Wednesday, July 06, 2005
The departure of the gap-truthed swing vote of the Supine Courtiers has left some liberals fuming over the past instead of planning for the future. Julia of Sisyphus Shrugged is still all unforgivingly pre-911 about the amorphous Arizonan. The pseudosymous “Dawn Summers” of Clareified has fired a drive-by shot at one of Sandy’s colleagues. Meanwhile, David Sirota has actually divined Our Noble Lame Duck’s best strategy:
This technique worked well before for both Reagan and Nixon. Look up the fight over Bork, and over Tricky’s rejected nominees.I have a prediction: O’Connor and Chief Justice William Rehnquist will both retire…Karl Rove will have Bush put up one crazy, wild-eyed conservative lunatic in the John Ashcroft mold, and one hard-right winger who seems “moderate” compared to the crazy…the lunatic goes down to defeat, but the hard-right winger gets through, and Bush replaces the lunatic with another hard-right winger as a “compromise.
If just O'Connor retires, it will be much the same strategy - first nominate a wild-eyed lunatic. It's a win-win for Bush - either the lunatic gets appointed, or the lunatic loses, and then Bush puts up someone a shade less crazy - but equally as conservative - as the “compromise.” The media will play along with this storyline, billing the second nominee as “moderate.”
It would be a shame to waste a perfectly good existing judge as the sacrifical lamb sent out to draw the diversionary fire. Instead, let’s toss up a name from blogtopia (yes! skippy coined that word!). While there are some obvious candidates teaching at Tennessee and UCLA, both of those web wonders are frankly too devoted to civil liberties to become reliable tools of America’s Team if confirmed, or to scare the Senate liberals sufficiently to lure them into torpedoing the Coddling Compromise on filibusters. It’s not even worth talking about the open lefties, whether from red states or from blue ones.
I therefore am volunteering to be the burnt offering myself. Yes, I am qualified, even though for many years I have not practiced — but then neither had liberal icon William Douglas when he was picked. Never having been a judge or a legislator means I have no record for Teddy’s staffers to take pot-shots at, but my many writings on the web should be enough to draw all the fire the Rovinator could want. Furthermore, I will pull no punches in testimony before the Senate. My goal will be to make even the sacred Wall Street Journal aghast, and the New York Times welcome even Pat Robertson by contrast. The next nominee will then sail through on greased skids of relief. Here are just a few of the provocative positions I will proclaim partiality to:
- Choice: I see nothing in the Constitution which requires any state to impose a mandatory death penalty on killers of preborn babies. That is clearly a choice which the Founders believed should be left up to the legislators themselves. It would be unconscionable judicial activism to order the execution of fetucidal doctors, and so I would not strike down laws which merely imprisoned them instead.
- Torture: The Eighth Amendment only prohibits acts which are both cruel and unusual. Once precedents have been established of the normality of such practices at U.S. controlled installations overseas, their cruelty alone should be insufficient to ban them here at home. While warnings at arrest would still apply to ordinary domestic criminals, obviously animalistic terrorist facilitators apprehended under the Patriot Acts are too dangerous to be covered by those human inventions.
Furthermore, while Article I, Section 9, bans Bills of Attainder, that only applies to laws singling out individuals. Article III, Section 3, by saying “no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood ….”, clearly implies that attainders would be okay if done as part of a general law applying to all traitors. Since one definition of an attainder is “the loss of all civil rights consequent to a sentence of death”, those convicted of treason could be tortured at will, perhaps as a means of raising revenue by charging for the privilege.
- Elections and Redistricting: If anything I say pleases Democrats, it should be my statement that I would have voted against even hearing the case of the 2000 Presidential election. They will be much less enthusiastic about my belief that the electors should have been chosen by the Republican Florida legislature. Nor should it be alone. Article IV, Section 4, does explicitly “guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government”. Note the capital letter “R”. The conclusion is obvious. Delay’s designates can redesign districts at their discretion.
- Pledge of Allegiance: Our students should not be taking an oath to a piece of cloth. Instead they should be swearing their loyalty to the President of the United States. It would be wrong to force anyone to say this pledge. It would be equally wrong to deny those offended by such refusals their freedom of non-association with such traitors through voluntary shunnings by other children. To prevent inappropriate excesses, we should post the names of these claimants of conscience in public places with stern warnings that Americans like these (and their parents) have the right to any subversive thoughts they wish. That’s what makes this country great.
- Prayer in Schools: It is a violation of the First Amendment to establish government educational institutions which use taxpayer funds to oppress the natural spiritual instincts of children worried about passing their next test; therefore, unless there is Fourteenth Amendment “equal protection of the laws” funding for schools which actively indoctrinate them with religious dogma and practices, then the public schools fail to pass Constitutional muster, and must be closed forthwith. Remember that Article IV, Section 1, also says “Full Faith … shall be given in each State….”
The White House is promising to consult fully with the Senate before sending up a victim for them. If you agree with my strategy, you now have the chance to contact your Senators and urge them to plead with the President to nominate me. After the fireworks over my hearing die down, he will then be able to propose his real choice, and make this gang of nine Extremely Right once again, as they were before FDR’s court-packing threat intimidated them into appeasing socialism. Call them today!! AC for the SC!!
