Columnists often fall into familiar patterns. For E.J. Dionne Jr., one of those patterns goes like this: if conservatives don’t act like liberals they’re not really conservatives. The latest example of this writing tic can be found in E.J.’s column today, in which he argues that the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court should – if they’re really and truly conservative – find an unconstitutional law to be constitutional.
There are some amusing elements to Dionne’s column, including his new-found concern about “a judicial dictatorship.” I’m delighted the scales have fallen from Dionne’s eyes, that he has embraced with passionate intensity the belief that “legislative power is supposed to rest in our government’s elected branches” and not with the judiciary. But I’m tempted to point out that a columnist who heretofore has been enchanted with the idea of a “living Constitution” – rootless, ever-evolving, with no fixed meaning, that is busy inventing new rights and jettisoning old ones – has lost the philosophical ground on which to make this objection (particularly when his objections are in fact baseless). Dionne also says that “conservative justices were obsessed with weird hypotheticals” – yet he fails to realize those “weird hypotheticals” served their purpose perfectly. They illustrated that there is no limiting principle for liberals when it comes to the power and reach of the federal government. (For more, see here.)
But the most revealing thing about Dionne’s column is its tone: snide, angry, and condescending toward the conservatives on the Court. It is evidence that he and other progressives are beginning to lash out as they see Barack Obama’s health care law – an unworkable, unconstitutional monstrosity they were convinced was a permanent part of the American political landscape – slip through their fingers. If that in fact occurs – and I’ll believe it when I see it – then prepare for a level of rage from the left that we haven’t seen since the worst days of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
The Justices who vote Obamacare down EN TOTO are the ones who realize that destroying the USA Constitution also destroys the Foundation of their own jobs, and can cost them their necks. n nAfter all, if Government is not constrained by the Constitution, then what constrains the CITIZENS – WE THE PEOPLE!
Dionne is a dishonest man who adds little of interest or intelligence to any conversation. n nHow does the man keep a job? n nHe keeps a job because leftist editors with a political party line to echo find it worth while to employ Dionne as a party hack echo chamber for hire.
Sometimes it is necessary to make the liberals understand that there are games which two can play. For example, they were all for the special prosecutor law until in the person of Kenneth Starr it was used against them. They then let the SP law die a quiet death. Perhaps if conservatives, having obtained the majority, start describing the constitution as a living and growing document [translation: It means whatever we want it to mean.] perhaps they would settle for a compromise of judicial restraint in both directions.
I know…this is all pretty delicious. we shouldn't count our chickens before they're hatched and all that–but it's pretty fun to see such a passion for a restrained judiciary all of a sudden.
…I’m delighted the scales have fallen from Dionne’s eyes, that he has embraced with passionate intensity… n nYou mean as in Yeats's "passionate intensity?" n nAnyway the notion of a living Constitution needs some anatomizng. What it means is not that new rights are are createdt ex nihilo, and not that the text of the Constitution gets ignored but rather that its principles as they emerge from the text, often phrased in general terms, "cruel and unusual punishment," "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…", get evolving understandings as they encounter facts and situations unthought of at the founding. An entirely sensible idea: consider the Fourth Amendment in dealing with police GPS tracking for instance, as just considered by SCOTUS.(What fixity would you seek:?) n nSo holding to that idea is not, as you put it, tantamount to Dionne losing "the philosophical ground on which to make this objection." And that's apart from who has the better legal argument on the merits of the mandates.