Political Confusion

Justice Birch, I Presume

Doing work at work?!? Garbage. If you were more of a lefty you could join a union and take a stand against that sort of occupational tyranny.

Boaz is absolutely correct--there is nothing divinely ordained about the balance of the court. But honestly, Bush supporters have no place criticizing the media at this junction in history. Conservatives have internalized the idea of "liberal" media bias, and no amount of factual deconstruction seems adequate to dislodge this faulty sense of victimization.

The two towering boogeymen haunting the collective subconscious of William F. Buckley's intellectual progeny--the New York Times and the Washington Post--couldn't do a better job of carrying water for the Bush Administration. The Times let it's star Washington bureau reporter publish an unverified stream of White House war propaganda. The Post just went to the mattresses defending the GOP's easily disproved Abrahamoff-containment talking point. And since these distortions come from "liberal" bastions like the Times and the Post, their impact is magnified many times over.

Besides, you should be grateful that the media's only anti-Alito focus is that he would disrupt the balance of the court, and not on more legitimate concerns--like the fact that he's an extremist wacko. The country is roughly 70% pro-choice, but for some reason (probably the liberal media), this man is being portrayed as a mainstream bulwark against "activist" judges. You're pro-choice, why do you support Alito?

Besides, the man is either crazy, or he's a liar. Alito is on record saying that the unitary executive theory "best captures the essence" of the Constitution. Right, and The Family Guy best captures the essence of life in Rhode Island. "Unitary executive theory" is just a fancy way of saying that the President is above the law so long as he doesn't get his dick sucked. And don't get me wrong, Alito is fully entitled to believe that the President should be granted dictatorial power for the duration of his time in office. But he cannot do so and still pretend to be an "originalist". While we can't ever be sure exactly what the intent of the Framers' was, we can be sure that the unitary executive theory is roughly antithetical to it.

The fact that he's brilliant is irrelevant. Can you honestly tell me that you can't think of one person at Swarthmore who was fully decent at heart and chock full of intellectual firepower, but who you wouldn't want within 100 miles of the Supreme Court? I can think of a handful who were way too far left for my taste. Is there no potential for reciprocity?

posted by Gabe @ 7:41 PM