Only semi-related, and I'm not sure our lawyers read this thread anymore, but if lethal or Trent want to chime in, have at it...

How on earth did David Souter get appointed to the Supreme Court on a Republican's watch?

Is this a credit to Bush I? Did Souter lie about his positions? Is this tangentially related to dajafi's idea that in the old days, politics didn't matter in the judiciary? After Souter, did Dems and Reps alike pledge to never do something so dangerous as to nominate someone that isn't an ideologue?
Discuss.

TenuredVulture wrote:

Laexile wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:The problem with Bush isn't ideology, or even partisanship, it's cronyism. That's the difference between Bush and other Presidents.

Which other Presidents? Kennedy hired his brother as attorney general. Johnson got his fixer on the supreme court. John Mitchell was one of Nixon's law partners. Bert Lance was Carter's banker. Michael Deaver had been a Reagan political operative from the early 60s.

Presidents are always bringing in old buddies, sometimes with questionable resumes, into important jobs. Cronyism is nothing new.

Right. Bush is really the best President we've ever had since Washington, and his judgment of the competence of people is beyond reproach. So much went well during his administration that any problems we might have are surely the fault of Nancy Pelosi. I don't know what I was thinking.

Look, there has been a difference in the extent of what has been happening with the Bush administration, and there are plenty Republicans and conservatives who see this, starting with DiiUlio, the Cato institute, a few people discussed in this article

Classic, the sarcastic strawman. (EDIT: I did like your linked article, and I'll probably look into reading The Price of Loyalty.)

As far as my reading has gone, I don't really see anyone claiming Bush is the best President since Washington (Washington best POTUS ever!), or claiming his judgment is beyond reproach. In fact, people are (rightfully) questioning every move Bush has made because he's screwed up so much. The point in question is which Bush moves will be rolled back, and how far back do they need to be rolled back. Political appointments are often given to supporters, and that's nothing new. I'm not even sure where this thread of argument is going.

I posted a link above about the FISA compromise. This point is connected, in that it is well accepted by most Constitution-loving people (left and right) that the federal wiretapping program started in the last few years was wrong. I define wrong as somewhere between unconstitutional, un-American, or just plain undesirable. Why isn't this being rolled back?!?!?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... index.html

Werthless wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:

Laexile wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:The problem with Bush isn't ideology, or even partisanship, it's cronyism. That's the difference between Bush and other Presidents.

Which other Presidents? Kennedy hired his brother as attorney general. Johnson got his fixer on the supreme court. John Mitchell was one of Nixon's law partners. Bert Lance was Carter's banker. Michael Deaver had been a Reagan political operative from the early 60s.

Presidents are always bringing in old buddies, sometimes with questionable resumes, into important jobs. Cronyism is nothing new.

Right. Bush is really the best President we've ever had since Washington, and his judgment of the competence of people is beyond reproach. So much went well during his administration that any problems we might have are surely the fault of Nancy Pelosi. I don't know what I was thinking.

Look, there has been a difference in the extent of what has been happening with the Bush administration, and there are plenty Republicans and conservatives who see this, starting with DiiUlio, the Cato institute, a few people discussed in this article

Classic, the sarcastic strawman.

As far as my reading has gone, I don't really see anyone claiming Bush is the best President since Washington (Washington best POTUS ever!), or claiming his judgment is beyond reproach. In fact, people are (rightfully) questioning every move Bush has made because he's screwed up so much. The point in question is which Bush moves will be rolled back, and how far back do they need to be rolled back. Political appointments are often given to supporters, and that's nothing new. I'm not even sure where this thread of argument is going.

And, I'm offering the reason that Bush screwed up so much is not because he's a conservative or a Republican, but because he emphasized personal loyalty over everything else to a significantly greater extent than other Presidents.

Frankly, I don't know why conservatives aren't more angry with Bush. He's done more to set back the conservative movement (which 3 years ago appeared triumphant) than an army of Pelosis and Kennedys could.

jeff2sf wrote:Only semi-related, and I'm not sure our lawyers read this thread anymore, but if lethal or Trent want to chime in, have at it...

How on earth did David Souter get appointed to the Supreme Court on a Republican's watch?

Is this a credit to Bush I? Did Souter lie about his positions? Is this tangentially related to dajafi's idea that in the old days, politics didn't matter in the judiciary? After Souter, did Dems and Reps alike pledge to never do something so dangerous as to nominate someone that isn't an ideologue?
Discuss.

Souter was supposed to be more conservative though I don't think anyone was expecting him to be Scalia. He was a stealth nominee of sorts vouched for by Fmr. New Hampshire Gov/White House CoS John Sununu and GOP Sen. Warren Rudman. After Reagan's woes with Bork and Ginsberg, I don't think they were spoiling for a big fight. Also he was replacing Brennan, so just about anyone would have been more conservative. John Paul Stevens was appointed by a Republican as well, Ford. Not sure what the deal was there.

Someone who was older than 5 at the time might do a better job of explaining it.

jerseyhoya wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:Only semi-related, and I'm not sure our lawyers read this thread anymore, but if lethal or Trent want to chime in, have at it...

How on earth did David Souter get appointed to the Supreme Court on a Republican's watch?

Is this a credit to Bush I? Did Souter lie about his positions? Is this tangentially related to dajafi's idea that in the old days, politics didn't matter in the judiciary? After Souter, did Dems and Reps alike pledge to never do something so dangerous as to nominate someone that isn't an ideologue?
Discuss.

Souter was supposed to be more conservative though I don't think anyone was expecting him to be Scalia. He was a stealth nominee of sorts vouched for by Fmr. New Hampshire Gov/White House CoS John Sununu and GOP Sen. Warren Rudman. After Reagan's woes with Bork and Ginsberg, I don't think they were spoiling for a big fight. Also he was replacing Brennan, so just about anyone would have been more conservative. John Paul Stevens was appointed by a Republican as well, Ford. Not sure what the deal was there.

Someone who was older than 5 at the time might do a better job of explaining it.

As I recall, I think they wanted someone with no discernible track record. The fact that no one had any real idea what his views were was a plus given the political environment at the time. Bush I was not an ideological conservative, and the socially conservative wing did not have the same kind of power then that it did now.

TenuredVulture wrote:Frankly, I don't know why conservatives aren't more angry with Bush. He's done more to set back the conservative movement (which 3 years ago appeared triumphant) than an army of Pelosis and Kennedys could.

Well, I think a lot of conservatives have just accepted how bad Bush is, and are looking forward. A lot of conservatives simply don't like talking about Bush. Now the focus is on McCain and Obama. It's a good strategy for Obama supporters to continually bring up Bush's failings and point to a new direction, but many conservatives are already trying to forget Bush's failings. And, we're all trying to decide how the candidates will address the ongoing concerns.

A similar thing happened in 2000 with Clinton as a lame duck. Some people wanted to constantly bring up stuff he did (good and bad), while others just wanted to learn about the candidates.

Werthless wrote:
I posted a link above about the FISA compromise. This point is connected, in that it is well accepted by most Constitution-loving people (left and right) that the federal wiretapping program started in the last few years was wrong. I define wrong as somewhere between unconstitutional, un-American, or just plain undesirable. Why isn't this being rolled back?!?!?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... index.html

This is, in my opinion Bush's second worst failure as President. Not the FISA bill, but the way the legal fight against terrorism was unnecessarily politicized. After 9/11, just about everyone agreed that new procedures would have to be implemented in order to detect and stop terrorists, and the fact that the first Patriot act based basically without opposition was part of that idea.

In many respects, we were in uncharted legal ground, and it was unclear what to do in many cases. But framing the debate as "with us or against us" meant that a good chunk of the country would not be involved in the conversation. Rather than actually take steps to improve security, far too much attention was paid to ways in which executive power could be increased.

Frankly, some of the reactions on the left to stuff like FISA seems a bit of an over-reaction, as the article you link does. First, most people think intelligence services already engage in these practices with or without legislation, and having some legislation in place probably curtails the NSA more than it enables them. Second, there's simply no way the government can do anything by engaging in broad searches. In Bourne Ultimatum, they had trigger words, which was how they caught on to the journalist. The problem is that even if words are flagged, there's no way the resulting data can be analyzed

Werthless wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Frankly, I don't know why conservatives aren't more angry with Bush. He's done more to set back the conservative movement (which 3 years ago appeared triumphant) than an army of Pelosis and Kennedys could.

Well, I think a lot of conservatives have just accepted how bad Bush is, and are looking forward. A lot of conservatives simply don't like talking about Bush. Now the focus is on McCain and Obama. It's a good strategy for Obama supporters to continually bring up Bush's failings and point to a new direction, but many conservatives are already trying to forget Bush's failings. And, we're all trying to decide how the candidates will address the ongoing concerns.

A similar thing happened in 2000 with Clinton as a lame duck. Some people wanted to constantly bring up stuff he did (good and bad), while others just wanted to learn about the candidates.

of course the difference is if Al Gore had brought up Clinton, he might have won.

TenuredVulture wrote:Frankly, some of the reactions on the left to stuff like FISA seems a bit of an over-reaction, as the article you link does. First, most people think intelligence services already engage in these practices with or without legislation, and having some legislation in place probably curtails the NSA more than it enables them. Second, there's simply no way the government can do anything by engaging in broad searches. In Bourne Ultimatum, they had trigger words, which was how they caught on to the journalist. The problem is that even if words are flagged, there's no way the resulting data can be analyzed

This is about principles, and legalizing a process that has tenuous benefits yet endless potential for abuse. This is not about whether I think the NSA is listening to my phone calls or arresting me based on something I said in an email. I don't really care that the government hasn't decided how they are going to use the data from my phone calls if I don't want them monitoring my phone calls to begin with!

So you would be ok granting government access to your emails and phone calls, because you're convinced they'd have no way to analyze the information?!? In my opinion, that's a compelling reason NOT to allow extra access, since the benefits would be negligible.

So I mentioned earlier that my company neglected to include a raise a year and a half ago, and my salary has been screwed up ever since. Well, I was supposed to get every corrected in this week's check, so I looked at my stub online. It looks like they screwed up with the decimal point, and gave me about check that was 10 times the amount it was supposed to be. This place is top notch.

The Dude wrote:So I mentioned earlier that my company neglected to include a raise a year and a half ago, and my salary has been screwed up ever since. Well, I was supposed to get every corrected in this week's check, so I looked at my stub online. It looks like they screwed up with the decimal point, and gave me about check that was 10 times the amount it was supposed to be. This place is top notch.

So top shelf vodka tonight then?

WHoops, sorry for the wrong thread

jerseyhoya wrote:Someone who was older than 5 at the time might do a better job of explaining it.

Souter is genuinely conservative, as opposed to opportunistically conservative.

that was pretty easy.

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Someone who was older than 5 at the time might do a better job of explaining it.

Souter is genuinely conservative, as opposed to opportunistically conservative.

that was pretty easy.

Nothing screams genuinely conservative like letting the state take your home and to give it to a private developer.

TenuredVulture wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

jeff2sf wrote:Only semi-related, and I'm not sure our lawyers read this thread anymore, but if lethal or Trent want to chime in, have at it...

How on earth did David Souter get appointed to the Supreme Court on a Republican's watch?

Is this a credit to Bush I? Did Souter lie about his positions? Is this tangentially related to dajafi's idea that in the old days, politics didn't matter in the judiciary? After Souter, did Dems and Reps alike pledge to never do something so dangerous as to nominate someone that isn't an ideologue?
Discuss.

Souter was supposed to be more conservative though I don't think anyone was expecting him to be Scalia. He was a stealth nominee of sorts vouched for by Fmr. New Hampshire Gov/White House CoS John Sununu and GOP Sen. Warren Rudman. After Reagan's woes with Bork and Ginsberg, I don't think they were spoiling for a big fight. Also he was replacing Brennan, so just about anyone would have been more conservative. John Paul Stevens was appointed by a Republican as well, Ford. Not sure what the deal was there.

Someone who was older than 5 at the time might do a better job of explaining it.

As I recall, I think they wanted someone with no discernible track record. The fact that no one had any real idea what his views were was a plus given the political environment at the time. Bush I was not an ideological conservative, and the socially conservative wing did not have the same kind of power then that it did now.

I think this is right on both counts. All I'd add is that Souter supposedly has become less conservative as his tenure has gone on. I remember reading years ago that he spent a lot of time with the outgoing Brennan after his appointment, so maybe some kind of Jedi mind trick was used.

The basic answer to jeff's question is that the name "David Souter" meant something very different in 1990 than it does in 2008. Ironically, this was also true with Brennan himself, who was appointed by Eisenhower and considered your basic middle-of-the-road Republican in the mid-'50s.

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Someone who was older than 5 at the time might do a better job of explaining it.

Souter is genuinely conservative, as opposed to opportunistically conservative.

that was pretty easy.

Nothing screams genuinely conservative like letting the state take your home and to give it to a private developer.

Ironically, there are hundreds if not thousands of me-type people in my former Brooklyn neighborhood, at risk of being displaced so a zillionaire developer can build a hoops arena for the Nets and office space he can't currently give away, who couldn't agree with you more. (It's also going to condemn one of my favorite bars around there.)

Seriously, how the hell did they arrive at that conclusion? And why haven't the "judicial conservatives" made a bigger stink about it?

Woody wrote:You can kind of understand where he's coming from though

It depends on how much you stretch "kind of." NPR, that bastion of conservatism, is talking about coordinated efforts to smear the candidates. Obama keeps talking about them. First it was McCain's 527s and then it was about how they were prepared when the Republicans play the race card. Obama has called all Republicans racist not based on anything we've done, but because he knows what we'll do. Thanks, Barack.

Obama sees all these organized efforts out to get him even when they don't exist. While the Democratic 527s are smearing McCain he doesn't even comment. So the guy whose party is doing the smearing is playing the victim, while the guy whose being smeared says nothing. We live in 1984, where we're told what's happening is the opposite of what's happening. Obama had a couple of speeches last weekend where he told America that John McCain opposed issues that McCain supported and Obama opposed.

There is Internet rumor and innuendo about Obama. While it has nothing to do with John McCain's religion, there's plenty out there about John McCain. These things aren't worth mentioning and haven't been mentioned by either candidate.

We're talking about what the candidates and their surrogates are doing.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Someone who was older than 5 at the time might do a better job of explaining it.

Souter is genuinely conservative, as opposed to opportunistically conservative.

that was pretty easy.

Nothing screams genuinely conservative like letting the state take your home and to give it to a private developer.

Ironically, there are hundreds if not thousands of me-type people in my former Brooklyn neighborhood, at risk of being displaced so a zillionaire developer can build a hoops arena for the Nets and office space he can't currently give away, who couldn't agree with you more. (It's also going to condemn one of my favorite bars around there.)

Seriously, how the hell did they arrive at that conclusion? And why haven't the "judicial conservatives" made a bigger stink about it?

In fact, the Kelo case, the Poletown case, what happened in Long Branch, and dozens of other cases of eminent domain abuse seem like such a big win for conservatives where the government enables the rich to rob from the poor, it's a wonder why it isn't pushed more.

I think the problem is that "public use" probably needs a statutory definition, which would have to come from state legislatures, who are often friend of developers.

Laexile wrote:

Woody wrote:You can kind of understand where he's coming from though

It depends on how much you stretch "kind of." NPR, that bastion of conservatism, is talking about coordinated efforts to smear the candidates. Obama keeps talking about them. First it was McCain's 527s and then it was about how they were prepared when the Republicans play the race card. Obama has called all Republicans racist not based on anything we've done, but because he knows what we'll do. Thanks, Barack.

Obama sees all these organized efforts out to get him even when they don't exist. While the Democratic 527s are smearing McCain he doesn't even comment. So the guy whose party is doing the smearing is playing the victim, while the guy whose being smeared says nothing. We live in 1984, where we're told what's happening is the opposite of what's happening. Obama had a couple of speeches last weekend where he told America that John McCain opposed issues that McCain supported and Obama opposed.

There is Internet rumor and innuendo about Obama. While it has nothing to do with John McCain's religion, there's plenty out there about John McCain. These things aren't worth mentioning and haven't been mentioned by either candidate.

We're talking about what the candidates and their surrogates are doing.

NAMBLA

The Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Gear Up for Denver

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