Month: July 2005

A classic diss.

Here’s a good one from Greg Gutfeld:

“A FUNNY BAR JOKE! (burp!)
Jann Wenner walks into a pub and sits down next to a man with a dog at his feet. “Does your dog bite?”
“No.”
A few minutes later the dog takes a huge chunk out of Mr. Wenner’s leg.
“I thought you said your dog didn’t bite!” he says indignantly.
“That’s not my dog,” says the other man.
“I can’t help but believe that this is in part the result of Bush’s War on Iraq,” says Jann, before limping out to his car.

More jokes suitable for the children of contributors to HuffPuffnStuff here.

Here are two reasonable ones. The first concerns Roberts’ support for untrammeled executive power in wartime. I’d expect nothing less from conservative judges, but given the fact that our current war is indefinite, some worries are legit. Here’s another view:

My guess is that he would not vote to overrule Roe v. Wade but would sustain state efforts to chip away at abortion rights. On economic liberties, however, he might well be a more adventurous innovator. He wrote articles as a law student suggesting that courts use novel theories of the Takings and Contracts clauses of the Constitution to strike down state action affecting business (such as legislation creating new rights for workers). He has done advisory work for right-wing public-interest firms like the Washington Legal Foundation. He may well be a quiet but effective influence for the piecemeal demolition of the regulatory welfare state.

Fine by me. Do I expect him to be a friend of gay rights? Nope. But I didn’t expect that of Kennedy either. Sometimes, reason finds a way.

“Last night, I saw Howard Fineman call Roberts a ‘brilliant’ pick on one of the cable shows because he is the most conservative candidate Bush could appoint without sparking a battle with Democrats. As usual, Fineman is astonishingly wrong. A better way to characterize Roberts is: the most moderate and uncontroversial candidate Bush could appoint without sparking a battle with James Dobson and the Christianists.

Three months ago the President would have delighted in jamming an untra conservative like Janice Rogers Brown down the Senate’s throat while invoking the nuclear option and spitting in each Democratic senator’s eye. Fast forward to this week, when he was forced to accept a late night visit from Arlen Spector, who had the audacity to demand that Bush replace O’Conner with a “moderate justice” in order to “maintain the balance.” This the same Spector who was on his knees vowing fealty to the President just last year.

The Roberts nomination is not a sign that Bush is finally getting “sensible” on judicial matters. It’s an indication of just how politically weak he’s become. Roberts is just conservative enough to squeeze by the Dobson crowd without howls of anger. He is arguably the least conservative of Bush’s “short list” of nominees. Clearly, Bush and Rove were terrified about losing this battle to the Democrats and moderate Republican senators. Having lost already social security and with the Rove scandal boiling, such a loss would be too devastating to contemplate.

Roberts may turn out to be an extremely conservative justice who votes to strike down Roe v. Wade and many other liberal favorites. The fact that we’re not certain about this must be a bitter pill for Dobson and friends, however.”

“Your post on the Islamo-fascist hanging/murder of the two gay men confirmed for me that my recent decision to join the U.S. military was correct. I have to stuff myself back in the closet – something I thought I left a decade ago – but our war on terror trumps my personal comfort at this point. Whenever my friends and family criticize – I’ll show ’em that link.”

“We are witnessing one of the greatest betrayals by the left since so-called left-wingers backed the Hitler-Stalin pact and opposed the war against Nazi fascism. Today, the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values. While it deplores the 7/7 terrorist attack on London, only last year it welcomed to the UK the Muslim cleric, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who endorses the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. These same right-wing leftists back the so-called ‘resistance’ in Iraq. This ‘resistance’ uses terrorism against civilians as its modus operandi – stooping to the massacre of dozens of Iraqi children in order kill a few US soldiers. Terrorism is not socialism; it is the tactic of fascism. But much of the left doesn’t care. Never mind what the Iraqi people want, it wants the US and UK out of Iraq at any price, including the abandonment of Iraqi socialists, trade unionists, democrats and feminists. If the fake left gets its way, the ex-Baathists and Islamic fundamentalists could easily seize power, leading to Iranian-style clerical fascism and a bloodbath. I used to be proud to call myself a leftist. Now I feel shame. Much of the left no longer stands for the values of universal human rights and international socialism.” – Peter Tatchell, left-wing gay rights advocate, telling it like it is. Read more of the statements of leftists and others against terror, and excuses for terror, and feel encouraged.

Some Roberts disgruntlement here, here and here. Money quote:

Republicans have tried the blank slate route before. That’s the Supreme Court pick whose opinions are unknown–perhaps even to himself. What did it get the GOP? David Souter, for one. President Bush has twice been elected president, and his party controls 55 Senate seats. If he really is a social conservative–let’s face it, this is all about Roe v. Wade–why should he operate from a position of weakness and nominate a consensus candidate? While Roberts is neither the consensus candidate nor 2005’s David Souter, his views on Roe v. Wade, at least, are unknown. Is a crapshoot the best conservatives can do? On the other hand, the Democrats refused to confirm him when George H.W. Bush nominated him to the bench, and took two years to confirm him when George W. Bush nominated him to the DC Court of Appeals. Perhaps the Democrats know something that we don’t. Time will tell.

I’d say that’s more like the private musings of some hardline conservatives than most will admit publicly.

Two teenage boys – one under 18 – were publicly hanged by the Islamo-fascist regime in Iran yesterday for being gay. Here’s a picture of their final moments:

Several British gay leaders have also been told they are subject to being murdered because of their advocacy of gay rights – especially among Muslims:

Peter Tatchell, the leader of OutRage; Brett Lock its campaign coordinator; and Aaron Saeed, the organization’s spokesperson on Muslim affairs, have been warned they will be murdered, Tatchell said Monday. In a statement Tatchell said that they have been told they are on a “hit list” and are going to be “beheaded” and “chopped up”, in accordance with “Islamic law”. The threats apparently began soon after OutRage stepped up its campaign in defense of LGBT Muslims, including gay Muslims fleeing attempted “honor killings” in Algeria, Iran Palestine and in the UK.

Gay Americans seem to me right now to be far too complacent. I’m amazed that we haven’t seen more targeting of gay clubs or venues by Islamist fanatics. And I’m saddened that more gay organizations haven’t rallied to the war against Muslim religious fanatics. This is our war too.

Fred Barnes and Ann Coulter both think Roberts isn’t wingnut enough.

“That’s fabulous!” – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, responding to the news of her possible replacement.

IN GENERAL: The one person I go to for reliable and sound information on judicial matters is my old friend, Jeffrey Rosen. His instincts are more geared toward liberal judicial restraint than mine are, but his judgment is almost always reliable. Here’s his full take on John Roberts:

Top of his class at Harvard Law School and a former law clerk for Rehnquist, Roberts is one of the most impressive appellate lawyers around today. Liberal groups object to the fact that, in 1990, as a deputy solicitor general, Roberts signed a brief in a case involving abortion-financing that called, in a footnote, for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. But it would be absurd to Bork him for this: Overturning Roe was the Bush administration’s position at the time, and Roberts, as an advocate, also represented liberal positions, arguing in favor of affirmative action, against broad protections for property rights, and on behalf of prisoners’ rights. In little more than a year on the bench, he has won the respect of his liberal and conservative colleagues but has not had enough cases to develop a clear record on questions involving the Constitution in Exile.

On the positive side, Roberts joined Judge Merrick Garland’s opinion allowing a former employee to sue the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority for disability discrimination. He pointedly declined to join the unsettling dissent of Judge David Sentelle, a partisan of the Constitution in Exile, who argued that Congress had no power to condition the receipt of federal transportation funds on the Metro’s willingness to waive its immunity from lawsuits. In another case, however, Roberts joined Sentelle in questioning whether the Endangered Species Act is constitutional under Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. The regulation in question prevented developers from building on private lands in order to protect a rare species of toad, and Roberts noted with deadpan wit that “the hapless toad … for reasons of its own, lives its entire life in California,” and therefore could not affect interstate commerce. Nevertheless, Roberts appears willing to draw sensible lines: He said that he might be willing to sustain the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act on other grounds. All in all, an extremely able lawyer whose committed conservatism seems to be leavened by a judicious temperament.

Right now, Roberts seems to me to be an extremely shrewd and defensible pick: federalist in instinct, prosaic in judgment, factually-astute, a conservative defender of judicial restraint. If a re-elected Republican president cannot get such a man confirmed, something has gone terribly wrong with the system. Obviously, we all have to wait for the hearings and any new revelations before making up our minds definitively. But I’d say it’s inspired for being so uninspired, which is a pretty good definition of political conservatism at its best.