That will be the title of my piece on Monday. I'll be emphasizing the very favorable view of John McCain expressed by my favorite publication, The (London) Economist, which is very good at capturing the reasons why certain political figures -- McCain in this case -- catch on so well with large segments of the public. On the right, by the way, you see a picture of Gov. Sarah Heath Palin of Alaska, one of my favorite people on the planet. John McCain would do very well to consider her for the vice-presidency. The Monday column will be up by noon, ET.
Can't wait for Super Tuesday. How about you? Also, thanks to the visitor from Vienna, Austria, who stayed a long time -- and to Cole from Mobile, Alabama, a great supporter of John McCain. Note: The piece analyzing The Economist's (positive) views on McCain will come up later today. For now, I'd like to reprint the important piece in The Wall Street Journal on McCain and the judiciary.
Wall Street Journal: McCain And The Supreme Court
By Steven G. Calabresi and John O. McGinnis
The conservative movement has made enormous gains over the past three decades in restoring constitutional government. The Roberts Supreme Court shows every sign of building on these gains.
Yet the gulf between Democratic and Republican approaches to constitutional law and the role of the federal courts is greater than at any time since the New Deal. With a Democratic Senate, Democratic presidents would be able to confirm adherents of the theory of the "Living Constitution" -- in essence empowering judges to update the Constitution to advance their own conception of a better world. This would threaten the jurisprudential gains of the past three decades, and provide new impetus to judicial activism of a kind not seen since the 1960s.
We believe that the nomination of John McCain is the best option to preserve the ongoing restoration of constitutional government. He is by far the most electable Republican candidate remaining in the race, and based on his record is as likely to appoint judges committed to constitutionalism as Mitt Romney, a candidate for whom we also have great respect.
We make no apology for suggesting that electability must be a prime consideration. The expected value of any presidential candidate for the future of the American judiciary must be discounted by the probability that the candidate will not prevail in the election. For other kinds of issues, it may be argued that it is better to lose with the perfect candidate than to win with an imperfect one. The party lives to fight another day and can reverse the bad policies of an intervening presidency.
The judiciary is different. On Jan. 20, 2009, six of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70. Most of them could be replaced by the next president, particularly if he or she is re-elected. Given the prospect of accelerating gains in modern medical technology, some of the new justices may serve for half a century. Even if a more perfect candidate were somehow elected in 2012, he would not be able to undo the damage, especially to the Supreme Court.
Accordingly, for judicial conservatives electability must be a paramount consideration. By all accounts, Mr. McCain is more electable than Mr. Romney. He runs ahead or even with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the national polls, and actually leads the Democratic candidates in key swing states like Wisconsin. Mr. Romney trails well behind both Democratic candidates by double digits. The fundamental dynamic of this race points in Mr. McCain's way as well. He appeals to independents, while Mr. Romney's support is largely confined to Republicans.
With many more Republican senators up for re-election than Democrats, the nomination of Mr. Romney could easily lead to a Goldwater-like debacle, in which the GOP loses not only the White House but also its ability in practice to filibuster in the Senate. Thus, even if we believed that Mr. Romney's judicial appointments were likely to be better than Mr. McCain's -- and we are not persuaded of that -- we would find ourselves hard-pressed to support his candidacy, given that he is so much less likely to make any appointments at all.
In fact, there is no reason to believe that Mr. McCain will not make excellent appointments to the court. On judicial nominations, he has voted soundly in the past from Robert Bork in 1987 to Samuel Alito in 2006. His pro-life record also provides a surety that he will not appoint judicial activists.
We recognize that there are two plausible sources of disquiet. Mr. McCain is perhaps the foremost champion of campaign-finance regulation, regulation that is hard to square with the First Amendment. Still, a President McCain would inevitably have a broader focus. Securing the party's base of judicial conservatives is a necessary formula for governance, as President Bush himself showed when he swiftly dropped the ill-conceived nomination of Harriet Miers.
Perhaps more important, because of the success of constitutionalist jurisprudence, a McCain administration would be enveloped by conservative thinking in this area. The strand of jurisprudential thought that produced Sen. Warren Rudman and Justice David Souter is no longer vibrant in the Republican Party.
Others are concerned that Mr. McCain was a member of the "Gang of 14," opposing the attempt to end filibusters of judicial nominations. We believe that Mr. McCain's views about the institutional dynamics of the Senate are a poor guide to his performance as president. In any event, the agreement of the Gang of 14 had its costs, but it played an important role in ensuring that Samuel Alito faced no Senate filibuster. It also led to the confirmation of Priscilla Owens, Janice Rogers Brown and Bill Pryor, three of President George W. Bush's best judicial appointees to the lower federal courts.
Conservative complaints about Mr. McCain's role as a member of the Gang of 14 seem to encapsulate all that is wrong in general with conservative carping over his candidacy. It makes the perfect the enemy of the very good results that have been achieved, thanks in no small part to Mr. McCain, and to the very likely prospect of further good results that might come from his election as president.
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supreme Court. Show all posts
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Monday, August 6, 2007
Republican Choices: The Supreme Court & Sarah Palin
I'm going to remain relatively quiet over the next few days (no cheering requested!).
I've been exchanging views with Larry Perrault in Houston (http://larryperrault.blogspot.com/, a man who's a passionate supporter of Mike Huckabee (and is leaning toward supporting Sarah Palin). My comments on his blog may be using up my energy, somewhat dissipated anyway by my being "under the weather."
I've been asking Larry if Mike Huckabee is "tough enough" to wage a winning campaign against Hillary Clinton. Larry is responding with vigorous and informed support of his favorite presidential candidate.
It now appears clear to me (if not to everyone) that the Democratic ticket will be Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson. It will not be an easy ticket to beat, but in many ways -- and a lot of people won't believe this -- it may be the best Democratic ticket the country can hope for. (The easiest ticket to beat would be one with John Edwards at the top, and the second easiest would be one headed by Obama.)
Edwards revealed his essence with the $400 haircut and the 28,000 square-foot house, all the while decrying the prevalence of poverty in America. Obama demonstrated his ignorance about the world by proposing a situation in which he would invade an allied nation -- one armed with nuclear weapons.
I've been writing recently about Republicans being careless, if not clueless, in the people they choose to lead. I've emphasized the GOP's choices for vice-president, although some of the presidential picks -- and I sadly include Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford in this criticism -- were not good ones.
Remember when Bob Dole ran for President in 1996 at age 73? His campaign mainly consisted of cryptic comments about how "The American people know ole Bob Dole. They know where he stands."
If they did know, which I doubt, they didn't like his stands well enough to vote for him.
Aside from Ronald Reagan (who nominated Scalia and named Rehnquist Chief Justice) in most instances and George W. Bush, Republican Presidents have a mixed record in picking Supreme Court justices. Ronald Reagan did appoint the over-rated Sandra Day O'Connor, who apparently thought her constitutional role was to be a "swing vote."
Going back to Gerald Ford, his choice for the Supreme Court was John Paul Stevens. Now 87 -- and showing no signs either of retiring or dying (at least as long as a Republican holds the White House) -- Stevens is one of the most liberal individuals ever to be on the Court. As John Adams famously said of bureaucrats at the dawn of the 19th century: "Few die. NONE retire."
Also, George H. W. Bush, who was wise enough to appoint Clarence Thomas, unforunately nominated the the Court dunce, David Souter. Bush 41 deferred for that choice to advisor John Sununu, who thought a fellow New Hampshirite like Souter would make a fine conservative judge. Obviously, Sununu knew nothing about that nominee other than the individual's state of residence.
Compare the above nominees with Clinton's two choices: Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Both of them are fine programmatic liberals, about as interested in the words of the Constitution as they are in those of poets writing in Swahili. In short, Clinton appointed people who were just like Bill . . . and Hillary.
GWB's initial choice of Harriet Miers was curious. It's not so much that Miers lacked qualifications, as that there obviously better legal minds available, including the eventual nominee, Samuel Alito.
Clearly, it's not enough for Republicans to assume their leaders will make good, informed choices. We have to provide them assistance, and that's what many of us are doing with our advocacy of Sarah Heath Palin.
It's important to understand why it's important to have a strict constitutionalist like Sarah Palin in the nation's high offices. Otherwise, we'll end up with justices like Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens, and Souter who think their job is "to do good works," to repair the supposed deficiencies both of the written Consitution. They confuse their role with that of Congress. the states, and the people.
In the often useful and sometime biased "Wikipedia," there's a good discussion (under Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) of their view of "originalism." What that means it that they believe their rulings should reflect the original intent, so far as it can be determined, of the authors of the Constitution. They don't believe in the claptrap that goes under the name of "the living Constitution," which basically means current justices can rewrite those elements that are not to their liking.
(By the way, Scalia, a devout Roman Catholic, and his wife Maureen have NINE children. They're remarkable individuals in their own right -- one of them a priest in the Roman Church and another a Major in the U.S. Army. Scalia is one of FIVE Roman Catholics, along with Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy, on the Court.)
Where the Constitution falls short, and the original version did in a few ways, it falls to the American people and their elected officials to amend it. We don't need to rely on Justice Stevens and others like him to do so, as they did with Roe v. Wade for example.
Evidence suggests that Sarah, when she gets the opportunity someday, will nominate judges in the great tradition of William Rehnquist (not an originalist, but close), Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito. She's talking about what an exciting and humbling experience it is for her to be able to talk directly to people who authored Alaska's state constitution.
The first step in getting her in a position to influence the Court's destiny is to make sure she's on the Republican ticket in November, 2008.
Stephen R. Maloney
Ambridge, PA
I've been exchanging views with Larry Perrault in Houston (http://larryperrault.blogspot.com/, a man who's a passionate supporter of Mike Huckabee (and is leaning toward supporting Sarah Palin). My comments on his blog may be using up my energy, somewhat dissipated anyway by my being "under the weather."
I've been asking Larry if Mike Huckabee is "tough enough" to wage a winning campaign against Hillary Clinton. Larry is responding with vigorous and informed support of his favorite presidential candidate.
It now appears clear to me (if not to everyone) that the Democratic ticket will be Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson. It will not be an easy ticket to beat, but in many ways -- and a lot of people won't believe this -- it may be the best Democratic ticket the country can hope for. (The easiest ticket to beat would be one with John Edwards at the top, and the second easiest would be one headed by Obama.)
Edwards revealed his essence with the $400 haircut and the 28,000 square-foot house, all the while decrying the prevalence of poverty in America. Obama demonstrated his ignorance about the world by proposing a situation in which he would invade an allied nation -- one armed with nuclear weapons.
I've been writing recently about Republicans being careless, if not clueless, in the people they choose to lead. I've emphasized the GOP's choices for vice-president, although some of the presidential picks -- and I sadly include Richard M. Nixon and Gerald R. Ford in this criticism -- were not good ones.
Remember when Bob Dole ran for President in 1996 at age 73? His campaign mainly consisted of cryptic comments about how "The American people know ole Bob Dole. They know where he stands."
If they did know, which I doubt, they didn't like his stands well enough to vote for him.
Aside from Ronald Reagan (who nominated Scalia and named Rehnquist Chief Justice) in most instances and George W. Bush, Republican Presidents have a mixed record in picking Supreme Court justices. Ronald Reagan did appoint the over-rated Sandra Day O'Connor, who apparently thought her constitutional role was to be a "swing vote."
Going back to Gerald Ford, his choice for the Supreme Court was John Paul Stevens. Now 87 -- and showing no signs either of retiring or dying (at least as long as a Republican holds the White House) -- Stevens is one of the most liberal individuals ever to be on the Court. As John Adams famously said of bureaucrats at the dawn of the 19th century: "Few die. NONE retire."
Also, George H. W. Bush, who was wise enough to appoint Clarence Thomas, unforunately nominated the the Court dunce, David Souter. Bush 41 deferred for that choice to advisor John Sununu, who thought a fellow New Hampshirite like Souter would make a fine conservative judge. Obviously, Sununu knew nothing about that nominee other than the individual's state of residence.
Compare the above nominees with Clinton's two choices: Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Both of them are fine programmatic liberals, about as interested in the words of the Constitution as they are in those of poets writing in Swahili. In short, Clinton appointed people who were just like Bill . . . and Hillary.
GWB's initial choice of Harriet Miers was curious. It's not so much that Miers lacked qualifications, as that there obviously better legal minds available, including the eventual nominee, Samuel Alito.
Clearly, it's not enough for Republicans to assume their leaders will make good, informed choices. We have to provide them assistance, and that's what many of us are doing with our advocacy of Sarah Heath Palin.
It's important to understand why it's important to have a strict constitutionalist like Sarah Palin in the nation's high offices. Otherwise, we'll end up with justices like Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens, and Souter who think their job is "to do good works," to repair the supposed deficiencies both of the written Consitution. They confuse their role with that of Congress. the states, and the people.
In the often useful and sometime biased "Wikipedia," there's a good discussion (under Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas) of their view of "originalism." What that means it that they believe their rulings should reflect the original intent, so far as it can be determined, of the authors of the Constitution. They don't believe in the claptrap that goes under the name of "the living Constitution," which basically means current justices can rewrite those elements that are not to their liking.
(By the way, Scalia, a devout Roman Catholic, and his wife Maureen have NINE children. They're remarkable individuals in their own right -- one of them a priest in the Roman Church and another a Major in the U.S. Army. Scalia is one of FIVE Roman Catholics, along with Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy, on the Court.)
Where the Constitution falls short, and the original version did in a few ways, it falls to the American people and their elected officials to amend it. We don't need to rely on Justice Stevens and others like him to do so, as they did with Roe v. Wade for example.
Evidence suggests that Sarah, when she gets the opportunity someday, will nominate judges in the great tradition of William Rehnquist (not an originalist, but close), Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito. She's talking about what an exciting and humbling experience it is for her to be able to talk directly to people who authored Alaska's state constitution.
The first step in getting her in a position to influence the Court's destiny is to make sure she's on the Republican ticket in November, 2008.
Stephen R. Maloney
Ambridge, PA
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