September 28, 2006
Nobody Has Trackbacked Yet
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September 28th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Eh… just another one of those “we went digging for dirt and things to spin, and here’s what we found” reports.
PFAW disgusts me.
September 28th, 2006 at 7:32 pm
All is have to say about this is:
(tents hands a la Monty Burns) Eeeexxxcellent.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
So this seems to do is confirms the idea that you all are for judicial activism when it’s going your way. Surprised? Not really.
September 28th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
“Federal appeals court judges nominated by President Bush are threatening and undermining Americans’ rights and liberties, and working to reduce congressional authority to protect those rights and liberties.”
“Boo hoo.”
Damn those liberals, always whining about rights and liberties!
September 28th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
“Damn those liberals, always whining about rights and liberties!”
Yes, and then support policies that take away our liberties.
September 29th, 2006 at 12:45 am
Neither party, nor liberals, nor social conservatives, is vigorous about defending rights and liberties. The differences are merely about which rights and liberties the government should abridge.
Here’s wishing the government would stay the hell out of my pocket, my home, my bedroom, my library, and the door to the courthouse when the government overreaches!
September 29th, 2006 at 6:46 am
“Here’s wishing the government would stay the hell out of my pocket, my home, my bedroom, my library, and the door to the courthouse when the government overreaches!”
Of course the problem with a libertarian world view is that other individuals are frequently trampled. No fault divorce? Too bad for the kids and the spouse. Abortion on demand? Too bad for the child in the womb. Legalized drugs? Too bad for the taxpayer who has to pay the consequences.
Government, including courts, should respect the basic rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but, above all, should respect our right to rule ourselves through our elected representatives at all levels of government. Infringe upon that right, often by the courts and always for the best reasons of course, and the rest of the rights are in jeopardy.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:46 am
If I had any reason to believe that PFAW was being honest about this sort of thing, I’d react differently. Stuart Taylor demonstrated exactly how easy it is to spin a nominee’s record back in January. http://home.ease.lsoft.com/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0601&L=aadap-l&T=0&P=1650
PFAW has written scathing reports of nearly every GWB nominee for a court of appeals spot, and my impression is that the level of nastiness in the report has more to do with how politically vulnerable a nominee is than with how “concerned” the public should actually be.
If someone has been a judge, and you want to sink their nomination, here are a few easy ways to do it.
* If the person has been a trial judge, look at the cases in which that person’s decisions have been reversed on appeal. Then say that the appellate court “scolded Judge X for keeping party Y out of court.” Don’t worry about what the actual reason for reversal was–maybe it was procedural, maybe the Supreme Court issued a new case, whatever–just focus on who the parties were. If the losing party at trial was black, a union, a single mother, or poor, put that front and center and don’t worry about the fact that the case was about technical interpretations of the tax code.
* If the nominee was a trial judge, trumpet the number of times the judge was reversed by appellate panels that included Republican nominees.
* If the nominee was a lawyer, look for sympathetic parties on the other side of the case and claim that the lawyer has “had a career that reflects a commitment to trampling on the rights of the [poor/minority/unions/democrats/children] of America”
* If the nominee was a lawyer, look for times when he lost. Emphasize the times when he lost in front of a Republican-appointed judge. Then say that nominee X “disingenuously argued for an interpretation of Y statute that would effectively reinstate Jim Crow, overturn the Voting Rights Act, overturn Roe v. Wade, and force women to wear burkas. Even evil Judge Z wouldn’t accept that.” Quote language from the opinion.
* Regardless of whether there are any facts to support it, proclaim that the nominee will “roll back the clock” to a time when there were fewer rights for people. Pick a day. Maybe it’ll be 1919, before the New Deal, desegregation, and women’s voting rights. Maybe it’ll be 1865, before the Fourteenth Amendment. Maybe 1800–he’ll reinstate slavery. Maybe 1300–he’ll allow medieval torture devices. Don’t worry about the facts.
I’ve read these reports and I see little other than adverbs and spin. They’re preaching to the choir, not trying to persuade. There is probably honest criticism to be leveled at a fair number of Bush’s nominees. PFAW either isn’t supplying it, or it’s burying it in a deluge of dishonest criticism. That’s my objection to PFAW.
September 29th, 2006 at 10:59 am
TO gets it.
PFAW care only for the results in a given case, and nothing for the underlying reasoning. As long as the Supreme Court permits abortion on demand, Ralph Neas and his fellow minions could care less whether the Court “supports” that result with the lyrics to “We are the World.”
“Boo hoo” was meant to convey my mock sadness at PFAW not getting the political results it wanted in the cases outlined in its bs report.
PFAW is full of sh$t, and everyone knows it. They are one of the most dishonest, vile, and evil organizations this country has ever seen (save the abortion-mill groups like Planned Parenthood), and Ralph Neas is the Devil incarnate.