The President Wimps Out
This is a sad, sad day in American history.
Bush Picks Miers for Supreme Court
It’s a sad, sad day indeed. President Bush, whom many of us suspected, but didn’t want to believe, might betray conservative principles in the end, has done just that, in his nomination of Harriet Miers. Listen carefully; I’m only going to say this once: Ms. Miers might, just might, just possibly could, despite the fact that she’s given money to Lloyd Bentsen and Algore, she just might be a constitutional constructionist. But that’s not the point.
The point is that Michael Luttig is one, and so is Edith Jones, and so is Samuel Alito, and so is Janice Rogers Brown, and so are any number of folks who actually believe that the Constitution is the law of the land, not some malleable, Silly Putty document to be used in the remaking society according to the Vision of the Anointed (Thomas Sowell). We wouldn’t have to guess with these folks; we wouldn’t have to wonder.
The Prez gave us John Roberts, and despite the reservations of some, I and many others gave him the benefit of the doubt. Now, I’m not so sure about that, even.
But this makes two stealth candidates in a row, and it’s just inexcusable, inexcusable, that apparently, in the eyes of the President, the leading qualification for a nominee to the Supreme Court is the lack of a paper trail. We have 55 Republican senators; we have the White House; we have a judiciary that is out of control and short on sanity, and the best we can do is Harriet Miers. This is beyond the pale, beyond excuse.
Certainly, if Ms. Miers is confirmed—and I plan to write to Rick Santorum and urge a very, very careful vote on her, though I doubt it’ll do any good—we’ll just have to hope that she pans out. I’ve heard the opinion advanced that she’s there as a “sacrificial lamb”, that the Democrats, having pretty much said that they’d filibuster anyone unwilling to perform a live abortion on the floor of the Senate chamber, will shoot dear Harriet down, and pave the way for a better nominee, once they’ve had their little tantrum. Yeah, and the black helicopters are hovering even now, and the boxcars are ready in rural Georgia, and the Great Pumpkin is about to appear.
It is time to seriously consider the Libertarians…and I’m serious about that. Seriously.
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
Osborne: A Contrarian's Guide to Knowing God
Schlossberg: Idols For Destruction
7 Responses to “The President Wimps Out”
Don’t be so surprised; Bush has been betraying conservative principles from the moment he stepped into office.
Given all the great conservatives on appeals courts, she really was a bizarr-o pick.
jpe ~ Oct 3, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Was it you who predicted this awhile back, jpe? If so, hats off to you.
Byron ~ Oct 3, 2005 at 12:47 pm
But are the Libertarians really a viable option?
matt h. ~ Oct 3, 2005 at 3:24 pm
Electable? Not for a long time. Viable? Depends on your definition. There are many, many Libertarians who advocate positions that are personally repulsive to me. At the same time, if I understand Libertarian Party philosophy correctly, they have a much stronger belief in the Constitution than does the Republican party. For instance (indulge me in a moment’s fantasy here): given the choice of what we have now, or a pro-CHOICE Libertarian prez/Congress, which would seem more likely to overturn Roe? The Libertarians, of course, provided they stick to their principles, because libertarians would interpret Roe as being flawed constitutionally. They understand, I think, that issues such as abortion are, constitutionally, supposed to be decided on a state-by-state basis.
Would a Libertarian ever be elected President? Well, that’s a whole ‘notha question…
Byron ~ Oct 3, 2005 at 3:37 pm
I think the ‘sacrificial lamb’ idea is plausible, but only for those who want to believe that Bush Jr. has someone better in mind. As for silent black helicopters, well, you can’t see or hear them at night, correct? They’re every where, man!
Mark Merritt ~ Oct 4, 2005 at 11:47 am
OK – I’ll dig a little more. Does a libertarian philosophy (whick cannot ultimately end at the federal level – for the sake of consistency it seems to have to extend to the state and local government) shirk the biblical view of the role of government? I would be the first to argue that the biblical view is a limited one, but it is a role that remains nonetheless. I guess I am hesitant to buy into libertarianism as it seems bound to a terribly deficient understanding of human nature.
matt h. ~ Oct 4, 2005 at 4:24 pm
OK, I’m certainly not the best guy to represent what Libs believe/stand for, but I’m going to give this a shot from my understanding (which certainly could be wrong!):
As I understand it, Libertarians believe that liberty should be maximized, but do not deny the need for law. Laws that keep my liberty from infringing upon yours are necessary. If that’s where they come from, I agree with that premise. There is a difference, then, in libertarianism and libertinism; a libertine would effectively define freedom as the ability to do what one pleases, whereas a libertarian would place limits at the infringement upon the rights of others. Libertarians do not believe in coercion of belief or practice by the government in moral arenas; if you want to do it, and you are a grownup, and it doesn’t negatively impact someone else, go ahead; if it shoves its way onto someone else’s freedom, though, then there’s a problem.
I think that the Libs would be strong supporters of the Constitution, which does place certain, limited powers in the hands of the federal government, and which allows state and local governments their place as well. Just because it isn’t the place of the federal government to do something, doesn’t mean that there’s no place for it to be done. It’s ridiculous, for instance, that there exists a Department of Education; education should not be the province of the federal government. It’s perfectly fine, though, for there to be local school boards and the like.
How do you understand libertarianism to be bound to this deficient understanding of human nature? Again, perhaps you, Matt, understand it better than do I, but I’m not sure that that is true.
Byron ~ Oct 5, 2005 at 8:44 pm