Elections have consequences:
Obama to pick Sotomayor for Supreme Court
President to announce his first Supreme Court choice later Today
updated less than 1 minute ago
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama tapped federal appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court on Tuesday, officials said, making her the first Hispanic in history picked to wear the robes of a justice.If confirmed by the Senate, Sotomayor, 54, would succeed retiring Justice David Souter. Two officials described Obama’s decision on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.
Administration officials say Sotomayor would bring more judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice confirmed in the past 70 years.
I have no real information on Judge Sotomayor, so have no idea whether this is a good or a bad pick.. My biggest concern is the President’s stated concern that he wants someone with “empathy,” someone who can understand and appreciate the problems of ordinary Americans. That is a prescription for further legislation from he bench. What I want is someone who will apply the law, as it has been written by the legislatures and signed by the governors or the president, and not someone who will make law out of whole cloth, because he has “empathy” for one side or the other.
What’s funny about you guys is that you land on the one thing the president said as if it were a huge sticking point he’d been riding. He mentions a bunch of qualities he wants in a Supreme Court justice; because you’re hell-bent on saying “I don’t like it!”, you (not just you: your bloggin’ brethren) settle on that as the one point to dwell on, as if the president had made a huge deal of a characteristic which (per the Bible, anyway) is an important aspect of justice, assuming you can connect the dots between “mercy” and “empathy,” which shouldn’t be too hard.
Here’s a broader context of the remark:
With what part of that do you – a member of the Church that defines itself as having a broad mission to the poor, the needy, and the oppressed – take issue?
How to parse the above remarks, if you’re a right-wing blogger: “Empathy! He said ‘empathy’! Pretty sure I can get some mileage out of belittling empathy as a possibly good quality in a judge!”
Then it’s a bad pick.
Bye bye constitutional principles and stare decisis, hello Kumbayaism.
DNW = QED
“DNW = QED”
If you want to preach religion, go knock yourself out.
Till then, you are merely pimping “social justice” and Christian sentiment here as a rhetorical ploy.
Q.E.D.
At least Dana is willing to wait and see, to his credit.
But DNW is impatient, and willing to decide without any knowledge about Judge Sotomayor.
This is the way ideologues behave!
I know about her and Dana should worry.
He should be very worried…
What I read so far, she seems to be a Centrists. Praises and Boooos are all over the map. Looks like a lightweight in her writings. Has energy to do the Energizer Bunny routine. Described as fair to being a Bully, and a filibuster type judge where you can’t get a word in edgewise. Look for a rough hearing on her writings. (Note: posted before Rush is on)
Yes – really worried…
She is by all accounts a very nice person who is a judicial activist.
She also approvingly quoted several law professors who said that “to judge is an exercise of power” and that “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives.”
“Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see,” she said.
Empathy is great when your kid’s softball team loses a match but deciding the law has nothing to do with making someone feel good because you understand them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/15judge.html
This nominee understands that the court does in fact ‘make policy.’ This is what makes this nominee dangerous.
But.. by nominating the first Hispanic woman to the Court, the President has re-affirmed His ‘coolness’ factor.
The nominee also passed the ‘coolness’ test. (for more on that you can hit:
http://firstconservative.com/blog/top-ten/political-humor-ten-qualifications-for-supreme-court-nominees )
Yeah, she just fell out of the sky yesterday.
By the way, just as a matter of general principle: if someone waves a Bible around in a public forum in order to indict another person with the charge of an invidious philosophical inconsistency, it only helps his case if the spectators to this event are convinced that the Bible wielder himself sees the book as something more than a cynically deployed stage prop.
Otherwise it’s just so much hypocritical huckstering, isn’t it.
pgwarner, DNW – everyone currently on the court, with the possible exception of Roberts, is a judicial activist. They’re just activists for different causes. Your boy Scalia is as much of an activist as Sotomayor could ever be, and you seem to have no problem with that.
Why not just say “I don’t like her because she’s liberal” and quit throwing around meaningless verbiage?
Jeff – Do I know you? How do you know who my boy is? There is a decided difference in approach between her and the sitting justices you mentioned. They are not activists, she is.
It should be obvious I do not like the idea of her being on the court because she is a liberal. As to whether I like her all I can say is I try not to personalize things. I do not know her. The only “verbiage” I threw around was Sotomayor’s own.
Jeff is right on point!!!
There is are tons of water that need to go over the dam on this nominee. pgwarner has already set about cherrypicking pieces that would make a conservative shutter, as could and will be done by liberals.
So let us step back for a while and let all the cherrypickers do their cherrypicking. That’s what Dana is doing, so am I.
DNW, I’m having trouble applying your bible waving tale to the SCOTUS candidate. Who is waving a bible?
I don’t like her because she’s a liberal.
How’s that?
Try rereading this entire series then.
TT:
DNW:
TT was. He apparently hoped to show that Pico was betraying his own grounded principles. But there is no evidence that TT accepts the grounds in the first place.
So, what’s the point? Sort of comical, like Stalin indignantly advising the Pope on the ritual of a Mass he doesn’t believe in, because he wishes to leverage the Pope’s own belief on behalf of a behavior Stalin desires.
Of course this line of attack may have unintended effects, such as when Marxists convince me with their mode of production arguments, that they are not of the same fundamental human nature that I am.
guys like warner are why the Democrats will sail through the midterms – the whole country is sick of hearing any judge who isn’t a card-carrying Republican called a “judicial activist”
also,
whether I accept the grounds or not doesn’t make a lick of difference – Dana knows I used to teach CCD, and I argue about this stuff in good faith.
DNW, I see no problem with TT throwing back a professed belief of a believer if it is not consistent with a political position, even in the form of a question like TT did? If that is waving a Bible, so be it.
Your Marxist comment is not convincing, as there are many different ideologies that stem from differing assumptions about human nature. So what’s new?
I still claim that you had made up your mind on Sotomayor, even though you gave no reason based on her record, just like carlitos just did.
Carlitos, can you justify your liberal label for Sotomayor?
Mr Tallis wrote:
But that’s the whole point, Mr Tallis: I don’t want the courts to dispense justice; I want them to apply the law. To assign to the courts the decision on justice is to assign to them — as they seem to have claimed for themselves anyway — the power to do anything, as long as the right case comes before them, that fits in with their notions of what is or is not just. This is Plato’s philosopher-kingship, robed in black.
In a democratic representative republic, notions of what is and is not just are issues which are the proper province of the legislature, or, in states with direct democracy forms, the people.
Judge Sotomayor’s comment,
as cited by Mr Warner, is deeply disturbing, because it implies two very bad things:
It is an old maxim that “ignorance of the law is no excuse.” But if the law is going to be applied based on the prejudices or “experiences” of the judge, how can we hold anyone responsible for knowing and obeying the law?
As for Judge Sotomayor herself, I’m not certain what good it would do to fight this nomination. Even if we were able to defeat her, President Obama would then get to nominate someone else, and there is little prospect he would nominate someone more acceptable.
To me, this is less an argument about Judge Sotomayor herself than it is an argument about judicial philosophy. Not the judicial philosophy of the judges he nominates, but of the president himself. This is why it is imperitive that we unseat him in the 2012 election.
Mr Tallis wrote:
[snort!] That’s a five-point bad pun penalty!
While empathy is indeed a fine quality to have for people in general, when it comes to a professional position like a judge, what matters much more is competence. Specifically, you need a broad and deep knowledge of the law, a good deal of actual courtroom experience, and of course personal qualities like objectivity and impartiality. Indeed, in that context, a judge who relied too much on “empathy” would be failing at his job, which is supposed to be to judge a case in an impartial manner. So yes, when we criticize The One for yapping on about “empathy” being the most important quality in a judge, well, that’s only because we know what the proper role of a judge is, and “empathetic” just ain’t it.
If you’re main goal is to have a “broad mission to the poor, the needy, and the oppressed”, then you’d be much better served working for a charity or becoming a social worker. “Helping” the poor isn’t a judge’s job, administering justice is.
Yeah he addressed all that in the rest of the speech – the part our friends on the right don’t seem to be able to read. One little bit about the importance of empathy, a whole lot more about competence, and which bit do you guys decide is some huge horrible problem? That part about empathy. Sad, really!
I appreciate you noticing my work
Oh Man, SLAM DUNK!
yes indeed, if you’re looking to chicken out on actually addressing the point
Palin in 2012
You heard it here first!
Obama picks Sotomayor for Supreme Court
03:19 PM EDT
Reuters says that she is, and it takes one to know one!
Liberal seems a fair label to me – the beauty of the whole brouhaha is that conservatives keep showing their true colors in hollering about this (“Appoint a doctrinaire liberal? That’s bad! Appoint a doctrinaire conservative? That’s good!”), which lets everybody else know that the conservative interest in justice is a great big lie; they love activist judges who legislate their agenda and hate the ones who won’t, giant shocker there. By the end of Sotomayor’s appoint, GOP public approval will have dropped another 5 points minimum and you’ll all be gathering in the echo chamber wondering what went wrong. Like they say at McDonald’s: I’m lovin’ it!
How is it an echo chamber with you in it, TT?
If your only point is to personally charge “Dana” with not living out his, and perhaps your joint faith, or failing to introduce his religion into our politics, or some such other business, then go right ahead.
I have no interest in whatever internecine or parochial squabble you are trying to provoke. You can dance around the altar and shout quotations from Dorothy Day at Dana till you become insensible, for all I care.
But, if you are also implying that the text you are brandishing is generally authoritative as to our system of Constitutional law and its principles of interpretation, it does make a difference if you actually believe it yourself.
Otherwise, as I said, it’s just a rhetorical ploy on your part.
So does that mean you can’t say anything qualitative about liberalism, since you’re not a liberal?
if so, awesome & noted, please stop talking
By “the echo chamber” did you mean this blog? I don’t think that makes sense. Does it?
Perry:
- TT’s indictment remark was broadcast, applied distributively, “not just you”, to a number of persons besides Dana. If he wants to attack Dana for something to do with the Bible and their mutual religious faith it means nothing to me. It is up to Dana to deal with.
But when TT wishes to generalize his hypocrisy indictment, it is important that he have some grounds for asserting that we others actually are falling short of our own professed beliefs, and that he not be cynically practicing a form of hypocrisy himself.
- My comment on Marx was just that: a comment and a description of how I am willing to grant as applying to Marxists at least, their own estranging principle of human “essence” based on economic class. I was not attempting to convince you of anything.
- Your claim that I have just now made up my mind on Sotomayor, and have done so without any prior evidence, is without evidence.
As for her being a “liberal”? Her writings show that she is probably worse than that.
yes maybe she’s a SOCIALIST
a FASCIST MARXIST SOCIALIST
seriously you guys need to change up your game, because the entire country has lost interest in the one you’re workin’
One of the wonderful things about Anglo-American jurisprudence is the theory of stare decisis, something liberals were very, very concerned about during the nominations of Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts. I’m sure they are far less concerned about that now.
The whole point of our legal system is that changes are supposed to come about incrementally, case by case, over time. Not, as liberals tend to believe, in one swift decision. If judicial philosophy moves slowly in a direction, then public opinion and the political classes have time to adjust to the changing direction of law.
This is why two arguments set out by liberals here are bunk. First, the idea that “empathy” is an ideal trait for judges is simply wrong because our judicial system is supposed to be impartial and not take sides. There’s a certain whiff of favoritism if some sides are considered more “empathetic.” A system that applies the law as written is more fair, which is what Americans expect. Judge Sotomayor has already shown that she has little “empathy” for those who pass the test but aren’t the right color. I’m not sure that “empathy” can be called justice.
The second argument is that conservative justices who want a return to reading the Constitution and not making shit up are “activists.” This is just a lie. It isn’t “activist” to want judges to stop making up law out of whole cloth in pursuit of their personal, shall we say “empathies”?, opinions. Correcting previous bad court decisions has a long history in this country, and recognizing that a document says what is says–no more and no less–is not “activist” in any normal sense of that word.
Judge Sotomayor may be stupidly candid when she stated that the court of appeals is where policy is made, but there is certainly truth to the statement. During my first year of law school, I had the uncomfortable realization that judges were willing to invent stuff to come to the conclusion they wanted, which is why we have a concept called quantum meruit.
TT wrote: (”Appoint a doctrinaire liberal? That’s bad! Appoint a doctrinaire conservative? That’s good!”), which lets everybody else know that the conservative interest in justice is a great big lie; they love activist judges who legislate their agenda and hate the ones who won’t, giant shocker there.
A doctronaire conservative is a strict constructionalist of constitutional law. So if it ain’t in there it reverts to state control or to the people. That’s not legislating an agenda. A liberal doctronaire makes up rights and laws that do not exist in the constitution and gives the federal government dominion over the states and the people. That sir, is an agenda. Freedom is the difference. Can you not see the difference?
And conservatives are just as interested in justice as any liberal. We just don’t believe in the forced “taking” of rights, capital or freedom from one citizen to “give” them to another citizen as justice. We consider that opression.
In other words we believe in equal justice under law for everyone and equal opportunity to succeed if you apply yourself. But in NO WAY do we believe in equal outcome dictated by the Supreme Court, the congress or the Pres. Thus “empahty” has no place in our courts.
gotta give it up to Sharon when she’s right, though her disinterest in the same phenomenon when the terms are switched is unfortunate & is part of why nobody’s buying into “conservative” politics mach ’09: they’re just playground rules, not ideology
Where you you a couple of weeks ago when this blog was moved nearly to tears of empathy over the deportation of a nazi from this country?
I find it hard to believe most the people on this blog would be moved to tears over any Nazi, Commie or their ilk no matter what was done to them.
Judge Sotomayor’s comment,
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,
Suppose there was a similar Judge Robert’s comment,
I would hope that a wise White Man with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life,
WW3 would have started.
One little bit more about empathy – it’s got no place in an impartial courtroom. A judge who’s inclined to be “empathetic” is also inclined to be biased. An empathetic black judge just might “emphasize” with a black defendant over a white cop/prosecutor. A female judge might just emphasize with the woman in a divorce case.
In short, when it comes to the age honored principle that Justice is Blind, well, empathy just plain sucks! Let the judge be empathetic in his personal life, not on the bench!
Mr Tallis wrote:
Perhaps it’s because no one takes issue with the notion that a judge — at any level — should be competent.
Great post Sharon. Nice to see an actual grown-up explain what’s what to someone who’s obviously a legal toddler.
Mr Tallis wrote:
The difference is that, for the “doctrinaire conservative,” judges would work with the law as the law is written, rather than as they wish it was written.
To me, Associate Justice Clarance Thomas expressed it best, in his dissent on Lawrence v Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003):
That’s it, that’s all of it, a brief, stark statement that while Justice Thomas believed the Texas law declared unconstitutional by the majority was “uncommonly silly” and a waste of law enforcement resources, it was not his place to use his position as a judge to impose his personal beliefs over the choices of the people, via their duly elected representatives in the legislature.
In that same case, Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent notes the importance that the judges on the left give to stare decisis, or respect for the law and decisions of the past:
I doubt that I’m the only one who remembers the confirmation hearings for John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and how our friends on the left — including then-Republican Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA)and his novel notion of a “super-precedent” and even a “super-duper precedent” — were oh-so-concerned about the law and precedent and stare decisis, when the subject, both implied and mentioned explicitly, was the preservation of Roe v Wade. Whatever “empathy” Messrs Roberts and Alito might have had for the most defenseless of human beings, the unborn, was certainly not something the liberals wished to have used in any way in cases which might have impact on the unlimited abortion license. (Sharon noted this above.)
The distinction is clear: conservatives want the law to be what our duly elected representatives in the state legislatures and the Congress have written, while liberals want to have judges change laws with which they disagree but are unable to get the legislatures to change in the constitutionally-mandated manner. They really do hate democracy.
JohnC: I wrote, some weeks ago, that it was wrong to send John Demjanjuk to Germany to stand trial for alleged war crimes now, when he is so old and so much of an invalid that he will not be able to participate in his own defense. Not unsurprisingly, our friends on the left thought that I was somehow shedding tears for an accused concentration camp guard.
Mr Tallis thought that the post “is further proof that the entire notion of justice is incomprehensible to conservatives,” without ever understanding that putting a man on trial in a situation in which he would be unable to participate in his own defense makes rather a mockery of justice. Add to that the fact that Mr Demjanjuk had already been tried for his alleged crimes, and the Israeli high court vacated his conviction based on reasonable doubt that Mr Demjanjuk was the prison guard known as Ivan the Terrible, and you have a case which, if not technically double jeopardy is certainly a violation of double jeopardy in the absolute sense. And even Mr Tallis agreed that “Justice is an abstract, Dana, and is absolute.”
So we have a quota-loving Project Princess who will put feelings ahead of the Constitution.
Any nominal Republican who votes her way should be defeated in the next primary.
OK kids, here’s a Q&D analysis of some of the bigger cases she has ruled on/opinions she has written. Looks to me like she’s not interested in radically redefining precedent or stepping on the toes of elected officials unless it’s absolutely necessary. She does seem to have a somewhat expansive view of discrimination, but that is generally tempered by reason and has been willing to dismiss civil rights claims when discrimination was not well proven (and in one major case, she placed First Amendment speech rights over a discrimination claim)…
Now we have some actual facts to argue about. Let the label-throwing cease and the debate begin.
Art Downs: So we have a quota-loving Project Princess who will put feelings ahead of the Constitution.
Nope.
Phoenician in a time of Romans:
If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would start with more federal judicial experience than any new Justice in 100 years.
So, how does this make it an asset? Is it good, bad, mixed, or mediocre experience. Just saying one has experience does not necessarily qualified. I’ve run into people with years of experience where I work and I wouldn’t trust them with sharpening a pencil, yet found people with little experience have more practical value added to their job.
We evaluate construction contractors based on experience and performance. We can get contractors with years of experience, but their performance is just passable, yet we have selected contractors with minimum experience with outstanding performance. So, my question is with all of her so called years experience, what was the outcome in the quality of her decisions? What is the quality of her decisions on the Circuit Court when appealed to the Supreme Court? Where her decisions upheld or overturned. If the majority were upheld, then her experience and performance is good, if the majority of her decisions were reversed by the Supremes, then she may have experience, but lacks the ability to turn it into good sound performance.
Please, please, please follow through on this. Please, GOP, throw folks like Charlie Crist under the bus for a more ideologically pure candidate, because I really want there to be 75 Democrats in the Senate in 2010.
Clowns like you don’t get it… you love having Rush and Cheney as the faces of your party, despite the fact that 2/3 of the country hates those guys. You attack Colin Powell as a RINO, despite the fact that he has twice as much support as Rush or Cheney.
Keep going down the road to permanent irrelevance. Please, try to filibuster Sotomayor and watch 90% of the Hispanic vote go to the Democrats for a generation. The GOP will be neutered for decades. They’re already on that path.
Dana just said: “The distinction is clear: conservatives want the law to be what our duly elected representatives in the state legislatures and the Congress have written, while liberals want to have judges change laws with which they disagree but are unable to get the legislatures to change in the constitutionally-mandated manner. They really do hate democracy.”
This is total garbage! Where were you, Dana, when George Bush was attaching more signing statements to bills he had just signed, more than any other President in our history? Was this the behavior of a liberal, or a conservative, or of a tyrant?
But this is a side issue here. The proper response to your complaint about liberals is that you fall back on labels as being accurate descriptors of individuals. That’s mighty dangerous because labels are inaccurate descriptors, as Justice Kennedy I’m sure would tell you.
We are attempting to discuss here the difference between a liberal interpretation of the constitution compared to a so-called strict constructionist interpretation. The bottom line is that opposing opinions both base their arguments with reference to the Constitution, so that the label assigned to it belongs to the perception of the observer. In other words, it seems to me that ideology may be the overwhelming factor in decisions, with clever advocates able to support their decision with articulate, constitutionally based opinions.
Not being a lawyer, I confess that my views here could well be characterized as naive and uneducated. So I am open to other views coming forward here on the varying views of the interpretation of the Constitution in terms of the impact of the context in which we live today compared to the context in which the Constitution was actually written in the late 1700′s. I don’t think that one has to be a lawyer to have an opinion on this issue. My opinion is that context matters, thus must be taken into consideration in order to be relevant to the rule of law in today’s circumstances.
Hmm, I’m sensing one of those Axelrod teleconference talking points spontaneous lefty blogosphere reactions on this.
Where, pray tell, did this originate? With the AP story?
Obama’s speech had more weasel-word qualifiers (my emphasis added):
Politfact takes a look at this claim, and finds it “half true” or “technically accurate.” (Now there is a microcosm of Obama administration pronouncements)
Why are all these liberals so concerned about where the Republican party is headed?
Perry, you asked for my basis for the ‘liberal’ label, and I answered. Yet you persist in your angst over labels ¿Por Que?
Concerned?
Not so much. I’m just enjoying watching the trainwreck.
Art Downs opines: “So we have a quota-loving Project Princess who will put feelings ahead of the Constitution.
Any nominal Republican who votes her way should be defeated in the next primary.”
On what basis do you express such an unfounded and radical statement about this nominee? I don’t think you have one, because with you it seems it is all about perceived ideology. Be patient, Art.
Perry, what is a signing statement? If a statute goes before the courts, and there is some ambiguity, the courts frequently look toward the legislative record to determine the intent of the legislators when the law was being considered. President Bush, by attaching signing statements, was appending his intent and interpretation into the record. If those laws ever come before the courts, and the record is examined to determine intent, his interpretations are now part of the official record. But his signing statements do not change a single word of the law as passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
Good point, Art. Way to make your point in a succinct manner. Or “Pithy”, as Bill O’Reilly would put it!
Perry and TT don’t appear to be interested in dialogue. Apologies for engaging them, but I’m fairly new here.
It’s more like, have they had a varied career that proves they can overcome challenges and rise rapidly in the system? It’s like the difference between a military officer who often volunteers for new, challenging assignments versus one who’s content to just do his job reasonably well, and thus stay in the same place for 30 years
Oh? According to new polls, Cheney’s stock has been rising rather rapidly with the public, especially compared to Pelosi’s evasive, and at times, bizarre, press conference. Quite frankly, he comes off as the only major public figure will to tell the blunt truth to the American people on this whole “torture” nonsense.
People like straight talk over evasiveness and weaseling.
There’s no such thing as a “liberal” interpretation of the Constitution. The thing was written in plain language that any reasonably literate HS student can figure out. Liberal “interpretation” usually means inventing new “rights” out of thin air, such as a “right” to abortion or a “right” to impose a quota system on a university. It is, to quote Dana, legislating from the bench.
Liberal “law” basically amounts to “What feels good to me”, and has about as much intellectual rigor as a wet noodle.
Maybe because they’re scared witless about Sarah Palin in 2012, which is why they keep pushing for us to choose RINO’s like Colin Powell instead. After all, when your enemy is giving you advice, only an idiot would think of it as sincere.
Well, Thomas Tallis has been hammering at this “y’all are just gonna lose every American” meme for about a week. Now we have other trolls whinging the same way. I gotta confess I never worried about the lunatic left being able to find enough useful idiots. Maybe it’s just whistling past the graveyard.
Just wait till the next “torture” debate comes all long. Then the libs not only will engage, but they’ll rage all over the page! Stick around and watch the fireworks.
Nothing unexpected here liberals like judicial activist, while conservatives favor strict constructionist. Liberals for the most part do not like the Constitution of the founding fathers, but an prefer a view of the Constitution that the founders would not recognize. This has been the case for over 100 years and not likely to change anytime soon.
If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would start with more federal judicial experience than any new Justice in 100 years Pho
Doing the wrong thing over and over again is no virtue.
We need justices with integrity, not creativity.
Look at any really idiotic court decision and we see a Carter or Clinton appointee as the culprit. Last year, a well-connected felon got her penalty reduced to a few hours of time served by an LBJ appointee who seemed to have been released from the old folks home long enough to issue a get out of jail free card.
In an example of judicial bitchery, the nominee decided that race alone should determine the choice of promotion.
There was a written test for firefighter promotion. No minority candidate met the criteria. One of the white candidates who did had a reading disability. He dealt with his dyslexia by paying for a tutor. Many of those trained in the Orton-Gillinham approach work as volunteers but some charge a rather high fee. The man paid thousands of dollars to learn now to work around his disability. He took the test and scored high.
The Project Princess/Quota Queen did not want to give a man who went the extra mile a fair shake. Instead, she would have denied him access to another step in the appeals process.
She is an arrogant Leftist who would disregard merit. Perhaps her rise in the judicial ranks has more than a hint of affirmative action to it.
Republicans in the Senate should close ranks in opposing this nominee through ‘extended debate’.
Sauce for the goose…….
/
Look at any really idiotic court decision and we see a Carter or Clinton appointee as the culprit
Bush v Gore.
This gets Eric’s vote for Line of the Day!
If judges want to be creative, let them paint or write or compose music on their own time!
Ever heard of the term “Cutting the Gordian Knot”? That’s what the SC was faced with. Gore kept stretching out the recounts, coming up with ever changing standards for counting votes, standards that varied from county to county. The thing was quickly threatening to become a political/legal goatfuck that would have been impossible to untangle in anything like a rational and fair minded way.
That, and all the players were up against a hard clock. The electors had to be in place by a certain date, in order to certify the state’s vote as official. This was because the president himself had to Jan 20th to be sworn in. The Gore partisans, in their zeal to keep recounting and, in general, basically do anything and everything to overturn Bush’s original 527 vote victory, just kept digging in their heels deeper and deeper, and since there was no one in authority to set an objecive standard for doing all this, finally the SC had to jump in and make a “management decision” that would settle the mess once and for all, such that the transition to swearing in the new president could be conducted in a responsible and timely manner. They surely didn’t want to be stuck with this tar baby,but as the Supreme legal authority in the land, they were the only group that could render a final decision that would stop the nonsense and confusion dead in its tracks.
carlitos said: “Perry, you asked for my basis for the ‘liberal’ label, and I answered. Yet you persist in your angst over labels ¿Por Que?”
Yes you did, carlitos, I somehow missed it.
Yes, I do experience angst over labeling people, because most of the time they are diffuse. I find it better to focus on important issues, on the merits and demerits, and on a politicians position relative to them.
carlitos also said: “Perry and TT don’t appear to be interested in dialogue. Apologies for engaging them, but I’m fairly new here.”
Speaking for myself, due to the onslaught of messages on this topic, it is difficult to impossible to engage everyone.
On the experience of Judge Sotomayor, I think it is safe to say that she is very experience, having served as a prosecutor, an international corporate attorney, an appellate court judge, and a federal circuit court judge. Her federal circuit court peers across the board speak very highly of her intellect, her understanding of the law, and her wisdom in reaching her decisions.
Shortly after the 2000 election fiasco, reporter Bill Sammon wrote a book detailing all the things that happened during that 5 week or so standoff. A couple years ago, I reviewed that book on this Site under the category of “Eric’s Book and Movie Reviews, but that link has since disappeared after this Site was re-organized recently.
Anyway, without further ado, here is my review:
At Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
by Bill Sammon
Edition: Hardcover
Price: $27.95
Availability: In Stock
185 used & new from $0.01
An eye-opening look at the 2000 election, March 5, 2002
Unlike some other books on this subject, “At Any Cost” spends little time trying to parse the legalistics behind the Supreme Court’s climactic decision in the Gore vs. Bush post-election contest. Instead, the author brings a reporter’s eye view to the election itself and the messy 36-day aftermath, and treats us to a sometimes infuriating, occasionally hilarious, and always engaging look at the electoral crisis that captivated the entire nation.
In the infuriating category is his assessment of the media’s role on that fateful night. Clearly they, through a combination of sloppiness and bias, helped initially tilt the election toward Gore. By prematurely calling Florida for Gore (before polls in the Western part of the state had even closed!) they gave voters both in that state and across the nation the impression that Bush had effectively lost as of about 7:50 PM Eastern Time. At the very least, according to several surveys quoted by the author, this could have cost Bush as many as 10,000 votes in Florida alone, and many thousands of others nationwide. Part of the blame falls on network stinginess. Instead of relying on their own polling services, the networks united to create a single outfit to conduct their exit polling, thus all the networks were relying on the same flawed data when they made their initial calls. Sammon also nails the networks for their arrogance and clear pro-Gore bias. Dan Rather is smugly quoted as stating that any results given by CBS could be “taken to the bank” and Tom Brokaw at one point let loose a Freudian slip, claiming that there were still “critical states we still have to win”. He provides statistics to show that the networks were far quicker to award states to Gore than to Bush even when the margins of victory were essentially identical.
Anyway, after giving the media a well-deserved thrashing, Sammon moves on to the meat of Al Gore’s effort to overturn the election “at any cost”. He points out the utter shamelessness of his efforts, documenting, for example, how two Gore attorneys exchanged high fives after getting hundreds of military absentee ballots disqualified on legal technicalities, in clear defiance of his pious public stand of wanting to “count every vote”. He also details the efforts of Democrat operative Bob Beckel to try to pressure members of the Electoral College to either switch votes or at least abstain. In a hilarious chapter titled “It’s a chad, chad, chad, chad World” Sammon follows Democrat Bob Nichols as he tries to explain to the press the ever changing standards for hand counting the votes, a farce which taught us the difference between hanging chads, pregnant chads, and dimpled chads. It was quite clear that no objective standard existed for hand counting machine ballots, especially in a quixotic effort to guess the “intent of the voter”. Silly as this all seemed, Gore, who’d lost both the original vote count and the state mandated recount, now had to rest all his hopes on getting still more recounts, which brought the entire mess down to the court mandated ending.
The problem, of course, was that Gore was up against the clock. The Electors had to be in place by December 12th. Fortunately for him, the Florida Supreme Court (7 liberal Democrats) ruled in his favor. So the hand counts continued until the Bush team decided they’d had enough of these games, and fired off a nuclear bombshell in the form of a suit to the US Supreme Court. There, as Sammon explains in detail, the Court slapped down the Florida Supremes in a 9-0 decision. Which, under normal circumstances, would have been the end of it, however, in an incredible 4-3 decision the Florida court voted to ignore the US Supreme Court and ordered the hand counting restarted. This, of course, led to the 7-2 decision on Dec 12, which basically sank Gore’s boat, and ended in his finally conceding the next evening.
What to make of all this? Well, for starters, we really need to look into ways to improve our election process. It is absurd, in an era of computerized everything, that the exact results of an election cannot be known within mere hours of the polls closing. Also, the media need to rethink their procedures, especially the use of exit polls. And finally, perhaps we should reconsider the whole Electoral College. After all, Al Gore’s principal moral claim during the whole debacle was that he’d won (by a narrow margin) the popular vote. Never mind that this could have been due to abovementioned media errors. The simple fact is, however, that presidential candidates compete, not for the national vote but rather for individual states. This drives their campaign strategy, such that Bush made little effort to compete in California and New York just as Gore paid little attention to Texas and most of the South and West. However, these concerns are beyond the scope of this book. The end result is that we were treated to the best and worst in American politics, embodied both in Gore’s contemptible “win at any cost” behavior up to December 12th followed by a remarkably gracious final concession speech which Sammon introduces as follows “He’d finally had enough of fighting dirty. At 9:02 PM he stepped before the cameras and, to everyone’s surprise, took the high road”.
Eric, simply put, in Bush v Gore, SCOTUS could have deferred to the FLSC position, because jurisdiction for election law rests with the individual states. Or, they could have ordered a recount of the entire state, which is exactly what is happening in the Minnesota Senatorial contest as we speak, with a time limit on completing the recount. Instead, the wrote new law specific to this case, stipulating that the decision can not be used as a precedent. Now that was a gross overreach of their boundaries, in the view of many SCOTUS scholars. And look at how it changed history: we got Bush with all his warts, which drastically changed the course of this nation, leaving us in two wars and terrible shape economically. I think every American can agree on that!
Art Downs: “If confirmed, Judge Sotomayor would start with more federal judicial experience than any new Justice in 100 years Pho
Doing the wrong thing over and over again is no virtue.”
Stupid!!! You have presented no evidence to support that, Art! Therefore, your remarks are ideological without an intellectual basis.
Dana, I do not agree with your beneficent interpretation of the significance of signing statements. In my view, the law is the law. Bush should feel obligated to abide by it, without putting his personal spin on it. To me, his actions represent an overreach by the Executive Branch over the Legislative Branch, or you might call it a power grab, or some might even say that there is an element of tyranny to it. I am comfortable with saying all three! If Obama does the same, I will likewise criticize him, as I have already, here ( http://delawarelibertarian.blogspot.com/2009/05/flow-my-tears-policeman-said-coming-to.html ), regarding his equivocation on his conduct of our two wars and the treatment of our detainees.
Eric – Liberal “interpretation” usually means inventing new “rights” out of thin air
Seems to me that the Constitution doesn’t restrict our rights to what’s listed therein. Or, as others might put it, “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Scalia, and all those concerned with “inventing rights out of thin air,” apparently forgot to read the Ninth Amendment. And while conservatives love the Tenth Amendment, they apparently stop reading five words from the end, or otherwise they’d notice the “or to the people” bit.
Also, anyone interested in debating Sotomayor based on the analysis I posted here?
http://commonsensepoliticalthought.com/?p=5929#comment-469452
Anyone? Anyone?
(crickets)
Jeff, that’s my point exactly. These unenmuerated rights are retained by the states and the people. They are neither the dominion nor the concern of the federal gov. Therefore, when a case is brought before the SCOTUS regarding these unenumerated rights the only constitutional answer should be: “The question before this court is determined to deal with the ninth and tenth amendmendts and therefore, we revert this case back to the state for ajudication.”
Not concerned! Amused!
Perry you are someone who started posting here after I quit commenting so much, so I confess I do not know you well. So forgive me by getting personal and saying that even while being charitable your statement here, along with a number of others you have made on this thread, is nonsensical and childish. I am in general no defender of Art Downs, but you in a juvenile attempt to score some type of meaningless debating points, attack his comment in a ridiculous way.
There is no manual of style for blogs. There are no requirements for footnotes, though Mr. Pico does a fine job with them. This is especially true of blog comments. People state their opinion.
For example here you have stated your opinion that Art’s view is unsupported. Your accusation could be true. However you, yourself, offer no evidence to support your view. Further you could accuse Art of lacking a factual basis for his statement, but all opinions are ideological and intellectual. They have to be by their very nature.
You have, in a pedantic way, made an ad hominem attack on Art. Just as I have here with you!
Except the Florida Supremes kept fucking around, and were wholly biased toward Gore in any event. Left to their own devices, the Gore people would have been counting chads well into the Spring of 2001 with the Florida Supremes aiding and abetting them, thus making a hash of the Constitutional principle of the peaceful transfer of power that’s supposed to take place on Jan 20.
At some point the Grown-Ups had to step in and bring order out of chaos,so that the government could be run property. In a monarchy, the worst thing that can happen is a disputed Succession, and that’s exactly the scenario Gore and the Florida Supremes were heading the country into.
Quoted from the above review:
That just backs up my point. When the US Supremes smack you down 9-0, you normally back off like a beaten dog and do exactly what you’re told to do. But the partisans on the Fla SC basically said “Fuck You!” to the US Supremes, putting the ball right back in their court. What was basically happening in Florida was a bunch of partisan, pig headed babies wanted to make up the rules to suit their boy, and it finally took a group of sane adults to bring back some semblence of order and common sense.
Well, you may have noticed that Norm and Frankie are still contesting those votes in the courts, and it’s now near the end of May! Now, the US Senate isn’t going to fall apart if they’re temporarily missing one Senator, but the Chief Executive has to, per the Constitution, be seated on Jan 20 following the previous Nov election. Time was of the essence, and there simply was no time (or place) for the sort of games the Gore people and the Florida Supremes were continuing to play.
Laugh it up, fuzzball!
We’ll see who’s laughing in a year or so when the public starts to see that, under all the pretty rhetoric, The One is just an Empty Suit who doesn’t know shit about business or economics, who’s spending the country into the ground, whose behaviour towards our adversaries borders on appeasement, and who seems to lack the backbone and intestinal fortitude to make bold executive decisions. It’s not a stretch to say he’s shaping up to be Jimmy Carter Part Deux.
pgwarner: You make a valid and fair point. But let me attempt to explain myself. My point to Art Downs in effect says that his unsupported, hyperbolic opinion is not convincing. If you follow Art, he doesn’t care, as evidenced by the fact that he does not engage. All he does is pontificate in a condescending manner. How does one deal with a person who does not engage, no matter whether speaking softly to him or yelling at him? I admit it, I yelled that time. He deserved it, in my view. Dana, in contrast, engages, and with intelligence and respect, I must quickly add.
Yes, do keep this coming. The more you guys say it, the more everybody thinks: “Wow, you keep saying that stuff and less & less of it seems to be true.
Also, I assume you’ve all caught sight of this, making the rounds happily to make you all look bad:
Some more humble pie for you guys:
–thus saith evil liberal Samuel Alito, at his confirmation hearings. Where was your hue and cry about the evils of empathy as a judicial guidepost then?
Jeff, that’s my point exactly. These unenmuerated rights are retained by the states and the people.
No, by the states OR the people.
They are neither the dominion nor the concern of the federal gov.
Except when the SC has teh role of protecting people’s rights against unreasonable state law.
Therefore, when a case is brought before the SCOTUS regarding these unenumerated rights the only constitutional answer should be: “The question before this court is determined to deal with the ninth and tenth amendmendts and therefore, we revert this case back to the state for ajudication.”
Except when the rights of the people are under attack by the state… Such as Loving v Virginia, or any similiar cases that might show up later…
and were wholly biased toward Gore in any event.
Unlike the SC, who talked about the harm done to Bush when he wasn’t a Florida voter, and tried to claim that the case’s twisting of logic couldn’t be used as precedent?
lovin’ the total silence over Bush I’s and Scalia’s interest in empathy as a judicial characteristic by the way – so great to be in the presence of people with the courage of their convictions!
…er, Alito
“What I want is someone who will apply the law, as it has been written by the legislatures and signed by the governors or the president, and not someone who will make law out of whole cloth, because he has “empathy” for one side or the other.”
What I want is someone who will apply the Constitution.
For TT & Pho compliments of:
Nathan Figler
American News Inc.
May 26, 2009
Sotomayor’s resume is impressive, including a 1993 ruling in favor of a homeless man beaten by NYPD officers and her landmark decision in 2002 regarding terrorism suspects. In that case, she determined that suspects captured on the battlefield must receive all rights afforded to American citizens under the Constitution. Her controversial decision was later overturned by an Appellate Court, but still influenced current policy.
Sotomayor is a graduate from Princeton University, where her legal theses included Race in the American Classroom, and Undying Injustice: American “Exceptionalism” and Permanent Bigotry, and Deadly Obsession: American Gun Culture. In this text, the student Sotomayor explained that the Second Amendment to the Constitution did not actually afford individual citizens the right to bear arms, but only duly conferred organizations, like the military. Instead of making guns illegal, she argues that they have been illegal for individuals to own since the passing of the Bill of Rights.
Taken from Jumping In Pools.
Some years ago, I was part of a team in Maryland investigating vote theft that altered the result of a gubernatorial election. A team of hundreds of volunteers gathered over 100,000 pieces of documentary evidence. We were not allowed to remove these documents from the City facility but we were allowed to bring in our own copiers and paper. All of the information was tabulated and we had evidence that there were thousands of more votes cast than there were voters.
All of our evidence was thrown out because it was photocopied. We were not allowed to subpoena the originals.
Contrast this with the games being played by Daley et al in Florida. The difference was more than subtle.
It may well be that the keyboard-bound dilettantes have a different outlook on politics than those who really are activists.
The Saxon in a time of Normans wrote:
Well, it was unfortunate that Al Gore’s attempts to steal the 2000 election resulted in having to go to te Supreme Court, but at least the outcome was the right one, for American and for the world.
I will agree, Dana, that Gore handled his protest poorly, viewed now in hindsight, but he attempted “to steal the 2000 election”?
That’s the first time I’ve heard that charge, and I don’t agree at all with it.
In fact, SCOTUS stole the election from the voters in favor of Bush, when they should have turned the recounting decision back to the Florida SC, since the Constitution (Amendments X and XII) stipulates that elections are under the jurisdiction of the States, therefore not the Feds.
I don’t understand how there can be any other description of what actually happened.
And then, equally as bad, the result led this nation into a war of aggression, a doubling of the debt, and an economic crisis that has drastically reduced the investments of countless numbers of Americans and thrown millions out of work. All that said, how can you possibly argue that “the outcome was the right one, for American and for the world”?
Frankly, I am dumbfounded, Dana!
In fact, SCOTUS stole the election from the voters in favor of Bush, when they should have turned the recounting decision back to the Florida SC, since the Constitution (Amendments X and XII) stipulates that elections are under the jurisdiction of the States, therefore not the Feds.
In fact, they themselves essentially admitted it here: “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”
Translation from legal speak – “Bush wins. We know it’s a pile of shit, so don’t try and use the specious “logic” here as precedent later.”
I have to laugh that gore vs. Bush and the BDS is still alive and well. FL law said to recanvas the whole state, not cherrypick districts. The FL Supremes tried to change the law on the spot to allow cherry picking. SCOTUS said no, follow your laws. The MSM was in bed with Gore. They went back and reconstructed the whole recount and Bush won again. Every which way and sideways Bush won. It’s 2009, get over it.
Just read Judge Sotomayer is sometimes under the influence of patitas de cerdo con garbanzo
This gives me confidence in Sotomayor: (NOT)
Sotomayor reversed 60% by high court – Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/27/60-reversal-of-sotomayor-rulings-gives-fodder-to-f/
Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court.
“Her high reversal rate alone should be enough for us to pause and take a good look at her record. Frankly, it is the Senates duty to do so,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.
Let’s face it, this Sotomayor chick makes Hariet Miers look like Oliver Wendell Holmes!
The whining of the Sore Losers continues unabated. BDS lives on!
PS – Did you miss the part above where the US Supremes smacked those Florida hacks down in a Freaking NINE to zero decision, yet said hacks apparently felt they knew far better than SCOTUS and basically told them to go fuck off, we’ll do what we damned please if that means getting our boy elected. It’s like a batter getting called out on strikes, then running to first base anyway.
This is another example of “the man who brings all people together” doing his best to cultivate grievance and identity politics. This woman’s record is thin and her philosophy radical. Yes, she has a great personal story. I’d put Clarence Thomas’ road to success against hers any day of the week. She is a Leftist who has already made it clear that she will be lying when she takes the oath of her office.
edgycater.blogspot.com
The last time 40% achievement rate was considered Great was when Ted Williams batted .403. At work, a 40% correct design is called a catastrophe.
Three of the five majority opinions written by Judge Sotomayor for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and reviewed by the Supreme Court were reversed, providing a potent line of attack raised by opponents Tuesday after President Obama announced he will nominate the 54-year-old Hispanic woman to the high court.
Uh-huh. Just repeating Rush’s blatherings, now?:
As Cole says: Basically, they are hoping you are a moron and have no idea how Supreme Court cases are picked.
Congratulations, Yorkshire – YOU are that moron.
Or, to boil it down from that same link,:
Another example of the wingnuts engaging in their favourite hobby – being wrong.
The whining of the Sore Losers continues unabated. BDS lives on!
Feel free to explain, Eric, why they felt in necessary to write: “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities.”
Of course, you’ll just bluster and pull something from your ass as you always do.
Whatever the elder President Bush may have said about Clarence Thomas, he has proved with his votes that he isn’t basing them on “empathy,” but on the law.
Perry, under the “safe harbor” provisions, Florida’s votes had to be certified by a specific date, one rapidly approaching. Vice President Gore was trying to drag out the vote, hoping that his partisans could
fabricatefind a few more votes, to steal the election. It was regrettable that it had to go to court like that, but, in the end, the better man won.Perry wrote:
Perry, I’ve said it before: if George Bush could have run for a third term, I’d have voted for him again! He wasn’t a perfect president — no one is — but his foreign policy was exactly what I would have liked to have seen, and his tax policies were beneficial to the nation, and to me, personally. Regrettably, he did not control spending, but I take some solace in the fact that Al Gore would have been far worse.
Shameless, ineffective dodge there, D – you’re better than that!
Horse turds in the time of Manure scribbles:
Congratulations, Yorkshire – YOU are that moron.
And we never dated.
Dana, I remain dumbfounded, because you are in such denial of the reality of the very obvious and serious shortcomings of the Cheney/Bush years. So be it, as nothing anyone says will ever change your position – that’s obvious.
Yorkie: “They went back and reconstructed the whole recount and Bush won again.”
That is true, and that is the way Bush should have been elected, not put into office by SCOTUS. This is just one more example where you conservatives don’t give a damn how you get there, as long as you get there. The old Machiavellian credo is alive and well with you people!
And to Yorkie and Eric, I note well here that Phoenician’s research put to a lie the Rush/Wash Times talking point about Sotomayor’s reversal rate, only 50%, below the average of the circuit courts now and over time. So admit it: You both were dead wrong! Now what will you say to demean this woman with more lies or invalid cherrypicking?
if George Bush could have run for a third term, I’d have voted for him again!
Bush’s final approval rating – 22%
Historians Rank George W. Bush Among Worst Presidents
Denial:
Denialism:
Why do you sound like such a jerk? It’s like every discussion is a “game” of one-upmanship for you. What, do you have a one inch d!ck, and thus feel the need to compensate?
Had Gore been smart, he’d have pulled a Nixon circa 1960 and conceded gracefully after the state mandated recount proved Bush the winner. This way, he would have been in a prime position to run again in 2004, using the rationale that he was the strongest candidate since he “beat” Bush in the popular vote.
Instead, he went down as SoreLoserman, and became a political Dead Duck.
Oh well. He still has his Oscar and his Nobel to cling to at night!
5 cubed! Whoo!
/nerd
Anyway, JohnC, as Pho pointed out, you used the wrong conjunction, and it makes a load of difference. The Tenth Amendment reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” (Emphasis mine, obviously.) It’s a restriction on Federal power – essentially, it says that anything the Constitution doesn’t say the Feds can do is forbidden to them. (Which is why it’s a favorite of federalist conservatives.) What it doesn’t do is give the states power to legislate away unenumerated rights, and it doesn’t protect states from SCOTUS’ interpretation of said rights.
I’m basically making the same argument on Art’s most recent thread, so if you want to reply without getting lost in a 125-comment shuffle, I’m over there
I sound like a jerk to you because I exposed your hypocrisy. In an odd coincidence, you’ll feel this way about anybody who shows that your claims of principle are outright lies.
and who knows, maybe you’ll spend time thinking about their penises, too, I don’t really have enough data to know whether it’s just my penis you’re into
Phoenician, you are an absolute gem! Your posts are well researched, well documented, right to the point, and expressed with clarity. Thus, you send your critics to mumbling, about all they have left to do. Thank you!!!
Your posts are well researched, well documented, right to the point, and expressed with clarity.
Dude – I’m a librarian. I’m trained to do this sort of thing…
Except when they are not, and she’s (apparently a she) duplicitously [or incompetently] trying to pass off falsely premised and obsolete Harper’s magazine articles, and National Lawyers Guild propaganda as documentation for her current contentions:
Yeah, the “NLG Press Blog”, it’s “documentation”!
She’s a gem? Try cut glass.
“which shows [how] Yoo’s opinions led to the commission of war crimes,”
Yeah, the “NLG Press Blog”, it’s “documentation”!
Quite frankly, a wingnut talking about “propaganda” and “falsly premised” without cites from a credible source isn’t worth listening to.
Quite frankly, Cathago, your linking to Harpers in support of your contention was either an act of ignorant incompetence, or of knowing duplicity.
Your failure to apologize is evidence of the bad faith and duplicity alternative.
Introducing the comic rantings generated by members of an old communist front organization is no better. Trotskyites of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but the Phoenician’s credibility!
So, you can strike all the poses you want “dude”, but your airy petulance does nothing to disguise your blundering. It just shows it up in sharper relief.
Introducing the comic rantings generated by members of an old communist front organization is no better. Trotskyites of the world unite!
Nary a cite or counter-refutation in sight. As Mike G says: “Right…attack the source instead of the argument. That’ll work.”
Anyone citing the NLG as a source is:
a. Utterly ignorant
b. Totally gullible
c. A dedicated radical trusting that the readers fall into categories (a) or (b).
Phoenician:
1. You posted links as dispositive, not arguments.
2. I did however, generously dispose of the substance of the argument that was made in Harpers article you linked to.
I referred to the effect of the U.S. District Court decision that made your linked Harpers article, positing the arrival of a new conspiracy precedent, irrelevant; and, to the timeline that has made you personally ridiculous for posting that link in the first place:
3. I also noted in a subsequent remark how you were only posturing as knowledgeable, and I indicated how your reference to “habeus”, was clear enough evidence of your inadequate familiarity with the terminology and concept.
4. And now, you come up with “Counter-refutation”?
Art Downs:
Anyone citing the NLG as a source is:
a. Utterly ignorant
b. Totally gullible
c. A dedicated radical trusting that the readers fall into categories (a) or (b).
Let’s toss her a bone and say it’s probably “C”.
Yet, even at that, she’s just another Kumbaya spouting B.S. artist peddling intellectual muck garnished with insult.
Note how her technique also matches that of a certain crapulous Colonel who likewise tries to edit and dance himself out of trouble?
And Dan Rather wasn’t it, who claimed something to the effect that even if the facts he presented weren’t true, his argument was sound, and his conclusion entailed, anyway?
Yeah, she’s true to their pattern.