The issues involved can be very arcane, and the public’s innate respect for the high Court adds to the uphill nature of the task.
And we have to find a way to explain how each Bush nominee is part of a larger conservative agenda to take rights away from the people in order to satisfy their fat cat and fringe fundamentalist backers.
Easy to say, hard to do.
April 12, 2005 PERMALINK
DeLay Turns To (His) Ethics Committee
(posted April 12 1:15 AM ET)
Yesterday, LiberalOasis argued that Sen. Rick Santorum’s Sunday comments were not really intended to slap DeLay, as they have been portrayed throughout the media.
On the contrary, they were in sync with DeLay’s own call to have the House Ethics Cmte (which has been packed with DeLay loyalists) look at the allegations.
After that post, on CNN’s Inside Politics, we saw that strategy continue.
First, John Fund of the Wall Street Journal exploited his paper’s newfound cache (as it’s editorial board recently criticized DeLay) to dutifully drum the same talking point:
I think that there is some questions about these trips and some questions about the funding of them that should be answered.
That's probably best handled by an Ethics Committee that's divided evenly between the two parties. That's how we've handled previous things.
And the Ethics Committee has been reconstituted, they should be given the chance to go back and look at all of this.
He even had the chutzpah to spin the recent purge of independent GOPers from the ethics panel as some sort of cleansing “reconstitution.”
Following Fund’s sorry performance, DeLay ally Rep. Roy Blunt went on CNN to echo the same talking points.
[DeLay is] eager to go to the Ethics Committee and let them look at these things that have generally been previously cleared by them.
This passes for fair and balanced on CNN.
The conservative DeLay “critic” supports turning the matter over to the neutered Ethics Cmte. The conservative DeLay buddy wants the same, as apparently does DeLay himself.
The message is patently clear: conservatives sure believe in ethics!
Anyway, the point here is that pushing for and wishing for a conservative rebellion to take down DeLay may not be the best area of focus.
Yesterday, Bob Novak wrote that, “the campaign to get DeLay still needs a major anti-DeLay Republican to go public” and Fred Barnes made similar remarks on Fox News, noting that the moderate Rep. Chris Shays doesn’t qualify.
It is doubtful that either would make such a comment if they thought a top conservative would shortly go public. They set the bar at a place that they think would be tough to clear.
Meanwhile, we need to make sure that any attempt to dump this in the joke of an Ethics Cmte is quickly called out for what it is.
April 11, 2005 PERMALINK
The Sunday Talkshow Breakdown
A weekly feature of LiberalOasis
(posted April 11 1 AM ET)
(edited April 11 11 AM ET)
Santorum and DeLay: Wrist-Slap or Hand-in-Hand?
The media, and some bloggers, parsed comments from Sen. Rick Santorum on ABC’s This Week to infer that he was trying to distance himself from House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay.
What Santorum said was (video at Crooks and Liars):
I think he has to come forward and lay out what he did and why he did it and let the people then judge for themselves.
But from everything I've heard, again, from the comments and responding to those, is everything he's done was according to the law.
Now you may not like some of the things he's done.
That's for the people of his district to decide, whether they want to approve that kind of behavior or not.
But as far as the focus on him, I think clearly, when you have a leader of Tom DeLay's passion and Tom DeLay's effectiveness, you have a media that's very much going after him and tracking him and dogging him and trying to find what they can about him.
Many are zeroing in on the first sentence, as it is safe to assume that Santorum would know that a call for DeLay to “come forward” would generate more headlines than the repeating of GOP talking points that followed.
But before you assume everything is falling apart around DeLay, note this:
Santorum’s call was echoed yesterday by none other than DeLay’s spokesman. As the AP reported:
DeLay's spokesman, Dan Allen, told AP that the congressman "looks forward to the opportunity of sitting down with the ethics committee chairman and ranking member to get the facts out and to dispel the fiction and innuendo that's being launched at him by House Democrats and their liberal allies."
Of course, the AP story did not mention that the GOP has turned the Ethics Cmte into essentially a stacked deck -- guaranteed to deadlock along party lines and neglect to investigate anyone,
especially DeLay.
So Santorum, who is headed for a tight re-election race in the swing state of PA next year, may be doing a clever two-step:
Score the headlines that make him look independent and ethical, while laying the groundwork for DeLay to be “cleared” by the Ethics Cmte.
Mouths Foaming Over Judges
Meanwhile, the right-wing continues to get unhinged over judges.
Although, GOP Sen. John Cornyn, who recently argued that recent judicial homicides may be connected to rising anger about judges making “political decisions,” tried extra hard not to sound insane yesterday.
On Fox News Sunday, Cornyn responded to Sen. Chuck Schumer’s observation that some right-wingers are calling for the impeachment of judges they don’t like by saying:
...no one is suggesting that impeachment occur. That has not been suggested in Senate at all.
Oops! Guess Santorum didn’t get that memo. Here he is on ABC yesterday:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: …at [a conservative] conference [this past week] there were several speakers who said … Congress ought to consider impeaching judges, including [Supreme Court] Justice Kennedy.
Do you go along with that?
SANTORUM: Well, I don't necessarily go along with impeaching Justice Kennedy.
But should we impeach judges who violate the law? We have in the past.
Should we look at situations where judges have decided to go off on their own tangent and disobey the statutes of the United States of America?
I think that's a legitimate area for oversight -- sure.
Back on Fox, Cornyn tried to clean up his earlier insane comments about judicial homicides:
...my point was, maybe unartfully stated, is that the founders thought that judges would be what they call the least dangerous branch because they wouldn't be making policy decisions.
They'd be enforcing policy decisions made by Congress.
This “least dangerous branch” talking point is a right-wing favorite when claiming that the founders wanted the judicial branch to be subservient to Congress (except, of course, when Congress does liberal things, then judges can screw over Congress all it wants).
But it’s another classic “up is down” talking point.
It’s true that Alexander Hamilton, in one of the Federalist Papers, called the judiciary the “least dangerous [branch] to the political rights of the Constitution.”
But he was trying to make the point, now commonplace in 8th grade classrooms across America, that the judicial branch’s job is to independently interpret the Constitution.
And that the judiciary’s inherent “least dangerous” status requires it to be protected from the Congress -- not be subservient to it -- in order to carry out its responsibility.
Hamilton wrote:
-- the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power; that it can never attack with success either of the other two; and that all possible care is requisite to enable it to defend itself against their attacks.
-- the general liberty of the people can never be endangered … so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive.
For I agree, that “there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.”
-- The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts … It belongs to them to ascertain [the Constitution’s] meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body.
-- this conclusion [does not] by any means suppose a superiority of the judicial to the legislative power.
It only supposes that the power of the people is superior to both; and that where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the judges ought to be governed by the latter rather than the former.
So basically, Hamilton was warning against exactly what the GOP Congress is trying to do right now.
Note to journalists: you’re allowed to confront those who regularly distort the original intent of the Founders through selective quotation.
More Straight Talk!
Sen. John McCain, so-called practitioner of straight talk, had this to say on CBS’ Face The Nation about his position on using the nuclear option to end filibusters of judicial nominations.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Would you oppose this if Senator Frist decides to do it, Senator McCain?
McCAIN: I would listen to my leaders.
I believe that these judges should be confirmed. I think that they are good people. And as I said, elections have consequences.
Having said that, the Senate is different ... We have traditionally protected the rights of the minority...
...and if we don't protect the rights of the minority, someday history shows that we
won't always be in the majority...
SCHIEFFER: Well, can I just ask you the direct question? Are you opposed to doing away with the filibuster, Senator?
McCAIN: Yes.
SCHIEFFER: You are.
McCAIN: Yes, but I will listen to our leadership.
Is there such a thing as a “straight-waffle”?
