Since I'm behind deadline and my editor is getting cranky, I'll leave you with some fast items you can go read on your own around and about. (You're welcome.)
First, uber-hottie Michelle Malkin writes about "The ransom of the red reporter", about that lovely Communist reporter gunning for the Eason Jordan Trophy:
The scandal is not that an anti-war propagandist has accused the U.S. of targeting journalists. That's par for the course. (Yes, hello again, Eason Jordan.)
The scandal is not that mainstream media sympathizers are blaming our military and dredging up every last shooting accident along the treacherous routes to Baghdad Airport. Again, no surprise here. The scandal is that Italy -- our reputed ally in the global War on Terror -- negotiated with Sgrena's Islamist kidnappers and may have forked over a massive ransom to cutthroats for Sgrena's release. Where is the uproar over this Islamist insurgency subsidy plan?
The consequences of capitulation are bloody obvious. When you allow your people to be used as terrorist collection plates, the thugs will keep coming back for more. Might as well hang a sign around the neck of every Italian citizen left in Iraq: Buon appetito.
Next up is Thomas Sowell writing about the disasterous implications of the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling last week that minors can no longer be sentenced to death, using as justification the idea that because the rest of the world doesn't do it, neither should we. Here's the problem with that sort of fuzzy logic....
The issue of judicial activism is not just an issue of the moment. It is an enduring issue of great moment because it means the erosion of the American people's Constitutional right to govern themselves. If activist judges are allowed to continue to become increasingly our real rulers, what are elections for? Just to provide jobs for politicians?
Public acceptance of judicial coups has only led to increasing audacity in words and deeds by activist judges. Justice Anthony Kennedy's recent decision banning the execution of murderers under the age of 18 was a classic case in point. It was based, he said, on "evolving standards" and a "national consensus," as well as on what people were saying in other countries.
Even if all of this were true, none of these things is statutory law, much less the Constitution of the United States. It is incidental that these things are not all true. What do pretty words like "evolving standards" mean except that some people agree with you, even if the law says nothing of the sort?
As for a "national consensus," we have elections to determine that and judges have no special expertise as pollsters. What all this vaguely romantic verbiage boils down to is that judges can treat the Constitution as simply a grant of power to act as philosopher kings and respond to whatever constituency they prefer to the voting public. That is lawless law.
Following on this theme is "Justice Kennedy should stand for re-election" which details the flip-flop that (in)Justice Kennedy made in reversing his views on the way to annointing himself a god over us mortals:
Now that he has made himself an uber-legislator, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy should do as lesser legislators do. He should stand for re-election.
What I mean is, he should resign -- and see if the president nominates him again, or the Senate confirms him. The Constitution, of course, sets no term limit for justices. They can resign, however, at any time.
In explaining why the Framers gave justices unlimited terms, Justice Joseph Story (a Madison nominee) ironically pointed to the precise reason Justice Kennedy should now limit his own term: He has put his personal interpretation of popular opinion above our written Constitution. That's the very sin the Framers feared elected politicians would commit. To balance it, they gave justices indefinite tenure, hoping they would check power-hungry politicians by following only the Constitution as it was first written or duly amended.
If Kennedy and four other justices can change the meaning of the Constitution whenever their personal opinions -- or claimed perceptions of public (or foreign) opinion -- coincide, they are no longer judges but members of an uber-legislature.
If Kennedy is going to claim the authority of a legislator to act on his personal opinion or his perception of public opinion, then he should open himself to the political liability legislators face: He should resign and see if public opinion wants him back.
President Bush should accept his resignation, and nominate a replacement who respects the Constitution and actually deserves an unlimited term.
What many on the Left don't want to admit is their hypocrisy with regards to the Supreme Court: When the Court makes up law out of thin air (Roe v. Wade anyone?) or advances some sort of liberal pet agenda, they have no problem with 5-4 decisions, but if they thwart a criminal from trying to steal an Election, as Al Gore tried in 2000, their 5-4 decision is proof that they're Republican tools and shriek "Selected, not elected!" at the top of their puny lungs.
California has seen this a lot in recent years as Proposals that have been passed overwhelmingly by the people are ruled unConstitutional by a single liberal judge. Representative democracy fails when the will of the people is subject to judicial approval, but what hope is there that this usurpation can be reversed?
With no higher court to appeal the Supremes rank activities, we're stuck and the truism of a friend rings ever more true: "You'll never hear a politician say, 'Oh no, that's far too much power for me to have.'"
Switching over to Social Security (SocSec), there are a pair of columns wondering why NOW and the NAACP are opposed to reform when it's clearly in their members best interests to fix things NOW!
What neither column mentions is the hidden reality that liberalism is all about enslaving women and minorities into 2nd-class citizenhood and dependence on elites for alms in order to secure eternal power in the hands of (usually) rich white males, while all along perpetuating the myth that only the Dems care about them.
Hey, it keeps working, so why not?
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Some Quick Hits From Town Hall...
Smacked down by Dirk Belligerent at 2:46 PM
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