Category: Old Dish

Bloomberg, Bush and gay porn. That’s one hell of a way to lose.

ALITO AND THE STATE: Cass Sunstein examines some of Alito’s dissents. They do have a theme:

Prisoners in long-term segregation units were banned from receiving newspapers or magazines from either the prison library or the publisher. The majority struck down the ban as a violation of the First Amendment. Alito dissented, finding the ban to be within the prison’s legal authority… When a majority of the court found a violation of the right to a speedy trial, he dissented. So, too, when the majority ruled that a district court had the authority to reduce a convict’s sentence under the sentencing guidelines. So, too, when the majority ruled that habeas corpus relief was constitutionally required when the state had not met its burden of proving the defendant’s specific intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

He certainly seems to be a reasonable and careful judge. But you can see why Bush picked him. Bush is no fan of individual rights – especially when it comes to criminal justice.

About Saddam’s nuke program. I guess I should say I’m all in favor of examining how we got the WMD issue so wrong; and whether there was any shady business on the Bush administration’s part in selectively presenting intelligence. But the notion that this was the only reason given for deposing Saddam before the war, or that the nuclear matter was the only WMD concern, or that the Bush administration was in any way out of the ordinary in making the claims it did – is just empirically, historically wrong. As a matter of U.S. policy, the shift toward support for regime change in Iraq occurred under Clinton, not Bush. More evidence here.

Fair enough. I have to concede this one:

It’s black and white: If gays are allowed to marry then the price of weddings will sky-rocket, pure and simple.
Here’s one example: Sue and Tom decide to marry. They are looking at a basic affair in the northeast, so this means a price tag of $30,000 to $50,000. In New York, this is no frills. Now, Sue goes to the wedding of her co-worker Steve and his partner Gary. Fancy reception in a loft overlooking the river or ocean at sunset, a small lite-jazz combo, wonderful wine from a small vineyard out west, terrific finger food with ingredients the relatives from Pennsylvania cannot even spell, video montages of their vacations and favorite scenes from films and plays, maybe a minor 70s disco diva comes in and sings her one-hit wonder before the crowd, balloons and confetti from Kate’s Paperie in SOHO, dessert from a chef who was flown in for the occasion…
The nuptials now cost six figures. Tom’s life is in a quandary — cobalt or cranberry napkins?! — just because Steve and Gary were selfish enough to want to commit to one another.
Stop gay marriage now!

By the way, South Park Wednesday night is the gay marriage episode.

Here’s the original source of Chris Matthews’ complaint about Italian-baiting from the anti-Alito forces. It’s the first item in a series of crude, results-oriented attacks on Alito. But I have to say I don’t think it’s prima facie evidence of trying to use his ethnicity against him. It’s an allegation of incompetence as a prosecutor, and it falls before his record as a judge chronologically, and so its inclusion near the top of a list of attacks is not necessarily damning. I’d say that the bulk of this ethnic huffing and puffing has actually come rather cynically from the pro-Alito side. Crude and unnecessary.

I asked “Why is it in society’s interests to keep gay women and men from [civil marriage’s] stability and security?” Here’s one answer:

As long as “God” says it is a sin you must be punished, banished and not allowed to prosper.
And we have to make the old adage true that homosexuals live and die alone. Otherwise our children will think it’s okay to be gay.

Anyone else care to respond to my specific question? To put it another way: Given that around 3 percent of the population is gay and always will be; given that we live in a free society and do not wish to lock them up or deport them; why is it in society’s broader interest to discourage them from forming stable bonds? In some ways, it cuts to the chase of the debate.

US AND THEM? We are often asked not to judge other cultures and other religions, and, in general, it seems to me a wise presumption. We often misunderstand what we do not know; and tolerance is a good thing. But then there are lines where culture really does matter; and where social and cultural norms in other places really do strike us in the West as profoundly wrong. Like involuntary female genital mutilation; or the hanging of teen-age gays; or infanticide. Here’s what appears to be one of them. I’d be grateful if anyone knows exactly how, why, where and when this occurred; whether the Iranian government sanctioned it; whether Sharia somehow sanctions it; and other details. The images are deeply disturbing, so PLEASE do not click on this link if you are squeamish.

Here’s a take from someone who knows Alito well – Kate Pringle, a liberal Democrat who once clerked for the guy. She’s on board:

Pringle, as I noted earlier, is a liberal Democrat. I wondered whether her ideological bent was an anomaly in Alito’s chambers, or whether Alito routinely hired left-of-center law clerks. She didn’t know whether Alito intentionally hires law clerks with diverse viewpoints, but she did know that she was not alone – a good number of Alito’s past law clerks are far more liberal than he is. She also emphasized that Alito was always asking his clerks for their viewpoints, and that he enjoyed the debate when different opinions emerged on particular cases (this, too, was echoed in the NPR interview with ex-clerk Lombardi).

Pringle’s bottom line is a pragmatic one. Of course, Alito would not have been on John Kerry’s or any other Democrat’s short list for the Supreme Court. But, as we all know, John Kerry didn’t win in 2004, nor did the Democrats capture a majority in the Senate. Given that reality, Pringle said, “I’d rather have someone who has real intellectual ability, who has experience, who has a history of making these kinds of difficult decisions, and who has demonstrated respect for the Court as an institution, than a stealth candidate.” And given the other candidates on the “conservative short list,” Pringle is optimistic about Alito. She says that he will treat every case fairly, and that “we’ll be proud to have him on the Court.”

Just one more piece of information.

Some interesting facts worth keeping in mind.

“Sam Alito is just what George Bush is looking for: a big government conservative who will almost always side with the government against the individual, and the federal government against the state,” – Andrew Napolitano, a senior judicial analyst for Fox News and a former New Jersey Superior Court judge. (Hat tip: Julian.)

FRANCE’S ISLAMIST PROBLEM: It’s not getting any better.

Where is the vice-president? When was the last time he held a press conference? I ask these obvious questions because reasonable and fair people, having read the indictments against his chief of staff, have reasonable and fair questions. Did Cheney direct Libby to out Valerie Wilson’s identity? Why did he order an inquiry into her role? Does he condemn the leaking of her identity? Why has he held back important documents from the Senate that would help explain his role in formulating what turned out to be flawed intelligence before the Iraq war? That’s just for starters. The issues here are profound ones: they suggest that the vice-president has abused his own power and put the nation’s security at risk to pursue a political opponent. Maybe that’s not true. Maybe there’s an innocent explanation for all of this. So why cannot the vice-president explain? It seems at times as if he does not really regard himself as answerable to the people he represents – that once every four years is enough for him. But having the second most powerful man in the country refuse to be accountable for his actions is dangerous for democracy. He is not above this process. You and I pay his salary. It’s time for the press to get angry about his silence and avoidance. And it’s time for him to tell us the full extent of what he knows.

It’s continuing at Volokh with Dale Carpenter’s patient dismemberment of Maggie Gallagher’s previous arguments. Cathy Young weighs in here as well. This passage from Dale’s latest post struck a chord with me:

when couples get married it improves the lives of the people who love them by reassuring them that their loved one is being cared for, and are less likely to live, as Anna put it, “lonely and depressed” lives.
My mother, who is 61, recently married a man who is 77 and with whom she’d lived for 18 years. Their sex will not make babies, yet everyone in both families was thick with happiness for them. Why did she marry? Did it change anything in a relationship that was already a marriage in just about every way except the name and the license? When I asked her this, she responded, “Now we’re more one.” I don’t fully understand the magic of that moment, but I didn’t have to understand it in order to know that I was more at peace about her future.

This is undoubtedly one critical piece in the meaning of marriage: the way in which the civil institution assigns one individual to take care of another. We all have an interest in this: people uncared for will have to rely on the government for help. Couples are more able to help themselves. Whether they have children or not does not affect this profound social good from marriage. The question we are debating is: why shouldn’t everyone be able to have that support? Why is it in society’s interests to keep gay women and men from such stability and security?

MY ‘OVERSTATEMENT’: Jonah takes me to task for writing that Roberts, Miers and Alito all hold the judiciary essentially toothless in tackling executive power in wartime (which now means for ever). He takes exception to my words “completely craven” and “unrestricted executive power.” My point here is a simple one: the current executive believes it has the right to detain an American citizen without charges indefinitely. It also believes it has the legal right to torture or abuse people it has detained. More to the point, it has detained a U.S. citizen indefinitely without charge, and it has, on numerous occasions, sanctioned the abuse and torture, even to death, of those in its custody. Roberts, Miers and Alito, from all I have read, would not interfere with that power. Andy McCarthy’s counter-point is that a Democrat-appointed judge upheld the Padilla case (indefinite detention without charge). That doesn’t rebut my point. Maybe I should have been clearer: I was referring to Bush’s SCOTUS nominees above all. If someone at NRO could reassure me that any of the three I mention believe that the judiciary can and should restrict the commander-in-chief in these matters, I’d be grateful. Meanwhile, I think an executive with the power to detain citizens indefinitely without charge and to apply cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment to them is, well, “unrestricted.” By the way, what does NRO believe about the McCain Amendment? I have no idea.