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Finally, the GOP grows a set:
Republicans said that any attempt to deny Alito a yes-or-no vote would return the Senate to the brink of a showdown that was avoided last spring only when seven lawmakers from each party brokered a compromise. This time, they said they would crush Democratic opposition.
(Thanks to Polipundit.)
ADDED — It’s so nice to have everyone back together again!
ADDED II — Reaction:
Alito is a solid choice. Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid have already come out against him; another good sign.
Yep, that’s what I said too. (Truth be told, when conservatives learned that Sen. Reid had endorsed Harriet Miers, her fate was sealed. So his rejection of Judge Alito is welcomed.)
ADDED III — Welcomed reaction coming in from the moonbats as well:
• f*ck f*ck f*ck [* not in original]
• Rover has Struck again!
• Oh, this is all very calculated - My theory is that Miers was offered up to nominate a woman, knowing she wouldn’t make it
Yeah, it’s not like a woman has ever made it before.
Here’s a chap who’s looking on the bright side of things:
• Remember that Libby has yet to be arraigned in court
Maybe this can be the new Democratic slogan: “Live for the arraignment!” I guess people have to take their pleasure wherever they can find it.
• This is another altar boy heading for the court to force winger Catholicism on the whole country.
In addition to the anti-Catholicism, there’s also a fair amount of Italian bashing:
• I will leave out the stereotypes when the Italian males I know stop trying to run their wives’ lives.
But this one gets it right:
• Hey, I don’t like it either, but what exactly do we fight on? That he’s conservative? That he once applied the “rational basis” test to a decision concerning parental notification? Do you really think that’s going to sustain a fillibuster? Come on.
You can’t win a war shooting blanks, and that’s all we’ve got right now.
Opinion Journal’s John Fund looks at the role blogs played in the withdrawal of Harriet Miers’ nomination.
I think there’s some risk now of overstating the blogosphere’s influence in getting her nomination 86ed. The proximate reason for Ms. Miers’ withdrawal is that she was tanking in her interviews with senators, something the blogosphere’s critique of her might have predicted but did not cause.
Indeed it is, Your Royal Highness.
But Judges J. Michael Luttig and Alice M. Batchelder are also still under consideration. Reportedly, the president will make an announcement tomorrow.
ADDED — Harry thinks he’s running something: here’s a sure sign Judge Alito would be an excellent pick. (And a warning to Democrats from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, one of the Gang of 14: don’t even think about it.)
Government-issued MREs for hurricane victims find their way to eBay.
The U.S. Supreme Court hears argument Wednesday on whether the Government can offset the arrears by cutting into your Social Security.
It’s not that we Republicans win. It’s that we can’t lose. We have no credible opposition, which, I’m pretty sure, is not a good thing — for us, or for the country.
An accuser in the infamous McMartin molestation case comes clean.
Opponents of Proposition 2 say it is.
Decide for yourself. Here’s the ballot language Texas voters will see:
The constitutional amendment providing that marriage in this state consists only of the union of one man and one woman and prohibiting this state or a political subdivision of this state from creating or recognizing any legal status identical or similar to marriage.
[Emphasis added.]
ADDED — Here, for comparison, the language used in Kentucky:
Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Kentucky. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.
In Oregon:
It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage.
In Ohio:
Only a union between one man and one woman may be a marriage valid in or recognized by this state and its political subdivisions. This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of marriage.
The correct answer:
Only hard-core political and news junkies — a distinct minority — give a hoot about PlameGate or whatever it’s called. Joe and Jane Average Voter wouldn’t know Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame from Brian Wilson and Ving Rhames.
That’s the answer expressed narratively. If expressedly numerically, the answer is: 0. Few things bore the American electorate as much as inside the Beltway stories of political intrigue. True, polibloggers and their readers may find this stuff interesting, even stimulating. (The blogosphere’s left hand is stroking furiously.) But we’re atypical.
Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s fate will soon be in the hands of a jury.
But lest we forget him, here — from the Washington Post, no less — a few words about the unindicted liar who started it all:
Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.
Wilson’s assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.
The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.
In his now-famous July 14, 2003 column, Robert Novak reports “[t]wo senior administration officials” told him that “Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger,” which, as the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed, was the truth. Moreover, Mr. Novak didn’t describe Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent. He described her as an “Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” (Mr. Novak has denied even knowing she was covert.)
It won’t be until two days later, in a follow-on to Mr. Novak’s column, that any published reference is made to Valerie Plame as a covert agent. The reference will come in The Nation, in a post written by David Corn — following a conversation between Mr. Corn and … Joe Wilson.
In a ruling you can read here [link opens pdf document], the Alaska Supreme Court said today that it was not constitutionally permissible to deny benefits to the unmarried, same-sex partners of public employees:
That the Marriage Amendment effectively prevents same-sex couples from marrying does not automatically permit the government to treat them differently in other ways. It therefore does not preclude public employees with same-sex domestic partners from claiming that the spousal limitations in the benefits programs invidiously discriminate against them.
The Associated Press has this report.
(Thanks to Howard Bashman.)
Power Line sums it up:
I can’t imagine how Libby could have been foolish enough to lie to the grand jury, if indeed that is what happened. As a long-time Washington insider, he must have realized how grindingly thorough this kind of investigation is. How could Libby not have foreseen that his story would be contradicted by every other executive branch employee who was interviewed by the FBI? And how could he not have realized that perjury would be far worse than the original alleged offense? Indeed, Fitzgerald appears to have concluded that Plame was not, in fact, a covert agent, since there is no count in the indictment alleging violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. So if Libby had told the truth, it appears that he would have been fine.
So, assuming the accuracy of the charges in the indictment, why the lies? Even if Mr. Libby feared — or knew — that he had done something unlawful, he had to have known, as a Washington-experienced lawyer, that he couldn’t cover himself by lying, and that lying would only aggravate his legal problems, not solve them. He had to have known, in other words, that he had no chance of getting away with perjury. And if he didn’t think he had done anything unlawful, lying was self-destructively senseless.
Unless you believe Scooter Libby is just crazy, something here doesn’t add up.
Mr. Bush will name Samuel Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court, or so reports Confirm Them. The Hotline concurs.
A graduate of Yale Law, Judge Alito serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Here’s a brief bio.
If the reports are accurate, this is an exhilarating choice.
UPDATE — Confirm Them now says the name of Judge Michael Luttig is also being floated.
If, as some suggest, this name floating is the White House’s way, post-Miers, of testing the conservative waters, I think it will find the temperature just fine for both of these gentlemen.
UPDATE II — Tom Goldstein at the well-regarded SCOTUSBlog also predicts Alito, and provides a nice summary of some of the judge’s notable opinions.
“[E]ven as it coped with the destructive forces of hurricanes Katrina and Rita,” the economy grew in the last quarter at a robust 3.8% annual rate.
AFP:
TEHRAN — Iran was hit by a barrage of Western condemnation after its hardline president called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” but the clerical regime struck back with yet more verbal attacks against the Jewish state.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech, delivered Wednesday at a conference entitled “The World without Zionism.” came just hours before a suicide bombing in Israel and provoked fresh fears that Iran has a covert nuclear weapons programme.
Relatedly, from the Associated Press:
Arab governments remained silent Thursday as international condemnation grew over a call by Iran’s new president for Israel to be destroyed.
Imagine that.
(Editorial cartoon courtesy of Cox & Forkum.)
My blog is worth $217,912.44.
How much is your blog worth?
So says the New York Times, relying on unidentified sources.
ADDED — John at Power Line:
If the Times’ sources are correct, it will be a major disappointment for the Democrats.
“Major” isn’t the adjective I would have used. How about “soul-crushing”?
On a vote of 228-184, the U.S. House approves new penalties for meritless lawsuits.
Roll call here.
May the Government constitutionally deny federal funds to colleges or universities that keep military recruiters off their campuses because the Pentagon bans gays and lesbians? On December 6, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral argument on whether the Solomon Amendment violates the First Amendment rights of the Nation’s law schools. The Medill School of Journalism provides this informative report.
Hugh Hewitt, Ms. Miers’ biggest defender in the conservative blogosphere:
I think Ms. Miers has been unfairly treated by many who have for years urged fair treatment of judicial nominees.She deserves great thanks for her significant service to the country. She and the president deserved much better from his allies.
Some would say the president’s allies deserved better from him.
DJ Drummond at Polipundit:
The Democrats/Liberals have always been very good at manipulating appearances, and there should be no doubt that the Miers withdrawal will be cast by the MSM and the Democrats in only such light as allows them to gain. And it is avowed Conservatives who have renewed that power in the Left, and shown a dismally poor loyalty to the President and his judgment.And yes, it will convince more than a couple Senators that the McCain method of two-faced promise and treachery is the most effective mode of operation. The bastards did indeed win, and on more than one level.
Perhaps later, after deciding that ephemeral political appearances should trump two decades of Supreme Court rulings, I’ll regret having joined the winning bastards. But probably not.
And that’s about it for negative reaction from the conservative blogosphere to Ms. Miers’ commendable decision to withdraw. All the rest is right thinking.
Patterico:
The 1993 speech was clearly the final straw: clear evidence of her liberalism, overlooked by a shoddy vetting process.
Paul at Powerline:
Miers deserves great credit for pulling out and preventing the train wreck. If Bush will nominate a high quality conservative, and if Senate Republicans will push that nominee through, then this will prove to be, on balance, a great news week regardless of what happens on Friday. Scandals, real and imagined, come and go; the Supreme Court is for keeps.
Ace of Spades HQ:
I’m glad the damage has been stopped. This is a bad time for the Bush Administration, and we don’t need a split in the base, the only thing keeping the guy afloat.
John Hawkins at Right Wing News:
I cannot even begin to tell you how happy this makes me. In fact, I actually whooped so hard when I heard she withdrew that I scared the dog.
Jon Henke at The Q and O Blog:
I have to believe that the vigorous opposition in the blogosphere played a large part in the outcome of this nomination — if not by actually changing minds in the White House, at least by building and fanning the flame of dissent among those on the Right. As powerful as the George Will and Charles Krauthammer columns were, I’m not sure that the pre-blogosphere punditocracy could have created such a furor.
In the blogosphere you can hear the voice of the base. And in this instance, the voice had a tone. The base is comprised of people who do more than merely vote faithfully. They also write checks, stuff envelopes and knock on doors. And their deep displeasure with this nomination was always going to be difficult for Republican senators — especially ones with presidential aspirations — to ignore.
Michelle Malkin:
What a relief. Sad, pensive, what-a-waste relief.
John Cole at Balloon Juice:
Personally, I am mad at the White House for this nomination. It was a stupid pick, it was arrogant, and it was unfair to Harriet Miers.
Clearly, for many Republican bloggers it was painful to savage a nominee who, although unqualified for the Court, is a decent woman and a devoted public servant. George Bush is supposed to be her friend. He should have seen the firestorm coming. What in the hell was he thinking?
On the other hand, from Doug Williams at Bogus Gold:
In seeming desperation, many Miers supporters had fallen into the habit of assuming that a classic lefty caricature of the president was actually true — that he’s stubborn, peevish, and won’t back down even when he’s wrong. In fact, the president is perfectly capable of changing his mind and changing course when appropriate. In this case, when the nomination seemed to be shaping up as a disaster, he acted like an intelligent and mature leader, rather than the petulant child we were told to expect. This doesn’t surprise me. The fact that so many of his supporters so easily believed the ugly version of his character surprised me, and I’m happy they can now disabuse themselves of this notion.
Daniel Solove at Concurring Opinions:
Did the blogosphere play a role? A few days ago, I debated with Daniel Glover of the Beltway Blogroll about the influence of bloggers on the Miers appointment. I wrote: “In essence, a set of virtual confirmation hearings are being held in cyberspace, and the fate of the nomination may well be decided before the actual hearings in the Senate even begin.”
On roll call, the vote was 58 ayes, 280 nays and 61 abstentions.
Greg Ransom at PrestoPundit:
It’s time now for Bush to honor his promise to the American people — he promised to openly appoint a nominee in the mold of Scalia and Thomas and he needs to deliver. No more “read my lips” back-stabs from a President named “Bush.”
Yes.
I heard Laura Ingraham say tonight on Fox News that the only people unhappy with this withdrawal are Sens. Kennedy, Feinstein and Reid. “And that,” she said, “tells you all you need to know.”
Onward.
Miers withdraws. Now let’s move on.
ADDED — Three cheers for the emerging consensus — here, here and here — that the president should now nominate Michael McConnell, scholar, law professor and judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
ADDED (II) — I think we can all agree with this:
I do think we should all thank Harriet Miers for her service and keep in mind that it’s not her fault she was in this untenable situation. I have every confidence she’s a decent lady and a very competent lawyer. Congratulations to her for doing the right thing for her president and the country.
Dick Meyer of CBS News says Democrats should learn from Republican infighting.
(By the way, the senator pictured in the photo at the link is not Orin Hatch of Utah, as the caption claims. It’s Jeff Sessions of Alabama.)
Baseball Crank has them. And they’re good.
It would have been nice to win, of course, but I’m still glad Houston sent a team to the World Series.
Congrats to Chicago!
Under pressure from — can you believe this? — House Republicans, the Bush Administration today agreed to escalate dramatically the costs of recovering from Hurricane Katrina.
At her blog The Y Files, Boston Globe contributor Cathy Young has this very thoughtful post on the debate over same-sex marriage.
Is this really what we want in a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court? Or should we expect better?
Professor Hewitt writes:
The responses to arguments from the anti-anti-Miers crowd is to dodge the hard questions, which for the sake of brevity, I will list here:
Does George W. Bush deserve any loyalty from his party? From pundits identified with his party? If so, how much and why not more?
Do Harriett Miers’ many accomplishments count for nothing?
Does Harriett Miers strike the commentator as a dedicated public servant?
Why not wait for the hearings to at least begin?
How important is it that Roe v. Wade/Casey be reversed?
Which five precedents does the commentator think are in most pressing need of reversal?
Does the commentator agree with George Will’s assertion of Justice Lewis Powell as the “embodiment of mainstream conservative jurisprudence?”
Is a neo-Borking underway which will discredit the conservative cause’s defense of its future nominees against similar, future attacks from the left?
What are the political consequences of a defeat of Miers at the hands of a GOP controlled Senate?
Back to you Jim and Teflon. I’ll gladly link posts that respond to these questions in the order they are posed. (Link)
My answers are below.
Does George W. Bush deserve any loyalty from his party? From pundits identified with his party? If so, how much and why not more?
• Mr. Bush is entitled to loyalty from the party faithful when, and to the degree, he advances the party’s vision of Government. From the perspective of a Republican partisan, Mr. Bush is an instrument, the vehicle of a message; he is not the message. And this debate isn’t about the president personally; it’s about ideas.
Do Harriett Miers’ many accomplishments count for nothing?
• Of course they count for something. They count for something to her, to anyone who has benefited from her work and to all who believe that industry and service are laudable personal attributes. But accomplishment is not a synonym for qualification. Anthony Hopkins is an accomplished actor. But no one would think him qualified to perform heart surgery.
Ms. Miers’ conservative critics do not doubt the existence or value of her professional accomplishments. We doubt their relevance as qualification for the Court when measured against this standard: has the nominee demonstrated a commitment, either through scholarship or judicial service, to law-bounding judging?
Does Harriett Miers strike the commentator as a dedicated public servant?
• Yes, she does.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, also strikes me as a dedicated public servant. But that would not justify his appointment to the Court by a Republican president professing a commitment to originalism.
Why not wait for the hearings to at least begin?
• Why not wait for what until the hearings begin? Between now and then, will Ms. Miers publish the scholarship or acquire the judicial experience that would allow us to know whether she has demonstrated a commitment to law-bound judging?
How important is it that Roe v. Wade/Casey be reversed?
• It depends on the context in which the question is asked. Do you mean politically? If so, count me among the cynics who think it important that Roe and its progeny not be reversed. (Reversing Roe would deprive the GOP of an issue it has used to good political effect.) If you mean constitutionally, the answer is: very important. But the reversal of Roe alone cannot justify a nominee’s appointment to the Court, at least not when measured against the standard identified above.
By the way, I do think Ms. Miers would get Roe right. But this isn’t about the outcome of a particular case. It’s about the role of the courts in a democratic society.
Which five precedents does the commentator think are in most pressing need of reversal?
• Oh, let’s have the Roberts Court start modestly, by reversing these (in no particular order):
McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, upholding congressionally-imposed restrictions on political speech in violation of the First Amendment (requires also revisiting Buckley v. Valeo; so this one is a two-fer);
Roper v. Simmons, invalidating application of the death penalty to offenders under 18 on expansive reading of the Eighth Amendment;
Kelo v. City of New London, upholding forcible transfer of private property from one owner to another on grounds of “economic development” in violation of the Fifth Amendment’s public use requirement;
Grutter v. Bollinger, upholding state-sponsored racial discrimination in law school admissions in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment;
Maryland v. Craig, upholding the deprivation of a criminal defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him in violation of the Sixth Amendment.
These are among the Court’s newest sins; no case here is older than 1990. And they demonstrate that non-originalist approaches to the Constitution are as likely to take rights as to grant them.
Does the commentator agree with George Will’s assertion of Justice Lewis Powell as the “embodiment of mainstream conservative jurisprudence?”
• I confess to not being acquainted with enough of Justice Powell’s jurisprudence to answer. I know he joined this abomination, but was that representative of his constitutional approach? If so, the answer to your question is no.
Is a neo-Borking underway which will discredit the conservative cause’s defense of its future nominees against similar, future attacks from the left?
• This question assumes that Ms. Miers is a judicial conservative. That assumption is, of course, at the heart of the in-house quarrel over her nomination.
As I recall, Robert Bork was savaged for having a demonstrable commitment to an identifiable judicial philosophy, one his critics willfully and grossly misrepresented. Their misrepresentations were not answered — not by the nominee, not by the Reagan White House. And there was no conservative blogosophere to take up the slack. The nomination to the Court of stealth candidates — including Ms. Miers — is the legacy of that debacle.
I think it fair to say that many conservatives are dismayed by this nomination because they see it as a lost opportunity to redeem the failure of Robert Bork’s confirmation. In the wake of that failure, we worked for years to make the political branches of Government amendable to conservative nominees to the Court. And now we want to engage the Nation in an honest discussion — one for which we, the White House and the nominee are prepared — about the role of the courts in a constitutional democracy.
Some say we’re just spoiling for a fight with the liberals. But the correct assessment is this: we have a vision of how constitutional self-government should work and we’d like to go about implementing it honestly, and with the consent of the governed. And so we want a nominee who comes to the confirmation hearings with her cards already on the table, fully versed in what it is she’s about to explain. That rules out the cloak-and-dagger strategy.
Are Ms. Miers’ critics doing something damaging to future conservative nominees? Only if you consider a quest for transparency damaging.
What are the political consequences of a defeat of Miers at the hands of a GOP controlled Senate?
• Consequences to whom? To Mr. Bush or to the party?
The better question is: what will be the consequences to the GOP if Ms. Miers is confirmed and turns out to be David Souter in a skirt?
With the 2006 midterms only a year away, Ryan Sager explains why the GOP has nothing to fear.
NEW ORLEANS — Following complaints from gun-rights groups, FEMA said Monday it is lifting a ban on firearms at temporary housing parks built in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Under the new federal policy, residents can possess and store firearms. Use of weapons is still prohibited in the parks, said Butch Kinerny, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Gun rights groups had sought the change, saying the original policy violated Second Amendment protections for gun ownership. Kinerny said FEMA made the change after consulting with lawyers.
This strikes me as quite obviously correct. The Government certainly couldn’t force people to give up any other constitutional right in exchange for a public benefit. And at least in the Fifth Circuit, where Louisiana is located, the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, so says the court of appeals.
It’s rating could prove critical:
The heaviest criticism of Miers has been coming from the right wing and says that Miers is an intellectual lightweight and doesn’t have the qualifications. If the ABA comes in with a ‘qualified’ or ‘well-qualified,’ that’s the instant rejoinder to George Will and others. If, on the other hand, the committee comes in with a split vote, that would give credence to their opposition. That’s really what’s involved here.
Associated Press (via MSNBC):
DETROIT — Rosa Lee Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday. She was 92.
Mrs. Parks died at her home of natural causes, said Karen Morgan, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.
Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title “mother of the civil rights movement.” (Link)
Americans for Better Justice:
Americans for Better Justice, Inc. (ABJ) is a 501(c)(4) political non-profit organization made up of grassroots conservatives from across the country who support President George W. Bush, but disagree with the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
ABJ supports the nomination to the Supreme Court of candidates who are highly qualified and have demonstrated a proven commitment to the principles of judicial restraint and respect for the original intent of the authors of the Constitution. Through education and advocacy, we will respectfully urge the Bush Administration to withdraw this nomination.
ADDED — Withdraw Miers.org: “The clearinghouse for people who believe Harriet Miers should withdraw her nomination”
“Brazilian voters strongly reject gun ban:”
About 64 percent rejected banning arms sales in the nationwide referendum, the electoral court said, with more than 90 percent of the expected 122 million votes counted.
And I love this:
“We didn’t lose because Brazilians like guns. We lost because people don’t have confidence in the government or the police,” said Denis Mizne of anti-violence group Sou da Paz.
Alas, the irony of what he’s saying is lost on him.
Since everyone on TV this Sunday is predicting what Fitzgerald will do, let me predict that he is unlikely to indict Karl Rove. (Link)
Mark Levin also writes:
In any event, we need some answers to the underlying issues that were used to launch this investigation.
Yeah, like how about an answer to this: even if Valerie Plame was a covert agent, covered at the time by federal statute, who had her identity unlawfully* leaked by someone in the Administration, what was the motive for the leak? The liberals say she was outed to strike back at her lying husband, Joe Wilson. But how would outing her as a spy get back at him? Do Americans now think it discreditable to have a spouse who works for the clandestine service at the CIA? **
(*For more on the law, go here.)
(**Original text edited for clarity.)
Charles Fried, Harvard law professor, solicitor general for the Reagan Administration and former justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, on why justices of the U.S. Supreme Court must be to able write English:
Once a conclusion has been reached it must be announced in an opinion setting out the circumstances, the competing considerations, and the reasons for that conclusion. Otherwise the parties will feel cheated and lower court judges, lawyers, and affected interests will have no guidance in dealing with the problem in the future.
[…]
… if the justice cannot write then someone is going to have to do that writing for the justice, and that will inevitably be the justice’s law clerks. Those law clerks almost to a person are wizards at untangling legal puzzles and masters at setting out the answers in precise if usually turgid and uncompelling prose. But they are also young graduates without wisdom, experience, or a constitutional mandate to help run the country. (Link)
It’s a measure of the sadness of our current predicament that a Harvard law professor must pen a review of the painfully obvious. And it’s a mark of the degradation of our culture that some consider a demand for rudimentary skills in a Supreme Court justice to be “snobby” or “elitist.”
The New York Times looks at the financial devastation that can befall a family with a chronically ill child — even if it’s a middle-income family with health insurance.
As a nurse, I stay amazed that our health care system hasn’t yet collapsed. But it cannot be far from doing so. On the one hand, we demand — through statutes, regulations and lawsuits — universal, comprehensive, state-of-the art care. On the other hand, we demand that it be cheap (or even “free”), and in many cases do not (or cannot) pay for the care we’ve consumed. These two demands are irreconcilable. And one way or another, the tension between them must eventually resolve itself.
We can adopt a single-payor system — with the ability to spend whatever it takes to meet our expectations — or we can have a national discussion, followed by a change in expectations, about who gets health care and how much of it they get. Otherwise, we can keep twiddling our thumbs as our hospitals go bankrupt and shut their doors.
Since any course we might choose involves some kind of pain (and a lot of it), we avoid choosing. But as the old adage has it, not to decide is to decide.
Associated Press:
WASHINGTON — A Democrat on the Senate committee that will consider Harriet Miers’ nomination said Sunday that President Bush’s Supreme Court choice lacks the votes now to be confirmed, saying there are too many questions about her qualifica
