The president is off “empathy” as a requirement for a Supreme Court justice and is now talking about someone with a “a practical sense of how the world works.” This is vacuous nonsense, of course, for several reasons.
First, provided he is not naming a Martian anyone who has lived in America for 40 or 50 years, gone to law school and either taught law or served on the bench has some sense of how things “work.” It would be the strange bird indeed — a hermit from New Hampshire, perhaps — that had not experienced life in America.
Second, it tells us nothing about either the outcomes or the methodology the judge will employ. Is it “practical” to enact abortion on demand by judicial fiat or is it “practical” to let fifty state legislatures decide the issue? What is a “practical” interpretation of the the takings clause?
Third, does the “way the world works” include a recognition that we are a nation at war? Somehow that critical “life experience” never includes anyone with law enforcement, national security or military experience. We’ll see if the nominee has any appreciation of or views on the choices Obama must now make concerning everything from military tribunals to the status of Guantanamo alternatives like Bagram. It wouldn’t be very “practical” for a judge to dismiss out of hand the array of ”common sense” arrangements such as military tribunals which the Bush and now Obama administrations have employed.
And finally, this has nothing to do with the business of judging. The president regrettably never talks about the things judges are supposed to do — interpret the meaning of the Constitution and statutes. These are incidental, mere annoyances, in his vision. What’s key is to get to a “practical” result, which strangely enough coincides precisely with liberal policy goals.
We are on the verge of a Supreme Court nomination that will, I think, reveal more about the president than it will immediately impact the Court. Over time the justice will find her place on the Court. And we will see how she matches up to the intellectual heavyweights who insist upon fidelity to the text and meaning of the Constitution. But that will take time.
What will be immediately known is whether the president, who claims to be immersed in appellate court decisions of the potential nominees, has sought out a justice who will respect her role, not as a super-advocate for the liberal agenda, but as a judge who seeks to get it “right” and actually believes there is a “right” answer in interpreting the Constitution and statutes before her. Did he find someone who demonstrated fidelity to the law as an appellate judge? Or did he select someone who will, at any cost, wheedle and connive to find a Constitutional hook for the Left’s agenda? I have my strong suspicions but we’ll know soon enough.
Little Timmy is working hard aside from answering calls from the frontdesk because nobody wants to work with a tax cheater.
Liddy’s testimony today struck me as quite reasonable. Unfortunately, I feel that more people are going to blame AIG– the easy target– than blame Geithner’s Treasury, and President “the buck stops with me” Obama’s abdication of authority.
It’s simple, really: if what AIG did was so bad, why didn’t the government do something to prevent it from happening way back when they gave them the money? I mean, it’s not like anyone was surprised by this– we’ve had countless news stories since the fall of companies paying bonuses, renovating offices, flying corporate jets, etc. If any of this was so offensive to our new socialist Mandarins in Congress, why not pass a freakin’ law? If this bothered the President so much, why not stipulate conditions on the money?
No, that would have been *easy*, and smart, and obvious.
Instead, we got the worst of all worlds: we gave AIG the money, no strings attached. . . and now some primadonnas are complaining that AIG won’t do what they magically think is the right thing.
Excuse me, morons? YOU DIDN’T ATTACH ANY STRINGS!!!
Our government only has itself to blame. Hopefully, the American people will recognize that soon enough.
Jennifer
When are you going to get over Bush?
Richard: your comment is a joke, right?
If not, name me a day or a week in the 8 years of the Bush administration that approaches the nonsense we’ve had in the past few days: from the false irateness of Number One, to the dissembling and incredibly incompetent Timmy, to Chris Dodd blaming the White House for the language he put into the Stimulus Bill THAT SPECIFICALLY AUTHORIZED THESE BONUSES? Good grief, aren’t there any limits to the lying that the D’s can get away with?
@4 The day Harriet Miers was nominated for the Supreme Court? Nice job, Brownie? But the O’Tards and their minions in Congress certainly know how to make the mistakes of the past look trivial in comparison. And they certainly cost billions less.
@5 Although quite honestly, in reading up a bit on Harriet Miers she seems to be at least as qualified for the Supreme Court as the current occupant for the Oval Office was for the Presidency.
The Bracketologist in Chief has his shot blocked:
“Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski isn’t thrilled his team got snubbed by the leader of the free world.
“Somebody said that we’re not in President Obama’s Final Four, and as much as I respect what he’s doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets,” Krzyzewski told a reporter from the Associated Press on Wednesday.”
Jenni Baby, get over it, it’s President Obama now. As to whether a single American believes what he says, yeah, I do. I would venture to say that there are millions of Americans that believe him, way more than you would care to countenance, else your brain might go on the fritz, or more on the fritz than it already is. Obama has more moral authority in his little finger than the combined efforts of our recently departed buffoons, otherwise known as Bush and Cheney. However, I worry about you babe, cause President Obama is going to be here at least until 2012, and Jesus Christ willing, until 2016, and I think that you are going to have to pace yourself sweetheart, else you might encounter outrage fatigue and may start blabbering nonsense, more so than you do now.
Professional help is available you know.
#8: We know you believe in Obama. The question is: what, if anything, could ever cause you to stop believing in him, or at least begin to look at him critically? The answer, I’m afraid, is that nothing could ever cause you to lose your religious fervor in the man.
And what is it, precisely, that you mean by “moral authority”? Does it mean that he never has to explain why he is doing what he is doing because, as you say, he has a lot of moral authority.
How do you know that he has moral authority? Is it because his followers say he does? Or because the ministers he says he calls on the phone say he does? Or because the media say he does?
And how does that moral authority express itself? Was it moral authority that led him to push the stimulus bill nonsense on us? Was it moral authority that led him to concoct the pie-in-the-sky budget that you’ll be ringing doorbells for this Saturday? Was it moral authority that led him to basically re-affirm all of Bush’s policy on the holding of enemy combatants, with two exceptions (we’re leaving Gitmo some day and you can’t call them “enemy combatants”, you have to call them “Bad Boys” — as per the theme song of Cops)?
Moral authority is suc a wonderful, if indescribable, concept. I guess you just know it when you see it. It seems to me it coincides with popularity. If so, I think much of Obama’s moral authority will soon be leaking out of that little finger of his you referred to in you post. I’m sure you’ll be there to catch the drips.
#9 DarknessAtNoon Says:
#8: We know you believe in Obama
We only know that he says he does.
You may believe his words when he
says he believes Obama’s words; but belief is
not knowledge…
#7
RFM Says:
March 18th, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Oh man, my respect for Coach K, already high, just shot through the roof!
“Somebody said that we’re not in President Obama’s Final Four, and as much as I respect what he’s doing, really, the economy is something that he should focus on, probably more than the brackets,”
Besides, it is abundantly clear that the bracket attributed to Obama is really that of the Teleprompter in Chief. Obomber just read the dam thing.
What floored me about the president’s remarks is the admission that he agreed with something that the Bush administration did: bail out AIG.
Why does he agree? Maybe because of the AIG contributions to his campaign- over $100K.
How are Geithner’s first few weeks any worse than Obama’s?
It is amazing to see how completely the Katrina mythology has been ingested and adopted by even Bush-favoring folks such as Ms. Rubin. Of course it’s accepted uncritically by most of the populace, as you learn most often from people repeating the “heckuva job” nonsense.
A president out of touch? The federal government was fully engaged on Katrina, as they are on all such events, from meteorological work to disaster prep to heroic rescue operations by military and CG units in areas seriously affected by the storm (which did not include New Orleans – just to break some news) A populist frenzy? Uh, OK – a misinformed, disgraceful populist frenzy based on falsehoods and a lack of understanding about the roles of federal vs. state vs. local agencies – but Jennifer, the populist frenzy is alive and well in your ignorant comments. A disgusted press? Really? “Disgusted” – no, they simply reached a nadir of unprofessional, fact-free, wildly distorted malfeasance by creating the myth of an out of touch president and whipping up a populist frenzy (and let’s not forget the insane, outrageous slanders about racism).
And if you only have a “nagging” sense that this guy is way, way over his head, then as a political commentator you clearly are as well. Sorry, but it’s unacceptable to come to a relatively obscure, pointy-headed blog and have NPR-level crap simply assumed as a basis for adult discussion.