NRO: Republicans must oppose Obama's nominee ... even if she is "well-respected by just about everybody"
April 09, 2010 3:52 pm ET by Jeremy Schulman
The conservative media is going to smear President Obama's Supreme Court nominee -- no matter who that nominee turns out to be.
They did it with Sonia Sotomayor, and they'll do it again.
How can we be so sure?
Just ask the National Review.
This morning, National Review Online news editor Daniel Foster wrote a post on The Corner (NRO's main blog) running down the list of likely nominees. Foster wrote that Solicitor General Elena Kagan -- one of several reported front-runners for the nomination -- "is well-respected by just about everybody on both sides":
Elena Kagan - The first-female Solicitor General and probably first-runner-up for the Sotomayor seat, Kagan has a record of the kind of cagey jurisprudence that is ideal for a tough confirmation battle. She is well-respected by just about everybody on both sides, but lacks the paper trail that would reveal just how far to the left she'd sit.
Barely an hour later, NRO published an editorial with this sub-headline: "The question for conservatives will be not whether but how to oppose Obama's nominee." According to the editorial:
We know that President Obama will nominate a replacement who is also committed to imposing liberal policy outcomes over the objections of legislatures and without constitutional warrant. We know because Obama told us so, pledging during the campaign to nominate only justices who would support constitutionalized abortion. A justice willing to ignore the text, history, structure, and logic of the Constitution on abortion to get a nomination cannot be trusted on other issues.
No doubt some Republicans will say that it is unimportant to fight the nominee because Obama will merely be replacing one liberal with another rather than changing the balance of the Court. But the choice before any Republican senator is whether to acquiesce to several more decades of liberal activism on the bench. Unless Obama provides evidence of having dropped his litmus tests, the question for conservatives will be not whether but how to oppose Obama's nominee.
So just to recap ... according to NRO's news editor, at least one of the reported front-runners for the Supreme Court nomination "is well-respected by just about everybody on both sides." Nonelessless, NRO still wants to make sure that Republicans understand that the "question for conservatives will be not whether but how to oppose Obama's nominee."
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Nice to see that conservatives are above politicizing the nomination process.
</sarcasm>
Doesn't matter if the person is well respected, intelligent, and in every way, shape, or form qualified for the job. The republicans are going to campaign hard against whoever it is. And if they filibuster, don't know if OBama will get anyone through.
If the Republicans DO filibuster the nominee, could Harry Reid call a recess so President Obama could make a recess appointment to the Supreme Court? Is there any president for this? Is it allowed under the Constitution?
I don't know the answer - I'm putting this out there in case someone else knows.
Wow.
No morals
No ethics
No empathy
No caring
No answers
No solutions
No da*n good
(Apologies to those too young to remember.)
I have to agree with that. But considering that following the text, history, structure, and logic of the Constitution has given us the status quo, a justice willing to do that is likely to come almost exclusively from the conservative side of the aisle.
Your first clue should have been the impeccable spelling... :-)
If our constitutional rights are only valid when the state says they are valid, we have no rights, only entitlements. And entitlements are arbitrary boons by the government, not inalienable rights from our Creator. Thus Roe is extremely destructive to real freedom.
Of course, progressives don't really believe in freedom, except for themselves. Their conceit is that the masses are too stupid to be allowed to rule themselves, they must be controlled - by the progressive philosopher-kings. Unfortunately, every modern attempt at such control has been co-opted by butchers like Lenin, Stalin and Mao. That's America's future unless we stop the madness that is progressivism.
I gotta tell ya, that kind of logic is way beyond me. I give up. If that's the way the real world works, it's all yours. Have fun...
One of your assumptions is that the as-yet-unborn child has no rights - at least not enough rights to outweigh the convenience of the mother. But, if science is correct in asserting that life begins at conception (and it is), there are two sets of rights at play in an abortion scenario.
Abortion is wrong, just as theft and murder are wrong. Abortion denies to another human being (the as-yet-unborn child) certain inalienable rights - specifically life. Certainly, the protection of the rights of the unborn may conflict with the rights of the mother. But some rights are more important than others. For instance, without the right to life, the right of privacy is meaningless.
So, a society that will not protect the life of its most vulnerable will not be able to guarantee those basic rights to any of its citizens. If the state 'grants' rights, they are not 'rights' in the Constitutional sense at all, but merely entitlements - for what the state grants, it can deny. If the state is not obligated to protect the life of the unborn, it is not obligated to protect your life, either. If we allow abortion to stand, we have resigned our rights as a free people. Which, incidentally, is the ultimate goal of the progressive political philosophy.
Where there is a "new organism" is a new life - in all sexual reproduction. Conception = new life = valid premise.
Besides all that, you state that abortion is for the "convenience of the mother", and while I admit you do not specify it as a sole intent, your omission of the other viable reasons for abortion indicate such in my opinion. If your argument includes that assumption, then it can also be considered part of a false premise.
The rest of your rant is just Glenn Beckism. He's a crazy man, making $32 million last year whipping up people. The Father Coughlin of our times.
Our Constitution assumes the presence of certain inalienable rights, (life, liberty, property)derived not from political power but from God. That life is inherent in an embyronic state is not a religious assumption. It is a scientific one. That is why it is a felony to destroy an eagle's egg; we protect the life.
Your argument seems to be that because my religion agrees with science it must be wrong!
But you are right about one thing: the USSC had to read into the Constitution to find any 'abortion' rights in it - because they are not there.
Second, your statement applies to who? If you think about it, power derived from God means nothing unless you specify the God. Yes, I know, the founders were supposedly Christian, but the fact is when you simply say "God", you are referring to any theology that has either a single deity or any that have many but only one "true", or "ruling" deity.
Third, it is not a felony to destroy an eagle's egg because we "protect the life", if that was the case, we would have biologists scoop them all up and ensure that they hatch by whatever means. Eagles are endangered, so it is a felony to do anything that interferes with their ability to survive as a species, from destorying the eggs, the adults, the roosting habitat, etc.
Hannah Arendt (On Revolution)postulates (correctly, I think) that the only truly radical idea in the American experiment was the freedom of religion. And, though modern revisionists hate it, by religion the founders meant the Christian religion. Far from being in opposition to 'established religion,' the Constitution was designed as a secular document that gave free rein to religion in society.