Don't Jump!

You can climb down off that ledge now, Patrick. Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination for the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON - Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination to be a Supreme Court justice Thursday in the face of stiff opposition and mounting criticism about her qualifications.

Bush said he reluctantly accepted her decision to withdraw, after weeks of insisting that he did not want her to step down. He blamed her withdrawal on calls in the Senate for the release of internal White House documents that the administration has insisted were protected by executive privilege.

Perhaps that's the case. But the excuse sounds a little canned, a little pre-planned, I think. Strange how she had just re-submitted her answers to a questionnaire from the Senate Judicial Committee (they had forcefully rejected a previous set of answers last week, calling them 'incomplete to insulting').

It will be interesting to find out, ten or so years from now, whether I was right about this nomination or not.

Okay. Bring on the real candidate.

UPDATE: Perhaps the leadership has been listening.

Miers never overcame doubts among conservative opinion makers and within Bush's political base about her powers of intellectual leadership and reliability on such issues as abortion, affirmative action, gay rights and school prayer.

"The reaction to her nomination has been so intense and sustained that the White House couldn't ignore it any longer,'' said Roger Pilon, director of the Center for Constitutional Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, in an interview before the withdrawal. "Confirmation was doubtful."

Will the Senate GOP be willing to fight for a Janice Rogers Brown now? Hopefully, the president will allow us to see what they are truly made of.

(Thanks to Confirm Them)

Comments

[jeff]

Praise Jesus!

[NE]

I find the idea of finding out what Senate Republicans are really made of a little bit scary. I hope I'm wrong. FWIW, I think a no-BS gal like JR Brown would be the perfect replacement for the wishy-washy Sandra Day O'Connor.

[V the K]

McCain is already against J R Brown. Odd how a man who so gleefully sticks the knife into Republican's backs expects to be the presidential nominee in 2008.

[justin]

Get ready to kiss your right to buy birth control goodbye. Maybe civil rights and labor laws too.

[baldilocks]

Justin,

You get a lot of leeway here because I value *intelligent* dissent. Don't make me regret that.

Personally, I practice a fool-proof method of birth-control. However for the sake of others--or if I should get married in the next few years or so--I ask this: is anyone *with power* asking for the banning of birth-control pills? Or condoms? Or IUDs? Or the implants? If so, point us to them.

Otherwise, don't post such unmitigated BS here.

"...is anyone *with power* asking for the banning of birth-control pills? Or condoms? Or IUDs? Or the implants?

Not yet.

Just wait for the Evangelical Christian Republic of the United States to arrive.

Women will back slaving at the stove, barefoot, and pregnant. Blacks and other pesky "non-whites" will be put back in their place. People who do not go church will be burned at the stake. The country will win the prize, year after year, for the most scientifically backward regime in the world. Life expectancy will decrease, infant mortality will increase, infectious diseases will spread, and periodic famines will occur...

In other words, the U.S. will experience a return to the Middle Ages.

Nominate Brown. While you are it, get in Owens too.

[baldilocks]

HaHa, great satire of the "religious Right" boogeyman callers, Anonymous. You capture their ahistorical hysteria perfectly.

[justin]

Baldlocks said:

Justin,

You get a lot of leeway here because I value *intelligent* dissent. Don't make me regret that.

Personally, I practice a fool-proof method of birth-control. However for the sake of others--or if I should get married in the next few years or so--I ask this: is anyone *with power* asking for the banning of birth-control pills? Or condoms? Or IUDs? Or the implants? If so, point us to them.

Otherwise, don't post such unmitigated BS here.

Baldilocks, conservative strict constructionists do not believe in a right to privacy in the Constitution and would therefore seek to overturn the right to privacy cases. The first real case in that line was Griswold v. Conn., which held that married people have a right to buy birth control (based on a right to privacy). If that case is overturned as Scalia would have, married people will no longer have the right (i.e., Constitutional) to buy birth control. Same for labor laws and civil rights. The reason Congress has the power to enact labor and civil rights laws is because the Supreme Court has taken a very expansive view of the commerce clause. Conservatives like Scalia want to go back to an earlier reading of the commerce clause where Congress would only have the the power to regulate certain things if they were directly regulating commerce. Therefore, the Voting Rights Act would be unconstitutional.

Do you disagree with that? That it what I meant when I said your "right to"--perhaps I should have said "Constitutional right to."

As for whether birth control would be strictly prohibited, I would be willing to bet it would in some places. Do you want an example--look at the treatment of the morning after pill by the FDA, or the new trend among Christian pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control. I'm not going to make an argument about whether states or towns should be allowed to ban birth control, but you should at least acknowledge that that would be a consequence of a Scalia dominated Court.

Oh yeah, I suspect the post right before mine was a conservative trying to parody a liberal response, and certainly wasn't my response to you.

Actually, I was not joking.

The Evangelical Christian Republic of America (ECRA) is exactly what the religious nuts want.

I cannot wait for alchemy being taught as an "alternative" to chemistry. Nothing like turning lead into gold to instill intellectual curiosity into fresh little minds.

Of course, the ECRA will suffer a serious brain drain. You'll be left with the morons and you'll self-destruct.

[baldilocks]

Justin: One notices that there are no links to your assertions, leading me to suspect that it's merely your opinion. In order for someone to buy into your opinion, you need to base it on some sort of logic other than "evil conservatives want to take away your BC just because they're evil and oppose right to privacy." You also need to understand what you're opposing which you apparently don't.

This isn't the 60s. Some states might outlaw abortion on demand, but not all--probably not even most. And only a state legislature that wishes to bankrupt the state would outlaw all forms of BC all together.

If private Christian pharmacists won't dispense *any* form of birth control, there's always Riteaid and Walgreens and Walmart.

(What happened to good old self-control?)

Oh, yeah, right and the conservative judges want to take away my vote? Your paranoia is showing. Please remember where you are.

Speaking of paranoia...

Anonymous,

USSR
Warsaw Pact nations
Cuba
North Korea

Besides being communist, what two things do all of these entities have in common?

BTW I'm one of the "religious nuts," --as you'd know if you had done your homework. No Christian organization I know of wants a theocracy for several reasons. Here are two: 1) "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's..." including the state and its works. There is not one thing in the bible which commands believers to create a Kingdom (theocracy) here on earth. Note that any attempts usually fall to ruin 2) The God of the Bible specifically says that humans have free will to believe in Him or not. 3) (Protestant) Christianity is too decentralized for it.

Now if you have a reasonable rebuttal, Anonymous, I'd be happy to read it. However, if you're going to continue to make up concepts and create agendas that spring up from...God knows where --your own paranoia or bad childhood experiences, perhaps--I will politely (this once) suggest that you find a more receptive audience.

[baldilocks]

BTW, Justin, our rights are enumerated in the first ten amendments of the Constitution. The right to privacy isn't one of them. Perhaps you ought to start a grass roots campaign for a constitutional amendment to correct this oversight on the Founder's part, if that's what you think it is (I'm sure you'd have plenty of support). Roe was an example of a court overstepping its specified bounds.

Sell it elsewhere.

[Justin]

Baldilocks--So, do you really think that the only rights we have are in the first ten amendments? Then, you must believe that the State of California can arrest you for saying something on this blog it doesn't like, or maybe it could force you to worship Allah? I've never seen anything in the Bill of Rights about states being prohibited from doing those things (the BoR says that "Congress" is prohibited from doing certain things). It's because of judicial interpretation that California can't violate your freedon of speech

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/
constitution/html/bright.html

What about the Voting Rights Act? Where in the Constitution does it say that Congress has the power to regulate intra-state voting? Where in the Constitution is school segregation prohibited? And, where in the Constitution is the Supreme Court even given the power to interpret the Constitution. That was a judge-made thing too (See Marbury v. Madison http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/9.htm)

Also, my point is not whether some states or local towns will prohibit birth control, but whether there is a right to it. If you think there is no right to birth control, that's fine. I've never heard of anyone wanting to get rid of jury trials for criminal cases, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of the "right" because no one is trying to take it from us.

Here is the link to the Griswold case.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/
scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=381&invol=479

And here is a decent discussion of the development of privacy from Griswold to Roe:

http://members.aol.com/
abtrbng/conlaw.htm

My point is not that terrible things will definitely happen with a Scalia-type court, but that many rights we have taken for granted would disappear with a strict constructionist approach. That's fine if you agree with that interpretation, but you should also realize the consequences of that interpretation.

It may surprise you, but I would agree that Roe was a bad decision and a case of the Court overstepping its bounds. But, it has been settled law now for over 30 years and I do not think it should be overturned.

Good ole' self control?

How about those righteous men out there who cannot control themselves when faced with their daughters, sisters, nieces... I guess the little sluts must have done something to deserve it!

Incestuous rapes are real (do not cover your ears). They happen every day.

I suppose that as a "family values" person, you would want these ignominies to stay within the families. God forbids that the God-fearing hypocrites would be exposed! As for the unfortunate women or girls who got pregnant from incestuous rapes, they must be made to bear the fruit of their shame. Right? Thay are whores after all.

[baldilocks]

Anonymous,

What the HELL are you talking about?

Did your father rape you or something? If so, I'm sorry to hear that, but there is nothing in the bible which condones that and I didn't make him do that. Take it up with your mother for allowing it to happen, for being undiscerning enough to marry a pervert; take it up with the law (if the statute of limitations hasn't run out); take it up with your psychiatrist and, lastly, take it up with God, if you're still talking to Him.

However, I am not God and am not as forgiving of words being put in my mouth as He is. If your next post is as crazy, rude and mendacious as the last one, it will be creatively edited. You're obviously in some pain, but that doesn't mean that I will allow you to spread the evidence of your parentally-inflicted neurosis on my dime.

[jeff]

Justin's remarks remind me of Margaret Atwood's ham-fisted novel The Handmaid's Tale, about a near-future America run by evangelical fascists. It now reads like the obsessions of 80s academic feminists, a bunch of privileged white women whining about how oppressed they are.

As prophecy, the book flunks. There's only one religion in the world that treats women the way Atwood's evangelical Christians do, & it's the one religion she wouldn't dare write about

PS I also practice a foolproof method of birth control ;P

[Justin]

Justin's remarks remind me of Margaret Atwood's ham-fisted novel The Handmaid's Tale, about a near-future America run by evangelical fascists. It now reads like the obsessions of 80s academic feminists, a bunch of privileged white women whining about how oppressed they are.

What are you talking about? When did I ever say anything close to that? Because I think that if there were no right to birth control, or abortion, that some parts of the country may outlaw it? Hardly seems like paranoia to me.

[Justin]

Justin's remarks remind me of Margaret Atwood's ham-fisted novel The Handmaid's Tale, about a near-future America run by evangelical fascists. It now reads like the obsessions of 80s academic feminists, a bunch of privileged white women whining about how oppressed they are.

What are you talking about? When did I ever say anything close to that? Because I think that if there were no right to birth control, or abortion, that some parts of the country may outlaw it? Hardly seems like paranoia to me.

[NE]

Justin,
You appear to be operating under the assumption that all civil rights flow through Griswold and Roe. Just because someone might find the legal reasoning behind these decisions incorrect, doesn't mean that there aren't other legal arguments that may lead to the same conclusion.

As for government restricting your rights if the protections of the Roe and Griswold decisions weren't in place, that's another red herring. There is no constitutional right to consume alcohol. While some local governments have banned alcohol, the vast majority have not. Furthermore, any politician who tried to ban it where the majority opposed such a measure would be out of office in short order. The same would go for someone who tried to ban birth control. The courts aren't our only protection against government. Those things called elections were designed to actually give us a say in things.

[justin]

NE said:
You appear to be operating under the assumption that all civil rights flow through Griswold and Roe. Just because someone might find the legal reasoning behind these decisions incorrect, doesn't mean that there aren't other legal arguments that may lead to the same conclusion.

Uh, no, I'm just saying that the Constitutional right to privacy flows through those cases.

NE, the point of a Constitutional right has nothing to do with whether someone now is trying to take that right away, the point is that you have the right no matter what the majority wants (short of amending the Constitution etc.). The discussion about whether you have a "Constitutional right" to birth control has absolutely nothing to do with whether someone would in fact outlaw it. Reasonable minds can differ on whether there should be such a right, but again, majorities are fickle and whether there is or isn't a right has nothing to do with what the majority would or wouldn't do now. If you think there should not be a Constitutional right to buy birth control, that's fine, there are a lot of smart people who would agree with you, but your argument should not be based on whether people would actually outlaw something if given the chance. No one would have really suggested banning guns 100 years ago, but people didn't get rid of the 2nd Amendment because it wasn't needed. Now, in 2005, people are trying to ban guns, and many people are happy there is a 2nd Amendment to protect gun owners.

As for my larger point--I hear a lot of conservative strict-constructionists say that the text of the Constitution should govern and that judges shouldn't be making up rights. That's fine, but please realize what that really means:
1. You have no first amendment right against a state (the First Amendment only speaks about Conrgess)
2. Judges can't over-rule any act of Congress, so if Congress wants to make you worship Buddha, the Supreme Court can do nothing (Marbury v. Madison, a Supreme Court case, created the doctrine of judicial review).
3. School segregation would still be permitted under the Constitution.
4. Many federal environmental laws would be unconstitutional, and not just the wacky ones about spotted owls, but the ones that would prohibit someone from dumping arsenic in a big hole near the playground your children play in (i.e, where in the Constitution is Congress given the power to regulate the environment?)

[NE]

Justin,
Your 2nd Ammendment analogy doesn't apply. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Privacy is not.

Affording judges the flexibility to find new rights based on their own moral values or popular opinion may seem like a good idea when they find rights you want to exercise. Unfortunately, once you allow them to go off the map, you're taking the chance that they may wind up somewhere you don't want them to go.

Take Griswold, for instance. How far does the right to the privacy of "marital bedrooms" go? What if my wife and I like to smoke pot or use cocaine before we fool around? Using the reasoning of the Griswold majority, laws prohibiting such behavior are unconstitutional.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the Connecticut law struck down by the Griswold decision was stupid, but that doesn't necessarily make it unconstitutional.

[justin]

Affording judges the flexibility to find new rights based on their own moral values or popular opinion may seem like a good idea when they find rights you want to exercise. Unfortunately, once you allow them to go off the map, you're taking the chance that they may wind up somewhere you don't want them to go.

I totally agree with that. I just believe that the strict constructionist approach has judges inserting their own moral values as much as an activist liberal judge. The idea of going back and figuring out what a bunch of people thought about a given issue in the 18th Century leaves a pretty wide window open for judicial interpretation. So how would Madison and Jefferson felt about infrared surveillance on someone's home without a warrant? Beats me. My own favored approach is the Cass Sunstein minimalist approach where the law will move slowly, case by case, in a certain direction.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465083269/ref=ord_cart_shr/002-8390529-9504831?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

And basically, that is why even though I think Roe was a bad decision at the time, it shouldn't be overturned, because that in itself would be a radical movement for the Court. Even a bad decision should stand (with certain rare exceptions of course, e.g., Plessy).