. The administration's brief contends that the admissions policy at Michigan does violate the Constitution, but the brief does not say that the use of race violates the Constitution. And that's the key.
Race-based anything violates the Constitution. No such discrimination is allowed, but the brief doesn't attack that, it only attacks the specific admissions policy at the University of Michigan. The Constitution does not outlaw all forms of discrimination, but it does prohibit discrimination based on race, and in some cases it discriminates or prohibits discrimination based on gender and religion.
The brief does not challenge racial preferences in college admissions. It accepts, in fact, the fact that race-based diversity is a constitutionally proper goal. So in the brief, as opposed to the speech the president made, the administration is not opposed to the goal, but merely Michigan's practice by which it was achieved.
Here is the upshot: The president's compelling speech certainly suggested he was taking on the whole issue of race-based preferences. This is why everybody was so excited. This is why you want a conservative in the White House, to stop a mess like affirmative action. It pits groups of people against each other and it stigmatizes people who benefit from it. There's nothing positive about it. The president's opponents predictably in their criticism certainly suggested that he was taking on the issue of race-based preferences.
After hearing the president speak, and from that reaction from the left, the press, pundits and all the rest of us concluded that Bush was challenging racial preferences in college admissions. But his administration's brief - I'm sorry to say, folks - doesn't do that.
Listen to Rush...
(…compare media reports of the president's position, with the actual brief) (…continue the legal analysis of the brief filed by the White House)
Read the Articles...
(AP: Bush Brief on Affirmative Action Due) (USA Today: White House to oppose Michigan policy of race-based admissions) (Reuters: Bush Lawyers Urge Top Court to Back White Students)
Read the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution...
BTW, I've seen you post too; and I'm pretty glad we don't agree on anything.
Right, they will not expand the specific to a general, as some here think Bush should have argued for. What will happen is, if they find for the complaintants in the UM case, it establishes once and for all that using race in any way on admissions is a violation of equal protection.
They only have to rule on the one case, and it establishes PRECEDENT for all future cases. Once that happens, universities wishing to avoit being sued will adjust their rules. A few may be sued, but with the precedent established, the colleges would lose.
This is the way it always is with the Supremes. For example, Roe v. Wade was a ruling on a specific case, but it set a precendent for abortion litigation across the country.
No inconsistency there except in the dishonesty of Bush.
unlike those that won't see the truth here
Thanks for this post and thanks to President Bush the Greatest President in History!
5 posted on 01/15/2003 5:07 PM EST by TLBSHOW (Free Republic The #1 Stickest site on the web where the hardest part is clicking away...........)
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Remind me to give little Joey a tissue so he can wipe the brown stuff off his nose :-)
As anybody can see, you've kept me plenty busy.
You and your race baiting clique have to tag team while hitting the panic/abuse button. Personally I have only hit it once, and that's when I tired of your Maryland, east coast race baiting. Then I discovered that you were sitting on the moderators lap, while he was burping you. I guess that AM was part of your homeowners associtation, type clique.
I have noticed more than a few lately have strayed from the party line. You and your cliquesters have your work cut out for you.
Are you not the guy that doesn't know where he actually resides? LOL! I get a kick out of you liberal Republicans. A true party boy.
Wrong! If "diversity" in any form is permitted to stand as constitutional, there is no progress, because the precedent is a bad one. Constitutional cases are not chess games; such "subtle," "clever" thinking exhausts itself with strategies and tactics, when principles are what are called for. You could win the case, but lose the Constitution. We can't take many more "wins" like that.
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