Category Archives: Rule of Law

The president in Afghanistan: Where would YOU draw the line on security?

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Following our discussion on WikiLeaks, I thought I’d pose this…

Note that President Obama just slipped unannounced into Afghanistan. This, to me, is appropriate and laudable.

But I ask you: Do you think you and I as citizens had a “right” to know in advance that he was going there? And would a Julian Assange, to your thinking, have had the “right” to tell you about it in advance?

And if you think not, then WHERE would you draw the line? I draw it here: It is up to duly constituted authorities to make such decisions about the security of official information, and not up to self-appointed individuals or organizations such as Assange or WikiLeaks. When they presume to take such decisions upon themselves, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of national and international law.

Would you draw it somewhere else? And if you would, in what way is that consistent with our being a nation of laws and not of men?

Restraining myself while voting

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The Quail Hollow precinct at 12:09 p.m. Most of these folks had arrived well before noon, so this is not the lunch rush..

Quail Hollow precinct at 12:09 p.m. All of these people had arrived BEFORE noon (newcomers were still outside), so this is not the lunch-hour rush. In fact, weirdly, it sort of slowed down during lunch hour...

First, several quick Tweets I wrote while standing in the queue:

Standing in a moderately long line at Quail Hollow precinct (I’ve seen longer). 400 voters so far. Man who just left said it took an hour…

Close to 500 voters have shown up so far at Quail Hollow at noon. Veteran poll worker says 700 to 800 is the normal total for all day.

Man behind me tells companions, “This right here might be the most important vote we ever cast.” I agree, but don’t dare ask what HE means.

Not good for Sheheen: My precinct is heavily Republican, my daughter’s is strongly Democratic. Big turnout at mine, a trickle at hers.

A suggestion: If you favor Vincent Sheheen, or merely distrust Nikki Haley, now would be a good time to get your lazy behind out and VOTE.

Of course, on those last couple, I could have been making an incorrect assumption: I’ve heard so many Republicans say they can’t bring themselves to vote for Nikki that maybe, just maybe, enough of them will vote for Vincent. Yeah, that’s a big maybe, and perhaps I’ve just been talking to the brighter sort of Republican, the kind who pay attention and think before they vote. You can’t count on everyone, or even a majority, doing that in an election.

For instance, a friend who usually votes Democratic told me the story of her husband — who ALWAYS votes Republican — a few minutes ago. He has planned all year to vote for Nikki. She asked him this morning before he went to the polls and he said yes, he was still going to vote for. My friend, and her mother, both remonstrated with him about it. Later, he texted his wife to say that he had voted for Vincent. Once he got into the booth, he just couldn’t bring himself to help put Nikki in office.

But now that it’s too late to ask, I find myself really wondering what that man meant when he said, “This right here might be the most important vote we ever cast.” I told my friend in the above anecdote that, and she said she couldn’t imagine a Nikki supporter being that eager to vote. Surely, anyone voting for her, ignoring all her startling negatives, is simply grimly doing what he perceives to be his duty to a party. I told her she was mistaken: Tea Party types think they are part of a great, exciting reform movement. And they seem convinced, despite all the contradictions, that she is part of it, too. They really do, near as I can tell. A Tea Partisan planning to vote for Haley would say something like that.

The same gentleman, discussing the constitutional questions on the ballot with the ladies accompanying him, said it was simple — vote “yes” to all. I restrained myself again. One of the ladies said she wasn’t so sure about that hunting and fishing one, and the man said she probably wouldn’t understand, since she doesn’t hunt and fish. I REALLY held myself back at this point, stopping myself from delivering a soliloquy on how we shouldn’t clutter the state constitution with superfluous language, particularly to indulge our personal whims, and how the issue isn’t whether you’re for hunting or fishing, but whether you think it belongs in the constitution… Such a lecture from me at that time would have been most unseemly, since I was about to violate that principle by voting for constitutional language indulging one of my own political attitudes, which I would normally be dead set against doing. So it’s doubly good that I said nothing.

But the greatest test of my discretion came when I finally got to the booth itself. (Or whatever you call those things, more like a TV table with blinders. A “half-booth,” perhaps.)

It was awkward to step up to the booth at all, because the lady at the one next to me was for some reason standing backed up away and toward me rather than squaring up to her own booth. I could hardly get to mine without brushing against her back. The reason for this became apparent as a poll worker came up to help her with some sort of trouble she was having.

From that point on, I had to struggle to concentrate on my own voting because of the intense scene being played out right at my elbow. At first, I didn’t notice what was said, until the lady bristled, “I don’t appreciate you speaking to me that way! You have no business doing that…”

YOU try not listening to something after hearing that, especially coming from someone you’re practically touching. I mean, I’m a gentleman and all that, but…

BEING a gentleman, I scrupulously didn’t look that way, but I recognized the voice of the poll worker as that of a woman I’ve known for decades. She was using a perfectly professional, calm tone, but she made the mistake of urging the voter to be calm, which really set her off. She was apparently embarrassed at needing help, and extremely sensitive as a result.

At least once more, she demanded that the worker stop “speaking to me that way.” But eventually, she did calm down somewhat, and said that she only cared about voting for two people, and they were both Republicans, so it was probably fine. The worker insisted that it was NOT fine for her to vote a straight Republican ticket if she had not intended to. (God Bless that poll worker! If only it were illegal to surrender your thinking to a party! If only it were not the first choice offered!) They went back and forth on this, with the embarrassed voter wanting it to be over with, and the worker insisting that it was important that her preferences, and only her preferences, be accurately tallied, and that they could fix this…

I don’t know how it came out. But it was hard not to intervene and say “Listen to the poll worker, lady!” But a gentleman doesn’t intervene in, or take any notice at all of, an unseemly disagreement between ladies. Unless it comes of course to fisticuffs, in which case he turns to the other gentlemen present and places wagers…

Imagine a smiley face at the end there…

I would discuss this, but I don’t have time

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The Juan Williams mess led to a long and provocative thread about normal fears and irrational prejudices, and what we should feel free to express about certain situations in modern life without getting fired for it.

And at some point, I posted the following in that thread, and it was so long I decided to make it into a separate post, even though, once I post it, I really need to move on to other stuff… Anyway, what I said was”

You know, there’s a whole conversation I’d be interested to have here about the way a healthy human brain works that takes this out of the realm of political correctness-vs.-Angry White Males, which is about as deep as we usually go.

But in the last week of an election, when I’m having trouble blogging at all, much less keeping up with all the election-related things I need to be writing about… I don’t have time to set out all my thoughts on the subject.

But to sort of give a hint…

What I’m thinking is this: There are certain things that we decry today, in the name of being a pluralistic society under the rule of law, that are really just commonsense survival strategies, things programmed into us by eons of evolution.

For instance, we sneer at people for being uneasy in certain situations — say, among a group of young males of a different culture or subculture. And we are right to sneer, to a certain extent, because we are enlightened modern people.

But, if our ancestors weren’t uneasy and ready to fight or flee in such a situation, they wouldn’t have lived to reproduce, and we wouldn’t be here. Thousands of years ago, people who felt all warm and fuzzy and wanted to celebrate multiculturalism when in the company of a bunch of guys from the rival tribe got eaten for dinner, and as a result, those people are NOT our ancestors. We inherited our genes from the edgy, suspicious, cranky people — the racists and nativists of their day.

Take that to the next level, and we recognize that such tendencies are atavistic, and that it’s actually advantageous in our modern market economy governed by liberal democracies to be at ease with folks from the other “tribes.” In fact, the more you can work constructively with people who are different, the more successful you will be at trade, etc.

So quite rightly we sneer at those who haven’t made the socio-evolutionary adjustment. They are not going to get the best mates, etc., because chicks don’t dig a guy who’s always itching for a fight. So they’re on the way out, right?

However… the world hasn’t entirely changed as much as we think it has. There are still certain dangers, and the key is to have the right senses to know when you need to be all cool and open and relaxed, and when you need to be suspicious as hell, and ready to take evasive or combative action.

This requires an even higher state of sophistication. Someone who is always suspicious of people who are different is one kind of fool. Someone who is NEVER suspicious of people who are different (and I’m thinking more of people with radically different world views — not Democrats vs. Republicans, but REALLY different — more than I am people wearing funny robes) is another kind of fool.

The key, ultimately, is not to be any kind of fool. The key is to be a thoughtful, flexible survivor who gets along great with the Middle-eastern-looking guy in the airport queue or the Spanish-speakers in the cereals aisle at Walmart, but who is ready to spring into action to deal with the Middle-eastern-looking guy in seat 13A who’s doing something weird with the smoking sole of his shoe (or the Aryan guy doing the same, but my point is that you don’t give the Arab pass in such a situation just to prove how broad-minded you are), or the Spanish-speaking guy wielding an AK-47 over a drug deal…

This may seem common sense, but there are areas in which we will see conflicts between sound common sense and our notions of rigid fairness in a liberal democracy. For instance, I submit that an intelligent person who deals with the world as it is will engage in a certain amount of profiling. I mean, what is profiling, anyway, but a gestalten summation of what you’ve learned about the world in your life, applied to present and future situations? The ability to generalize, and act upon generalizations — without overdoing it — are key life skills.

There are certain traits that put you on guard and make you particularly vigilant under particular circumstances, or you are a fool. If you’re in an airport and you see a group of 20-something Mediterranean-looking males (and young males from ANY culture always bear more watching than anyone else — sorry, guys, but y’all have a long rap sheet) unaccompanied by women or children or old men, and they’re muttering and fidgeting with something in their bags… you’re not very bright if you don’t think, “This bears watching.”

Now of course, knowing this, if I’m a terrorist organization, I’m going to break up that pattern as much as I can. (I’ll have them travel separately, wear western clothes, coach them not to seem furtive, etc. I’ll recruit middle-aged women if I can, although they generally have far too much sense.) So if you’re watching this scene, and you are intelligent, you’re bound to think, “These guys look SO suspicious that they must be innocent, because terrorists aren’t that stupid…” Well, yeah, they can be. Let me submit the evidence of the guy who set his underpants on fire… So there’s such a thing as overthinking the situation. I mean, how bright is a guy who wants to blow himself up to make a point? People who do that ALSO don’t reproduce, so evolution militates against it…

Anyway, I’d go on and on about this, and examine all the implications, and endeavor to challenge the assumptions of people of all political persuasions… but I don’t have time this week.

Please give the curfew a try, Columbia council

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My youngest daughter, the dancer, was between contracts with ballet companies and spent much of the summer in New York — staying with a friend in Brooklyn, but spending most of her time in Manhattan — working at a restaurant at night, taking ballet classes and working out at a gym in the daytime.

The place she was staying was at the border of Brooklyn and Queens, and disturbingly close to Bedford-Stuyvesant on the map. She was at a disadvantage in her neighborhood not speaking Spanish (I coached her with a few phrases, but there’s only so much you can teach in brief phone conversations). She rode the subway at all hours, often alone, because of her schedule.

Of course we worried. She’s 21, and therefore technically an adult. But not to me.

This past weekend was her first full weekend back in town. She went to a party for a friend in Olympia Saturday night. After that, she went to meet one of her best friends, who works late in Five Points.

It was the first time in the last few months she felt unsafe. The young kids milling about in Five Points, some apparently in gang colors, caused her to feel something she hadn’t felt in New York — or in Charlotte living there all last year.

I had heard from Five Points business people about the growing problem of teenagers who are too young to get into the bars loitering in the streets in large numbers. I had heard, recently, that THAT was the context of the shootings that have happened in the vicinity in recent months.

This made me start to think that — while I still think closing bars at 2 a.m. is a good idea — that wasn’t the solution to the violence. A curfew for kids under 18 sounds like a better solution.

This will probably set off some of my libertarian friends here on the blog, but I don’t care. This makes sense. And kids have no business on the street late at night.

To quote from the story in The State today:

Most anyone younger than 18 would be under an 11 p.m. curfew in the city of Columbia, and adults strolling a sidewalk with an open can of beer could land in jail for a month if two proposals before City Council on Wednesday become law.

Both changes in city ordinances are being driven by a summer of youth violence in Five Points, in which two men were shot in three incidents. The violence, reportedly springing from youth gang turf wars, has cut deeply into the revenue of merchants in the busy business district, which is popular with USC students, said Scott Linaberry, president of the Five Points Association.

I urge Columbia City Council to pass this curfew tomorrow.

I also urge them to keep moving toward merging city police and Sheriff Leon Lott’s department as soon as possible. Leon was working to address the gang problem long before any other local cops would even acknowledge there was a problem.

Well, there IS a problem. And it’s gotten pretty bad. And a curfew is one common-sense tool to use in addressing some of the problems that gangs bring.

As for the open-container proposal — I don’t know what I think about that yet. I’m not as clear on exactly how that plays into the problem that we’re trying to address here. Perhaps some of you are more familiar with that than I. But the curfew seems an obvious, reasonable step to take.

RFK son leads board to settle score with Ayers; good for him

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Normally I’m not one to applaud people using positions of trust to settle personal scores, but even if that’s what you call this, in this case I’m all cheers for the Kennedys:

When retiring University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Bill Ayers co-wrote a book in 1973, it was dedicated in part to Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin.

That came back to haunt Ayers on Thursday when the U. of I. board, now chaired by Kennedy’s son, considered his request for emeritus status. It was denied in a unanimous vote.

Before the vote, an emotional Chris Kennedy spoke out against granting the status to Ayers.

“I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our university to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father,” he said.

“There can be no place in a democracy to celebrate political assassinations or to honor those who do so.”

Later, Kennedy told the Chicago Sun-Times he and the board have not seen any signs of remorse from Ayers in the nearly 40 years since the dedication.

“There’s no evidence in any of his interviews or conversations that he regrets any of those actions — that’s a better question for him,” he told the Sun-Times…

There was a lot of back-and-forth about Ayers back during the 2008 election, you will recall. The thing I like about this personal action by Chris Kennedy is that it serves a public purpose, and of course the public good was what RFK’s memory should be about.

The public good served is that we are made to face clearly what a blackguard Ayers was, and still is (since he’s never expressed regret about what he did back in the day).

So in that sense, this isn’t personal, it’s strictly business. By the way, the “Godfather” reference here is not strictly gratuitous. Mario Puzo wrote another book called The Fourth K, which was about a latter-day member of the Kennedy family who wages unrestricted war on terrorism after his daughter is murdered by terrorists. (The whole “business-vs.-personal” theme was a big one for Puzo. He was fascinated by the idea of powerful men using their power for very personal purposes.)

In this case, Chris Kennedy found a much more gentle way to settle a family account. And good for him. And good for the board, which redeemed this act beyond the realm of personal vengeance by acting unanimously, on principle. This is the way retribution should be conducted, by the full community.

It’s not about whether it’s legal; it’s about whether such a person should be governor

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My sense is that John Barton was right when he said in The State this morning that John Rainey’s charge that Nikki Haley has violated ethics law by taking 40 grand from Wilbur Smith is without legal merit.

Barton knows about such things, and if he says that payment didn’t cross the line, he’s almost certainly right.

Which of course is beside the point.

That story, which fretted mightily over whether the law was violated or not by that deal, is yet another example of something I’ve bemoaned in the MSM for many years. “Objective” news folks, who fear exercizing judgments, obsess over whether something is legal or not to such a degree that the conversation becomes about THAT, and if in the end it’s determined it’s NOT against the law, then everyone goes “all right, then” and moves on. As though being legal made it OK.

But legal or not, it’s not OK. The issue is that the way Nikki Haley handled this shows her lack of fitness for high office.

And the ultimate issue isn’t her, but us. It’s about the decision we make.

And we have to decide whether we want someone to be our governor who, in this instance:

  • Took more than $40,000 from a business that can’t tell what she did for them, just that they wanted to retain her because she’s “very connected.”
  • Avoided disclosing that.
  • Insists that she should be elected because she champions transparency.

So I doubt that Rainey’s letter will lead to legal action against her. I doubt that she’ll have the pay a penalty the way she keeps having to do because of not paying taxes on time.

But it does serve the useful purpose of making sure voters don’t forget something they should remember.

Greene juggernaut could be in trouble now

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Those of you — and there must be someone out there who fits this description — thought Alvin Greene was a shoo-in to unseat Jim DeMint this fall may have to re-evaluate your assessment in view of this shocker:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Longshot U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene was indicted Friday on two charges, including a felony charge of showing pornography to a South Carolina college student.

A Richland County grand jury indicted Green for disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity – a felony – as well as a misdemeanor charge of communicating obscene materials to a person without consent.

Greene, who surprised the Democratic party establishment with his primary victory, was arrested in November after authorities said he approached a student in a University of South Carolina computer lab, showed her obscene photos online, then talked about going to her dorm room.

Actually, I didn’t realize he hadn’t already been indicted. Guess I should have paid closer attention.

By the way, I saw the semi-famous Alvin Greene sign last week outside Manning on my way back from the beach. I was past it before it fully registered on me what it was. There was a little (green, of course) Greene yard sign next to it. In retrospect, I really should have turned around to go get a picture, because I sorta doubt I’m going to see many more of those.

At breakfast this morning someone wondered aloud whether there would be any confusion among voters (who we know were already pretty confused back during the primary) between Greene and the Green Party candidate.

That caused me to wonder: I wonder which of them would be harmed more by that confusion?

Privacy gone mad (again)

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In a book review in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal — of The Five-Year Party, by Craig Brandon — there was a passage about yet another weird path down which our national obsession with, and perversion of, the notion of “privacy” has led us:

Mr. Brandon is especially bothered by colleges’ obsession with secrecy and by what he sees as their misuse of the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which Congress passed in 1974. Ferpa made student grade reports off-limits to parents. But many colleges have adopted an expansive view of Ferpa, claiming that the law applies to all student records. Schools are reluctant to give parents any information about their children, even when it concerns academic, disciplinary and health matters that might help mom and dad nip a problem in the bud.

Such policies can have tragic consequences, as was the case with a University of Kansas student who died of alcohol poisoning in 2009 and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student who committed suicide in 2000. In both instances there were warning signs, but the parents were not notified. Ferpa’s most notorious failure was Seung-Hui Cho, the mentally ill Virginia Tech student who murdered 32 people and wounded 25 others during a daylong rampage in 2007. Cho’s high school did not alert Virginia Tech to Cho’s violent behavior, professors were barred from conferring with one another about Cho, and the university did not inform Cho’s parents about their son’s troubles—all on the basis of an excessively expansive interpretation of Ferpa, Mr. Brandon says. He recommends that parents have their child sign a Ferpa release form before heading off to college.

Good advice. Those of you who argue with me about curfews and bar closings and the like may side with those who gave us this situation. But I have a parent’s perspective. I want to know what’s going on with my kids. And moreover, I have a right to know — one that in a rational world would easily supersede any imagined “rights” granted by FERPA.

“Graham’s courageous stand for the republic”

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After I got done stewing about having screwed up on the Biden thing, I remembered that I owed Cindi Scoppe a phone call. Speaking to her reminded me that I meant to call your attention to The State‘s editorial yesterday, “Graham’s courageous stand for the republic.”

It was really, really good. So good that after I read it at breakfast yesterday, I e-mailed Cindi to say:

Excellent lede today. Did you write that, or did I?
It needs to be said loudly and often.

OK, so maybe that wouldn’t be a compliment to you, but I think Cindi saw it as such. You know, knowing my ego as she does.

But it really did say pretty much everything I would have said — of course, one of the great things about working with Cindi over the years was that she could do that. There was a time when I felt like I had to write any important edit about state government or politics to get the message just right, and the right tone and feel into it (to please me, anyway). But I realized shortly after I brought Cindi up from the newsroom that if I just spent a few minutes explaining to her what I wanted, in a few minutes she’d turn it around into an edit that was everything I had wanted, and just as good as if I’d written it — and several hours faster.

The great thing about this was that I didn’t have occasion to tell her what I wanted (you may have heard, I don’t word there any more), and yet I got it anyway. But more important than it being what I wanted, it’s what South Carolina needed to hear about Graham’s decision to vote for Elena Kagan’s nomination, and his cogent explanation of his reasoning.

An excerpt:

THROUGHOUT the first two centuries or so of our nation’s history, what Sen. Lindsay Graham did on Wednesday when he voted to confirm President Obama’s appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court would have been thoroughly unremarkable. What would have been remarkable would have been for a senator to do otherwise — to vote against confirming a nominee who did not have serious ethical, legal, mental or intellectual problems.

But as Sen. Graham told the Judiciary Committee, things are changing…. What matters today are individual agendas, and punishing anyone who doesn’t agree with their every opinion.

That’s a threat not just to the independence of the judiciary but to the republic itself…

As when he voted to confirm Mr. Obama’s first Supreme Court appointment a year ago, Sen. Graham said Wednesday that Ms. Kagan was not someone he would have appointed, but Mr. Obama won the election; the job of the Senate is merely to stop a president from appointing people who are objectively unfit to be judges.

Will Ms. Kagan join the liberal wing of the court? Probably. Just as President Bush’s appointments joined the conservative wing. We wish there weren’t such clearly defined wings…. But that’s a political preference we have; not a constitutional standard appropriate for senators to consider. As far as confirmation goes, there’s nothing wrong with Ms. Kagan. Just as there was nothing wrong with Sonia Sotomayor. Or with John Roberts. Or with Samuel Alito. And any senator who votes or voted against any of them was simply wrong.

But go read the whole thing. And share it with every South Carolinian you know.

Graham’s vote for Kagan, in his own words

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To follow up on the previous, here’s how Lindsey Graham explained his vote for Elena Kagan for the court.

I have defended, and will defend, our senior senator for his thoughtfulness, while at the same time being mortified that it is necessary to defend someone for acting with intellectual honesty and not acting like a partisan automaton. What has our country come to that this sort of thought-based action has to be defended? What happened to us that such principle has become so rare?

In any case, he defends himself better than I could.

I like in particular that he gave a Federalist explanation for his decision. It harks back to a time when intelligence and principle were not rare at all in this country:

Graham Supports Kagan Nomination

WASHINGTON – Citing the Constitutional and historical role the Senate has played in Supreme Court nominations, U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) today said he would support the nomination of Elena Kagan.

“No one, outside of maybe John McCain, spent more time trying to beat President Obama than I did,” said Graham.  “But we lost and President Obama won.”

Graham cited Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Number 76 in listing the reasons he would vote for Kagan.  Graham noted Hamilton wrote, “To what purpose then require the cooperation of the Senate?  I answer that the necessity of their concurrence would have a powerful, though in general a silent operation.  It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of favoritism in the president, would tend generally to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from family connection, from personal attachment, and from a view to popularity.”

“The Constitution puts a requirement on me, as a senator, to not replace my judgment for the President’s,” said Graham.  “I’m not supposed to think of the 100 reasons I would pick somebody different.  It puts upon me a standard that stood the test of time: Is the person qualified?  Is it a person of good character?  Are they someone that understands the difference between being a judge and a politician?  And, quite frankly, I think she’s passed all those tests.”

“Are we taking the language of the Constitution that stood the test of time and putting a political standard in the place of a constitutional standard?” asked Graham.  “Objectively speaking, things are changing, and they’re unnerving to me.  The court is the most fragile of the three branches.  So while it is our responsibility to challenge and scrutinize the court, it is also our obligation to honor elections, respect elections, and protect the court.”

“I view my role as a United States Senator in part by protecting the independence of the judiciary, and by making sure that hard-fought elections have meaning in terms of their results within our Constitution,” said Graham.  “At the end of the day, Ms. Kagan is not someone I would have chosen, but I think she will serve honorably.”

#####

Sanford Redux? Let’s pray not. But the long knives ARE likely to come out for Lindsey

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First, the good news: As the one most thoughtful and principled Republican in the United States Senate — a guy who will fairly consider Democratic court nominees, just as he demands the same intellectual honesty from Democrats with Republican nominees — Lindsey Graham today became the only GOP senator to vote Elena Kagan out of committee.

Sure, some of the Republicans who voted against her and Democrats were voting for were voting their convictions, too, but the only person you KNOW was doing so was Lindsey Graham, because there was nothing in it for him politically. Except for the respect of us UnPartisans, and we’re not that powerful a lobby.

So, for the sin of being thoughtful and intellectually honest and really meaning it when he says elections have consequences and presidents’ choices, if qualified, should be given respect by the opposition, back home the yahoos are lining up to run against Lindsey Graham in the 2014 primary.

Really. Because this is South Carolina, where we don’t wait around for crazy; we grab it by the throat and ride it to death.

And of course the national media, from the MSM to Jon Stewart, have come to expect crazy from us, and have even started trying to anticipate it.

Which is why today, on the very day of the Kagan vote, we already have The Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza speculating about which Republicans will line up to run against Lindsay.

Frankly, I think it’s an overreaction. I suspect that when all is said and done and four years have passed Lindsey will — if he still wants the seat — face only marginal opposition from within his own party. But given what the nation has seen from the GOP within SC in recent months, who can blame Cilizza for compiling this list?

* Katon Dawson: The former chairman of the state Republican party would have the financial network and connections in the state to make a serious run at Graham. And, he may be looking for a next act after losing out on the Republican National Committee chairmanship in 2009.

* Jeff Duncan: Duncan, a state representative, is the odds-on favorite to replace Rep. Gresham Barrett in the 3rd district this fall. (Graham held that same Upstate seat before being elected to the Senate in 2002.) That would provide a real geographic base from which to run in four years time.

* Mark Sanford: Yes, that Mark Sanford. The soon-to-be-former governor has made clear to political insiders that he is interested in a return to politics and targeting Graham in 2014 might give Sanford enough time to rehab his badly damaged image.

* Trey Gowdy: Gowdy is a heavy favorite to come to Congress this fall after he crushed Rep. Bob Inglis (R) in a primary in the strongly Republican 4th district. He gets rave reviews from smart political people in the state but it remains unclear whether the Senate is an office he covets.

* Mick Mulvaney: Mulvaney, a state senator, is currently running against Rep. John Spratt (D) in the 5th district. Win — or even lose — and he’s likely to be in the Graham primary mix.

* Tom Davis: Davis is a state Senator from Beaufort (in the Lowcountry). He’s also a close ally of GOP gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley. If Haley is elected governor this fall, her allies will be in the catbird’s seat for offices down the line.

“Yes, THAT Mark Sanford.” Just sends chills down the spine, doesn’t it? It that man’s political career is not over, then there is no justice in the political world. And between the kind of insanity that has some Republicans who would actually vote for him again (and you know there are a lot of them), and enough people on the Democratic side who would and did vote for Alvin Greene, it would pretty much end my faith in democracy as a positive force in South Carolina.

But you know what’s really awful about this? With Lindsey Graham, South Carolina has the best representation in the U.S. Senate that it’s had in my lifetime. Representation that, for once, we can truly be proud of. And the very idea that anyone would want to take that away from us is appalling.

But that they would be motivated to do so by his acting like a rational human being is what really provokes despair.

Here’s hoping that when all is said and done, this kind of doomsday thinking about SC is wrong. But recent history is not reassuring.

Let’s just say it over and over:

This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider… This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but wild speculation from an outsider…This is nothing but…

Hey, I missed that amendment…

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Man, I’ve just got to do a better job of keeping up with new wrinkles in the U.S. Constitution. Apparently there’s a provision now that requires that governors to vote on U.S. Supreme Court nominees.

Who knew?

That’s the only way I can explain this development, brought to my attention by an alert reader…

It’s an advisory about the same unveiling, in Columbia on Thursday, of the campaign I mentioned back here, but there’s a new wrinkle: It says in part that Nikki Haley is expected to attend. The event will be put on by “the nation’s leading grassroots military-support organization, Move America Forward” along with “the Judicial Action Group and Tea Party Express” to call on Sens. DeMint and Graham to opposed the nomination of Elena Kagan.

And why will Nikki, a candidate for governor of South Carolina, be there? To “give her reasons for opposing a Kagan nomination.”

Really.

This is a new one on me.

Anyway, this event will apparently be at 10 a.m., which leaves Nikki two hours before her secret meeting with business folk. I’m sure the business people will be thrilled to hear that she went out of her way to express herself about the Kagan issue — because, you know, that’s such a huge factor in improving the business climate in South Carolina…

Tea Party pressing Graham over Kagan

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Not that he’s asked them what they want, since he thinks of the Tea Party pretty much the way I do.

Anyway, here’s their TV ad on the subject.

I’m guessing they’re NOT releasing an ad today aimed at Jim DeMint. Because they don’t have to worry about him. He won’t think about his vote. You can count on that. So to me, this ad is a tribute to Lindsey Graham for being someone who can be lobbied and courted, because he will consider each nominee. He’s the fair judge in this. He’s the thinking senator. So it’s fitting that interest groups would work to influence his thinking.

Sorry I haven’t been posting today; just busy. Among other things I had lunch with ex-Mayor Bob today over at the Townhouse. And in a few minutes I’m going over to meet with his successor in his new office. Maybe I’ll get something to file out of it; we’ll see. Then at 6, I’ll be on that Sirius radio show. If you have access, it will be at Sirius 112 / XM 157, they tell me.

Catch you later…

By the way, Kevin Geddings is out of prison

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A couple of weeks back, on a Saturday, while I was sitting in an auditorium at the Swearingen engineering center learning cool stuff about the Web at ConvergeSE, I got a DM from a Twitter friend letting me know that Kevin Geddings was getting out of prison up in North Carolina.

My source, who is apparently a good friend of Geddings, was thrilled. She felt like his conviction had been bogus. I didn’t comment on that, but I found it interesting to know that he was out. I almost blogged about it while I was sitting there, but I decided I’d better wait until I could confirm it.

But I was busy with other things, and it slipped out of my mind… then it struck me today — I hadn’t heard any more about it. So I got back to my source, and she said there hadn’t been much. A blog mention or two. Something on Charlotte broadcast media. Actually, I see that there was a wire story on thestate.com, although I missed it if it was in the paper. An excerpt:

RALEIGH, N.C. — A judge on Tuesday ordered a former North Carolina lottery commissioner convicted of five counts of the honest services law released from a Georgia prison.

U.S. District Judge James Dever III said Kevin Geddings should be set free as he seeks to have his 2006 conviction vacated. The decision came just hours after prosecutors said Geddings should be released.

Geddings was found guilty of honest services mail fraud for not disclosing his financial ties to a company that was expected to bid for North Carolina’s lottery business. In May 2007, he was sentenced to four years in federal prison. The U.S. Supreme Court last week struck down parts of that law. It ruled that criminal convictions are only valid in cases if bribes or kickbacks are involved, and not merely conflicts of interest.

Obviously there’s a word or two missing in that lede, but I don’t know enough about the case to fill in the missing words. I didn’t really follow Kevin’s career after he left SC.

So he’s out? Fine. Whatever the merits of his conviction — and I have no opinion on that — we don’t need to be filling prison beds with non-violent offenders.

Not that Kevin wasn’t a menace to society in his own way. A menace to South Carolina, anyway. Kevin Geddings is the guy who advised Jim Hodges — who had been one of my favorite lawmakers when he was in the House — as he ran on a platform of establishing a state lottery, financing the campaign with video poker contributions. Since we opposed both of those things — and had always respected Jim Hodges because he was such an articulate opponent of those things — this turn of events caused us to oppose his candidacy. Then, after he won the election and we were looking forward to supporting the positive things Jim wanted to do (and there were positive things, despite the lottery stuff), Geddings advised him to have nothing to do with us. I’m not sure whether that was because of our position against the lottery, or just because Geddings didn’t want the governor paying any attention to anyone’s opinions but Kevin’s. Or maybe it was because when I had lunch with Geddings early on and explained to him that I didn’t have a Jim Hodges problem, I had a problem with Kevin Geddings and the influence that he had on the governor.

Anyway, the governor followed that advice. If you think there was distance between Mark Sanford and the editorial board in recent years, you’re forgetting the poisonous relationship we had with that office during the Hodges years.

Well, all that’s behind us. When Jim and I see each other now, we get along just fine. But the warming of our relationship didn’t happen until Kevin Geddings was out of the picture.

So anyway, now that he’s out of prison, I wish Kevin Geddings well in the future — as long as he stays out of SC politics.

Sexual predator price tag seems a bargain

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Non-journalists are always complaining about editorials masquerading as news. Usually, they’re wrong. But sometimes reporters and their news editors are so obviously, nakedly, unabashedly (although not admittedly) making an editorial point that it’s painful to read. And mainly (to one like myself, who does not worship at the altar of the god Objectivity or even belief humans are capable of it) because it’s so badly done.

It’s particularly painful if you happen to be a real editorialist. News people, generally speaking, simply don’t think about what they’re writing about in the necessary ways to do it well. So they come blundering into an issue that they have defined poorly and explained badly, making a mockery of serious commentary. This is not because they lack intelligence. It’s because their jobs don’t require them to think about things that way. When you have to set out your opinion on various aspects of an issue, day after day, for the world to pick apart and throw stones at, you think a lot harder about what you DO think, and WHY, and what the implications are. And parts of your brain that were shut off when you were in news and strictly forbidden to air opinions suddenly get oxygen and start to function. It’s sort of weird. After I’d been in editorial for a couple of years, I was sort of embarrassed to recall some of the facile assumptions I held about issues before I really started thinking about them.

But when you are telling yourself that you don’t HAVE an opinion about it, that you are utterly objective, and yet have an editorial point you’re pushing with all your might, the result is likely to reflect that lack of understanding about what you’re doing.

And the thing is, you can’t even fully explain to news people this epiphany that hit me after I made the transition. You couldn’t even state it without insulting them. (In fact, I’m sure you are horrified at my arrogance, and you’re nothing but a layperson. But seriously, it’s not that I’m BETTER or SMARTER. It’s that the different functions make different demands of whatever poor faculties I may possess.) So you just held your tongue, and were frequently appalled by news people’s ventures into places where they should not go.

For instance, take a look at the piece that ran on the Metro front of The State over the weekend. But this is not about The State, but about the Charleston Post and Courier, from which the piece was reprinted.

The original headline was “S.C.’s tab $7.4M for predators,” which wasn’t particularly helpful, so we go to the subhead “Treating each sex offender in program costs state about $63,000 per year.”

An excerpt:

For 12 years, South Carolina has tried to protect the public by keeping its most-dangerous sex offenders locked up behind concrete walls and razor wire long after their prison sentences have ended.

But that sense of security comes at a steep price.

The state shells out about $7.4 million each year to treat those confined under the Sexually Violent Predator Act, which allows authorities to lock up some sex offenders indefinitely for the purpose of alternative care. That translates to about $63,000 per offender annually for each of the 119 predators in the program…

Oooh, golly — $63,000! Of course, it occurred to me immediately that that was probably less than what other states spend on similar programs, because SC always goes the cheap route. And sure enough, the story admits that inconvenient fact down below, but sandwiches it between TWO admonitions to ignore that fact, because… well, because it’s still just too damned much money we’re spending:

Those costs have put the squeeze on many governments struggling to cut expenditures in a crippling recession that has forced layoffs, furloughs and deep program cuts. Though South Carolina spends a good deal less than many other states on its predator program — New York spends $175,000 per inmate and California, $173,000 — the effort is still a drain on already strained coffers.

I mean, knock me down and hit me with a club, why don’t you?

So really, what we’re left with here is whether we think is whether we should keep sexual predators locked up. I happen to think we do. Lots of other people think we do as well.

But that’s just because we’re dumb as a bag of hammers, apparently. We’re a bunch of Neanderthals taken in by “this get-tough tactic” sold by pandering politicians. We are fooled by a “sense of security” rather than the real thing. And the politicians aren’t about to back down and “be seen as soft on rapists and child molesters.”

That’s what it’s about, you see. The mob’s desire for vengeance. Pitchforks and flaming torches. Irrational, emotional responses to problems that could easily be resolved by putting the money into “increased supervision of sex offenders in the community,” the way Colorado has done.

I find this irritating for several reasons, including the fact that I am NOT a “lock ’em up and throw away the key” yahoo. I actually happen to believe that one of THE greatest policy errors committed year after year in South Carolina is that we lock up WAY too many people who don’t need to be locked up. And we do it because politicians DO play on irrational fears of crime and desires for vengeance on the part of the public. This is foolish, because it simply makes no sense to lock up a guy who wrote back checks. It DOES make sense to lock up a guy who robbed a liquor store and pistol-whipped the clerk into a coma. There’s a difference.

And difference involves a calm, rational assessment of whether someone is a threat to others.

But here’s the thing about sexual predators. Their crimes are not like other crimes. One can rationally understand why an unemployed person — particularly one with a drug addiction — might hold up a liquor store. If he was particularly desperate or high from his latest fix, you can understand his getting violent. You don’t condone it; you punish it; you lock him away for a while to protect society. But someday, when he’s clean and sober, when he’s established a record for calm behavior and maybe when he’s no longer 19 years old or even close, you let him out. It’s a rational decision to lock him up, and a rational decision, under the right circumstances, to let him out again.

But while we’re all prone to greed and many of us have violent impulses, we know about living with those things and dealing with them. But most of us find it unimaginable that anyone would ever, under any circumstances, be attracted to child pornography. And while the thought of anyone having to do with such may make us angry, may make us want to run for the torches and pitchforks, it’s perfectly rational to think, “If someone can EVER have such an impulse, can they ever be sufficiently normal, or sufficiently in control, to be allowed to walk free in the world where our children play?”

Sexual desire is such a complicated, mysterious mechanism even at its healthiest. The sheer galaxy of factors — the light traveling to my eye and through neurons to parts of my brain that process color and contrast and pattern recognition combined with experience-based understanding of such subtleties as facial expression combined with precognitive programming on the cellular level all mixed up with the biological imperative to reproduce — that causes me to react as I do when I look at this picture or this one or, for comic relief, this one is so independent of will and resistant to reasoning, that it’s quite natural to assume that in a person in whom such mechanisms are so twisted as to lead them to unspeakable crimes… well, it’s just not going to go away because of a few years in a quiet place with regular sessions with a therapist.

Of course, we could assume wrongly. And indeed, a quick search on Google establishes that there is no end of arguments out there against the widely-held notion that sexual predators — rapists, and those who prey on children — are incurable.

Fine. Let’s have that discussion. Let’s see the data, and hear the latest findings. But of course, that news story didn’t bother with that. In other words, it didn’t touch upon the one question upon which the issue of whether to treat sexual predators different from other criminal was well-founded or not.

But then, that’s a common flaw in news stories, especially (but not only) those of the ersatz-editorial type: They don’t mention, much less answer, the one question I most want to see addressed. I have spent a huge portion of my life reading, all the way to the bottom, news stories that piqued my interest and made me think, “Maybe there’s an editorial or a column here,” only to find that the one ingredient most needed to help me decide what I thought about it was entirely missing. Which means it got into print with neither the writer nor his editor thinking of it. Which means that the one ingredient most valuable to the reader, as a citizen trying to decide what to think about this issue, is missing.

Nor did it touch upon the second question that should arise, which is whether the circumstances surrounding such crimes are indeed so different as to cause us to set aside such constitutional considerations as equal treatment before the law (due process would seem to be covered by the additional hearings necessary for such commitment). But newspaper stories have finite length, and I would have been happy merely to have had the first question answered, or even acknowledged. But it wasn’t.

And I find that hugely frustrating.

The Chicago Way: Just pass another gun ban

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Chicago has always had a bit of a problem with federal controls. Remember all that trouble Elliott Ness had getting any cooperation when Capone ran things (in the movie, at least)?

Well, the Chicago alderman made it really clear how little they thought of the Supreme Court striking down the city’s gun control law Monday.

The rest of the nation, pro- and anti-gun, talked and talked about it. But that’s not the Chicago Way. They’re into action.

The aldermen didn’t even let the week pass before they passed a new one, 45 to zip:

Grumbling about a U.S. Supreme Court they say is out of touch with America’s cities, Chicago aldermen voted 45-0 today to approve a rushed-through compromise gun ban.
The law, weaker than the gun ban tossed out Monday but with some even stronger new provisions, allows adults in Chicago to buy one gun a month, 12 a year, but they must pay registration and permit fees and take five hours of training.
Within 100 days, anyone who wants to keep a gun in the city will have to register, get their training and pay the fees. Also within 100 days, any of the estimated 10,000 Chicagoans convicted of a gun offense will have to register at their local police station like sex offenders.
Police Supt. Jody Weis said that new list of where criminals live in Chicago will help police do their jobs: “Armed with knowledge is our greatest asset,” Weis said.

What did ya think Chicago was gonna do? Lie down and whimper in frustration? Not the City of Big Shoulders.

How about that? Y’all go ahead and discuss this, but please — no gunplay.

Cameras in Supreme Court? That worries me

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When I was a reporter, I used to wear an old Navy leather flight jacket of my Dad’s that was a little roomy on me (I’m a 40, it’s a 42), which was convenient. It had a map pocket on the inside, where I kept my notebook. And I slung my old Nikkormat SLR on my shoulder under the jacket. I could quickly swing it forward and use it, without removing the jacket.

This arrangement allowed me to hold back from displaying the notebook or the camera until needed.

As a journalist, I’ve always been of the fly-on-the-wall school. I didn’t like to interact with the subject until it was unavoidable. I wanted to see what was really going on first. If I could keep the people in the room from noticing that a reporter was present — or at least from being entirely sure about it — all the better. It minimized the Observer Effect, wherein observer and observed interact through the process of observation.

I wanted them to be honest. I didn’t want them holding back or grandstanding for me.

I didn’t misrepresent myself. At some point, I would need to step forward and ask someone a question, and of course I identified myself. But the longer I could observe the meeting, or event, or whatever, in its unspoiled state, the better. Or so I believed, and still do. So I avoided taking the notebook out until the last possible moment.

Of course, most of the time the main participants — the newsmakers, the people I’d be quoting — knew who I was. But even in a situation in which you know the subject knows who you are and what you’re there for, the moment when you take out the notebook changes everything. Most journalists can tell you of the tension of chatting with a source who’s being very natural and open and giving you stuff that’s truly golden, and you want to pull out the notebook so you can get it down — but you don’t want to break the spell.

And cameras have their own unique effect. Especially TV cameras. A lot of “news” is staged completely for television cameras rather than occurring spontaneously. Wherever there’s a video camera, frankness and candid expression are diminished, and an element of the pervasive falsity that characterizes “reality” TV creeps in.

So the journalist with a camera (or a notebook) is faced with a Catch-22 sort of situation. We want the things we cover to be open and transparent — to be fully available to us so we can inform our readers. And yet by pulling out the notebook or camera, by displaying the implements of coverage so that we can get it down accurately, we alter the thing. And TV adds another dimension. When a TV camera is trained upon a subject, he begins to act, to some degree. (The difference between being on TV and being on radio is very marked, at least for me when I’m the subject. Radio is pure expression. Put me on radio and I can just flow, and am not distracted by looking at the person I’m talking to, or anything else. But on TV you’re conscious of being watched, and everything changes.)

In our desire to break down barriers between the people at their government, we’ve opened most proceedings to the public — which means opening them to us, and our notebooks and cameras, and eventually TV cameras. And mostly, that’s all to the good — although it really creeps me out when I watch a video of a member of Congress delivering an impassioned speech… to an empty chamber. Talk about phony. Of course, in Congress there’s not much honest debate anymore. Just vote counting. The Democrats have this many, and the Republicans have that many? Then the bill will pass. Who needs speeches? Who needs listening to each other? It’s tragic.

But courtrooms… courtrooms are the final frontier, and they should be. When I covered trials back in the day, I knew I couldn’t bring the camera out until I left the courtroom. Once, I thought I had a good deal with the judge, who had told me (when I was covering a particularly sensational murder case) that I could take pictures of the main participants during recesses. But I nearly got thrown into jail for contempt when I whipped out the camera immediately after the guilty verdict to get the reaction of the accused. Hey, the gavel had come down, so we were adjourned, right? Didn’t matter; the judge didn’t approve, and jumped down my throat.

But I respected that. While I was trying to do my job, the judge was doing his, trying to maintain decorum (not to mention a little respect for human dignity, something reporters sometimes forget when they’re in the throes of getting a story). And Lord knows, if we can’t have some of that in our courts of law, then we really have gone to the dogs.

What ill could come from cameras in the courtroom? Look no further than the O.J. Simpson trial, in which everyone from the high-priced defense lawyers to the judge himself were playing to the cameras, and the result was a travesty, a theater of sensationalism rather than a place for rational discernment.

So it is that I read with some reservation that Elena Kagan thinks cameras in our most hallowed court would be “a terrific thing:”

The Elena Kagan confirmation hearings continue today with hard questions from lawmakers, about her decision as dean of Harvard Law School to briefly bar military recruiters from the school’s career services office because of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and about her White House years.

But The Federal Eye’s ears (!!) perked up when Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) asked about allowing television cameras into the high court:

“I recognize that some members of the court have a different view, and certainly when and if I get to the court I will talk with them about that questions, but I have said that I think it would be a terrific thing to have cameras in the courtroom,” Kagan said at C-SPAN cameras rolled (see above). “And the reason I think, is when you see what happens there, it’s an inspiring sight. … I basically attend every Supreme Court argument. … It’s an incredible sight, because all nine justices, they’re so prepared, they’re so smart, they’re so thorough, they’re so engaged, the questioning is rapid fire. You’re really seeing an institution of government at work really in an admirable way.”

“The issues are important ones … I mean, some of them will put you to sleep,” she said later to laughs. “But a lot of them, the American people should be concerned about and interested in.”

If she gets confirmed, Kagan is certainly in the minority on this issue. But still, hear, hear.

Yes, it’s an inspiring sight — if it isn’t changed by the cameras.

I’m a journalist. I’m about openness. I’m about there being no barriers between the people and the functions of their government. But the different branches have different roles, and are accountable to the people in different ways. And when we talk about something that could interfere with the effective functioning by causing Supreme Court justices to act like … well, like members of the political branches … it gives me pause.

Next thing you know, they’ll be rapping their opening statements.

Graham’s opening statement on Kagan

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I enjoyed listening to Lindsey Graham’s opening remarks at the Elena Kagan nomination hearings.

Folks, this is how an honest, good-faith member of the opposition — charter member of the Gang of 14 — approaches something of this importance.

And if you don’t feel like watching the video, here’s a transcript:

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearings on Elena Kagan
Opening Statement from U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)
June 28, 2010
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congratulations. I think it will be a good couple of days. I hope you somewhat enjoy it, and I think you will.
Like everyone else, I would like to acknowledge the passing of Senator Byrd. He was a worthy ally and a very good opponent when it came to the Senate. My association with Senator Byrd — during the Gang of 14, I learned a lot about the Constitution from him.
And as all of our colleagues remember, just a few years ago, we had a real — real conflict in the Senate about filibustering judicial nominees. And it was Senator Byrd and a few other senators who came up with the “extraordinary circumstances” test that would say that filibusters should only be used in extraordinary circumstances because elections have consequences. And Senator Byrd was one of the chief authors of the language defining what an “extraordinary circumstance” was.
I just want to acknowledge his passing is going to be loss to the Senate. And the thing that we all need to remember about Senator Byrd is that all of us are choosing to judge him by his complete career. And history will judge him by his complete career, not one moment in time, and that’s probably a good example for all of us to follow when it comes to each other and to nominees.
Now, you are the best example I can think of why hearings should be probative and meaningful. You come with no judicial record, but you’re not the first person to come before the committee without having been a judge. But it does, I think, require us and you to provide us a little insight as to what kind of judge you would be. You have very little private practice, one year as solicitor general, and a lot of my colleagues on this side have talked about some of the positions you’ve taken that I think are a bit disturbing.
But I’d like to acknowledge some of the things you have done as Solicitor General that I thought were very good. You opposed applying habeas rights to Bagram detainees. You supported the idea that a terror suspect could be charged with material support of terrorism under the statute and that was consistent with the law of wars history.
So there are things you have done as solicitor general that I think will merit praise and I will certainly, from my point of view, give you a chance to discuss those.
As dean of Harvard Law School, did you two things. You hired some conservatives, which is a good thing, and you opposed military recruitment, which I thought was inappropriate, but we will have a discussion about what all that really does mean. It’s a good example of what you bring to this hearing — a little of this and a little of that.
Now what do we know? We know you are very smart. You have a strong academic background. You got bipartisan support. The letter from Miguel Estrada is a humbling letter and I’m sure it will be mentioned throughout the hearings, but it says a lot about him. It says a lot about you that he would write that letter.
Ken Starr and Ted Olson have suggested to the committee that you are a qualified nominee. There’s no to doubt in my mind that you are a liberal person. That applies to most of the people on the other side, and I respect them and I respect you. I’m a conservative person. And you would expect a conservative president to nominate a conservative person who did not work in the Clinton Administration.
So the fact that you’ve embraced liberal causes and you have grown up in a liberal household is something we need to talk about, but that’s just America. It’s OK to be liberal. It’s OK to be conservative. But when it comes time to be a judge, you’ve got to make sure you understand the limits that that position places on any agenda, liberal or conservative.
Your judicial hero is an interesting guy. You’re going to have a lot of explaining to do to me about why you picked Judge Barak as your hero because when I read his writings, it’s a bit disturbing about his view of what a judge is supposed to do for society as a whole, but I’m sure you’ll have good answers and I look forward to that discussion.
On the war on terror, you could, in my view, if confirmed, provide the court with some real-world experience about what this country’s facing; about how the law needs to be drafted and crafted in such a way as to recognize the difference between fighting crime and fighting war. So you, in my view, have a potential teaching opportunity, even though you have never been a judge, because you have represented this country as Solicitor General at a time of war.
The one thing I can say without (sic) certainty is I don’t expect your nomination to change the balance of power. After this hearing’s over, I hope American — the American people will understand that elections do matter. What did I expect from President Obama? Just about what I’m getting. And there are a lot of people who are surprised. Well, you shouldn’t have been, if you were listening.
So I look forward to trying to better understand how you will be able to take political activism, association with liberal causes, and park it when it becomes time to be a judge. That, to me, is your challenge. I think most people would consider you qualified because you’ve done a lot in your life worthy of praise.
But it will be incumbent upon you to convince me and others, particularly your fellow citizens, that whatever activities you’ve engaged in politically and whatever advice you’ve given to President Clinton or Justice Marshall, that you understand that you will be your own person, that you will be standing in different shoes, where it will be your decision to make, not trying to channel what they thought. And if at the end of the day, you think more like Justice Marshall than Justice Rehnquist, so be it.
The question is: Can you make sure that you’re not channeling your political agenda, your political leanings when it comes time to render decisions?
At the end of the day, I think the qualification test will be met. Whether or not activism can be parked is up to you. And I look at this confirmation process as a way to recognize that elections have consequences and the Senate has an independent obligation on behalf of the people of this country to put you under scrutiny, firm and fair, respectful and sometimes contentious.
Good luck. Be as candid as possible. And it’s OK to disagree with us up here. Thank you.

Wilson, The Onion stand up for 2nd Amendment

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I enjoyed this little bit of serendipity today, but then we ex-newspapermen have a twisted sense of humor. We call it a defense mechanism, but calling it that is also a defense mechanism. Anyway, on with the post…

A few minutes ago I got a release from Joe Wilson saying:

Wilson:  No More Inconsistencies with 2nd Amendment Rights

(Washington, DC) –  The Supreme Court rightfully extended the reach of the Constitutional right to keep and bear arms to all 50 states by a vote of 5-4. The case, McDonald v. City of Chicago, is the second ruling on gun rights in three years, and substantially expounds on the 2008 Supreme Court decision in D.C. v. Heller that nullified the handgun ban in our nation’s capital.

Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) applauded the decision, saying, “This ruling from the highest court in the land is a momentous change in the fight to restore gun rights in America.  For too long, our Constitutional right to bear arms has been inconsistently applied across the United States, and I am confident this ruling will change that.”

Coincidentally, this ruling comes on the same day as Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearings, raising the profile for debate on the Supreme Court nominee.

###

A little earlier this morning, I had received this headline from The Onion: “8-Year-Old Accidentally Exercises Second Amendment Rights.” After that, you don’t really need (or want) an excerpt elaborating, but here’s one anyway:

NORFOLK, VA—Gun owners nationwide are applauding the patriotic, though accidental, exercise of Second Amendment rights by 8-year-old Timothy Cummings Tuesday.
“Timothy is a symbol of American heroism,” said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre from Cummings’ bedside at Norfolk General Hospital, where the boy is in serious but stable condition from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. “While praying for his recovery, we should all thank God that his inalienable right to keep and bear arms has not been infringed.”
The incident occurred shortly after Cummings returned from school and found that his parents were absent from the house. Displaying what Second Amendment-rights groups are calling “good old-fashioned American ingenuity,” Cummings placed a pair of phone books on a stool to retrieve his father’s loaded .38-caliber revolver from its hiding place on a closet shelf. After a preliminary backyard investigation of his constitutional rights claimed the life of Pepper, the family’s cocker spaniel, Cummings fell on the weapon, causing it to discharge into his left thigh.
“The framers of the Constitution would be so proud of what my boy did yesterday,” said Cummings’ father Randall, 44, who originally purchased the handgun for home defense. “If 8-year-old boys discharging loaded firearms into their own legs isn’t necessary to the maintenance of a well-regulated militia, I don’t know what is.”…

Yeah, I know. As humor goes, that’s pretty brutal. But so is the reality that it lampoons. Of course, all too often in reality, a human being is killed when kids play with guns. But even The Onion flinched at that.

“Truth Squad,” whoever they are, win in court

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An update — early this evening I got an e-mail from “South Carolina Truth Squad” attorney Todd Kincannon (last seen sponsoring “Pub Politics”), saying “We won” in reference to his clients’ case in the state Supreme Court.

But not having been there, I didn’t really have enough to write a post based on that. Now Jack Kuenzie over at WIS has filed this report:

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) – The Republican runoff race for attorney general continues to get hotter as an attack ad made by a third party sparked a state Supreme Court hearing on Monday.
An attorney for candidate Alan Wilson argued before the state Supreme Court over the ethics of a critical campaign ad paid for by a group called the “South Carolina Truth Squad.”…
But Truth Squad attorney Todd Kincannon filed an appeal, and the dispute landed late Monday afternoon in front of three members of the State Supreme Court.
“This is true speech,” said Kincannon. “This is political speech. It is the highest form of speech. It is the most protected form of speech and that is a point that has been lost, I believe.”…
Monday evening, the Supreme Court sided with the Truth Squad and granted the stay of the restraining order. The ad continues to air.
But who is the Truth Squad? Wilson’s opponent, Leighton Lord, denies any connection with the ad. But Monday’s hearing indicated some if not all of the money, $90,000, came from a 22-year-old assistant to Kincannon.Well, we still don’t know who they are, but their ads against Alan Wilson will keep on airing as we head into tomorrow’s runoff.
We still don’t know who they are, but apparently their ad will keep airing against Alan Wilson as we head into tomorrow’s runoff.