Oh yes he did....
Welcome to America, "One of the Largest Muslim Countries in the World"! [Andy McCarthy]
Yeah, he said it. Do you think Obama would ever call America a Judeo-Christian country? Anyway, maybe we should rewrite our Constitution to make sharia part of our fundamental law, just like the State Department has done in those other Islamic democracies it is building . . .
From the New York Times:
As President Obama prepared to leave Washington to fly to the Middle East, he conducted several television and radio interviews at the White House to frame the goals for a five-day trip, including the highly-anticipated speech Thursday at Cairo University in Egypt. In an interview with Laura Haim on Canal Plus, a French television station, Mr. Obama noted that the United States also could be considered as “one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” ...
The president said the United States and other parts of the Western world “have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.... And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world,” Mr. Obama said. “And so there’s got to be a better dialogue and a better understanding between the two peoples.”
Mind you, the total number of Muslims in the U.S. is a subject of intense debate (CAIR, for example, argues for a figure above 6 million because it wants the Muslim population to be thought greater than the Jewish population). The probability, though, is that there are no more than about 3 million Muslims living in the U.S. (See, e.g., this entry from Wikipedia (collecting varying estimates), and this one from Daniel Pipes in 2001, observing that the credible estimates put the figure back then at somewhere between 1.8 and — an unlikely high of — 2.8 million). This, it should be noted, does not translate into 3 million American Muslims, for many Muslims in the United States are are nationals of other countries (although, I suppose, by Justice Department standards, it would translate into approximately 6 million Muslim voters.)
By contrast, of the approximately 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, there are about 200 million Muslims in Indonesia, 196 million in India, 165 million in Pakistan, 132 million in Bangladesh, 75 million in Egypt, 64 million in Iran, 33 million in Morocco, 32 million in Algeria, 31 million in Afghanistan, 26 million in Iraq, 25 million in Ethiopia, 24 million in Saudi Arabia, 20 million in China, and 15 million in Russia, to name just a few countries. In fact, there are 2 to 3 times as many Muslims in Burkina Faso (approx. 7.5 million) as there are in America. So obviously, one can see why the president would say the United States is "one of the largest Muslim countries in the world."
-------------------------------
Needless to say, Obama's comments have provoked much commentary and outrage today...
A poster to the Caucus blog makes the key point (even if you disagree with the poster's estimate of the American Muslim population):
As an American Muslim, I appreciate what the President is getting at. But it is a bit of an exaggeration to say that the US could be considered one of the LARGEST Muslim countries in the world. There’s still only less than 10 million of us (typically anti-Muslim bigots tend to give the lowest, low-ball estimates, while identity politics playing leaders within Muslim communities favor higher end estimates). Besides, the US is SECULAR, democratic country, not one defined by ANY religion, “racial” or ethnic group. What he perhaps could have said is that the US is one of the freest and best countries in the world to be a practicing Muslim, or for that matter a member of any or no religion.
The Largest Muslim Nation [Michael Rubin]
Andy, Jonah, aside from the factual issue here about Muslim population count, could I suggest that there is a greater problem reflected in Obama's statement? Obama has embraced cultural relativism, and argued that the United States cannot and should not impose its values on other countries. Whether we should or not is a debate for another time. But even if he chooses not to preach American values, rather than define the United States on religious terms, why not at least stand up for the values which made the United States great when describing the United States? The United States is not "a Muslim country." Nor should it be, in my opinion, a "Christian country," except in as much as Western liberalism and the core values of Christianity or Judaism or any other religion overlap with Western liberalism.
Rather, the United States is a country built on the very concepts about which Obama now seems embarrassed: freedom, liberty, respect for property, separation of church and state, constitutionalism, and rule-of-law. Rather than pander to Egyptians as if Egypt is just another constituency on a whistle-stop tour, perhaps Obama should emphasize our freedoms as the core of the American brand name.
It reminds me of an example — pointed out several years ago, I believe by Rob Satloff — of a State Department pamphlet about Muslims in America. About 90 percent of the women in its pictures were veiled. The problem is, that perhaps only 10 percent of American Muslims cover themselves. And yet, rather than send the message that Muslims in America could be free to dress however they wanted without fear of getting beaten, stabbed, or have acid thrown in their faces, the State Department chose to pander and implied acceptance of a far more conservative definition of proper Islam.
Re: Largest Muslim Nation [Andy McCarthy]
Michael, in the April 20 edition of NR, I wrote an essay called "Beyond Terrorism." The point was to argue that — as President Obama said in that interview reported on (as Jonah says, without much examination) by the Times — "the United States and other parts of the Western world 'have to educate ourselves more effectively on Islam.'"
The difference is that I mean it and he doesn't.
Anyway, the president and Islam's apologists in the West do not speak about the core American values you mention because, if they did, it would become painfully clear that major aspects of sharia (the Islamic legal code) are antithetical to Western democracy. The "Islam" that the president wants to "better educate" about is not the one that actually exists. In the essay, I put it this way
The Koran contains many an ode to tolerance, most of which are from Mohammed’s early Meccan period, when he was seeking to recruit converts to the new religion. Many such benign injunctions were abrogated by the contrary, brutalizing verses of the later Medinan period, when the warrior prophet spread Islam principally by the sword. That inconvenient fact is ignored by the “religion of peace” crowd, whose unparalleled favorite scripture is Sura 2:256, the instruction that there shall be “no compulsion in religion.” On the basis of this directive, they argue, à la Jacqui Smith [the British Home Secretary — or at least she was until she got sacked about five minutes ago], that jihadist violence must be anti-Islamic. A
u contraire. While militants would surely be delighted if, say, the destruction of the Twin Towers induced everyone to convert, that is not the direct goal of jihadist activity — violent or not. The goal is to induce each targeted jurisdiction to adopt sharia. The Muslim Brotherhood’s chief theoretician, Sayyid Qutb, explained that forcible jihad proceeds whenever Islam is obstructed by “the political system of the state, the socio-economic system based on races and classes, and behind all these, the military power of the government.” This system is then supplanted by Islamic law. At that point, Islam can be “addressed to peoples’ hearts and minds,” purportedly without compulsion, “and they are free to accept or reject it with an open mind.”
Jihad is not trying to convert you; it is seeking the imposition of Allah’s law. That law happens to be antithetical to bedrock American principles: It establishes a state religion, rejects the freedom of citizens to govern themselves irrespective of a religious code, proscribes freedom of conscience, proscribes economic freedom, destroys the principle of equality under the law, subjugates non-Muslims in the humiliation of dhimmitude, and calls for the execution of homosexuals and apostates. Nevertheless, its adoption produces what Islamists portray as the non-coercive environment in which people then “freely” embrace Islam. . . .
About America the Muslim Country ... [Andy McCarthy]
the President might want to have a look at Liberty & Tyranny — somebody should be able to get it for him since it is, yet again, number one on the NYT bestseller list. As I outline in a description of the relevant chapter in a review for The New Criterion, Mark
is
especially trenchant on the animating role of faith in the American founding, and, consequently, its place atop the statist hit-list. The Framers understood “that liberty and religious liberty are inseparable.” But Christianity, unapologetically, was and is America’s dominant religion and it is undeniable that Judeo-Christian values heavily influenced our founding law. The point of religious liberty was to forefend the establishment of a theocracy of the type Tocqueville discerned in the Islamic world, where the Qur’an imposed not merely religious tenets but control over every aspect of life. The Supreme Court’s fabrication of a “wall of separation” in its 1947 Everson decision (authored by one-time Klansman Hugo Black, the first justice appointed by FDR), installing official hostility to religion, was “a wretched betrayal of America’s founding.” As a result, “American courts sit today as supreme secular councils, which, like Islam’s supreme religious councils, dictate all manner of approved behavior respecting religion.”
Two Presidential Speeches in Egypt [Dana Perino]
The media is devoting a lot of time previewing President Obama’s speech that he’s giving tomorrow in Egypt. I wonder how many reporters will take the time to read President Bush’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Egypt last year — it’s worth a second look.I’ll be curious to hear what the president says. I expect he will touch on America’s respect for the Islamic faith and religious tolerance in our country (though I’m not sure he will discuss the lack of such tolerance in other countries).It’s likely that he will paint a future of the Middle East as a place of prosperity, peace, and democracy — although he has gone out of his way not to use the word “democracy” in the past, I hope he will use it tomorrow.The question I have is whether he’s willing to talk about the difficult steps on the road to that destination. In President Bush’s speech, he made specific points about supporting democracy advocates, free and fair elections, free-market entrepreneurs, and women.
Given that, the questions I have are:
* Will Obama be willing to speak out against the jailing of political dissidents in Egypt, as President Bush did?
* Will he stand firmly for free elections, even when we may not like the outcome?
* Will he support free-trade measures to help the Middle East connect itself to the global economy?
* Will he be willing to recognize all that the United States has done to protect Muslims over the past several decades — in Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Iraq? And not to forget the extraordinary assistance after the tsunami in South Asia and the earthquake in Pakistan (I remember well how Pakistanis up in the mountains called U.S. Chinook helicopters “angels of mercy”).
In all of my time working for him, I noticed that President Bush did not see people as “Muslims” any more than he saw them as Jews or Christians or Buddhists or atheists. He saw them as individuals, each with God-given value, each deserving the universal gift of freedom. The people of the Middle East should be treated with dignity not because they are Muslims, but because they are human beings. And it was on that premise that President Bush reached out to them.
Multiculturalism Trumps Freedom? [Victor Davis Hanson]
In a recent interview President Obama, I think, was logically trying to say that practical hurdles and costs in the real world mean that we cannot simply force other countries to chose a wiser form of consensual government than their own. Instead, he suggested that, "The message I hope to deliver is that democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion — those are not simply principles of the west to be hoisted on these countries. But, rather what I believe to be universal principles that they can embrace and affirm as part of their national identity, the danger, I think, is when the United States, or any country, thinks that we can simply impose these values on another country with a different history and a different culture."
So I'm not sure what Obama ended up saying, or rather, as usual, I think he is trying to say everything and thus nothing:
Democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc. are welcome universal aspirations, regardless of culture and are all without a particular cultural pedigree?
They are largely Western principles that need not be emulated by others, especially through the use of coercion?
Under the right circumstances, such universal principles can properly mesh into Muslim national identity?
In fact, these principles cannot mesh into other cultures with different histories and cultures without an undue and improper amount of coercion?
I think Obama's multiculturalist postmodernist answer would be something like the following:
"Democracy, rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of religion are not properly Western principles as much as universal aspirations, but unfortunately we in the West claim them to be exclusively our own and to be superior to other narratives, and thus we try to force countries with different cultures and histories to embrace them when in fact they are not so universal or so superior after all — at least to the extent that their artificial spread requires anything other than a sort of natural osmosis."
So if Saudi Arabia beheads apostates, or the Sudan practices genocide, are we to understand that these are epiphenomena of indigenous history and culture, in a practical sense properly immune from antidotes like Western-inspired rule of law, human rights, and democracy?
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Welcome to ACORN Nation, thanks to AG Holder
D I S G R A C E F U L (I told ya so !)
The Democrats Are Already Winning the 2010 Elections — Which Is What Happens When the Justice Department Is REALLY Politicized [Andy McCarthy]
Never a dull moment with the Justice Department of Eric Holder, aka "the right man at the right time to protect our citizens in the critical years ahead."
In fact, it would be more accurate to say he's the right man at the right time to protect our non-citizens in the critical years ahead. Unbelievably (or, perhaps, entirely too believably), Holder has told Georgia that it may no longer verify identification in order to ensure that voting is done only by citizens eligible to vote. The AP reports:
ATLANTA — The Justice Department has rejected Georgia's system of using Social Security numbers and driver's license data to check whether prospective voters are citizens, a process that was a subject of a federal lawsuit in the weeks leading up to November's election.
In a letter released on Monday, the Justice Department said the state's voter verification program is frequently inaccurate and has a "discriminatory effect" on minority voters. The decision means Georgia must halt the citizenship checks, although the state can still ask the Justice Department to reconsider, according to the letter and to the Georgia secretary of state's office.
"This flawed system frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote," Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said. King's letter was sent to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker on Friday.
Georgia is required to seek DOJ approval before implementing voting protocols because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (see George Will here and Roger Clegg here). Quite apart from the fact that the VRA is an anachronism in modern America, is there not something perverse about cancelling out the votes of eligible citizens — the inevitable result of permitting ineligible citizens and non-citizens to vote, as DOJ is effectively forcing Georgia to do here — under the auspices of something called the "Voting Rights Act"?
Michelle Malkin notes that Georgia's secretary of state, Karen Handel, has blasted DOJ's move:
The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny preclearance of Georgia’s already implemented citizenship verification process shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections. With this decision, DOJ has now barred Georgia from continuing the citizenship verification program that DOJ lawyers helped to craft. DOJ’s decision also nullifies the orders of two federal courts directing Georgia to implement the procedure for the 2008 general election.
The decision comes seven months after Georgia requested an expedited review of the preclearance submission.
“DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting, instead siding with the ACLU and MALDEF. Clearly, politics took priority over common sense and good public policy.
Handel's letter demonstrates the absurdity of the claims by DOJ's Civil Rights Division of undue burdens simple verification — i.e., the process airport security personnel put you through if you want to get on an airplane and Amtrak randomly puts you through to get on a train — imposes on minority voters:
It is important to underscore that not a single person has come forward to say he or she could not vote because of the verification process. Further, while DOJ argues that the process is somehow discriminatory, the historic voter turnout among Hispanic and African-American voters in the 2008 general elections clearly says otherwise.
This outrage does not happen in a vacuum. It comes on the heels of the Civil Rights Division's astounding dismissal of the slam-dunk voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia (a case in which the Justice Department surrendered after it had already won), and Justice's blatant undermining of a federal law that commands states to purge their voter registration lists of ineligible voters (e.g., citizens who have died or moved out of state) in order to minimize opportunities for fraud. (See Hans von Spakovsky's incisive work on these issues, here and here). At the same time the Justice Department is busy preserving the infrastructure of fraud, congressional Democrats are filling the overflowing coffers of the notorious voter-fraud practitioners at ACORN — longtime allies of President Obama.
The Democrats Are Already Winning the 2010 Elections — Which Is What Happens When the Justice Department Is REALLY Politicized [Andy McCarthy]
Never a dull moment with the Justice Department of Eric Holder, aka "the right man at the right time to protect our citizens in the critical years ahead."
In fact, it would be more accurate to say he's the right man at the right time to protect our non-citizens in the critical years ahead. Unbelievably (or, perhaps, entirely too believably), Holder has told Georgia that it may no longer verify identification in order to ensure that voting is done only by citizens eligible to vote. The AP reports:
ATLANTA — The Justice Department has rejected Georgia's system of using Social Security numbers and driver's license data to check whether prospective voters are citizens, a process that was a subject of a federal lawsuit in the weeks leading up to November's election.
In a letter released on Monday, the Justice Department said the state's voter verification program is frequently inaccurate and has a "discriminatory effect" on minority voters. The decision means Georgia must halt the citizenship checks, although the state can still ask the Justice Department to reconsider, according to the letter and to the Georgia secretary of state's office.
"This flawed system frequently subjects a disproportionate number of African-American, Asian and/or Hispanic voters to additional, and more importantly, erroneous burdens on the right to register to vote," Loretta King, acting assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's civil rights division, said. King's letter was sent to Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker on Friday.
Georgia is required to seek DOJ approval before implementing voting protocols because of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (see George Will here and Roger Clegg here). Quite apart from the fact that the VRA is an anachronism in modern America, is there not something perverse about cancelling out the votes of eligible citizens — the inevitable result of permitting ineligible citizens and non-citizens to vote, as DOJ is effectively forcing Georgia to do here — under the auspices of something called the "Voting Rights Act"?
Michelle Malkin notes that Georgia's secretary of state, Karen Handel, has blasted DOJ's move:
The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to deny preclearance of Georgia’s already implemented citizenship verification process shows a shocking disregard for the integrity of our elections. With this decision, DOJ has now barred Georgia from continuing the citizenship verification program that DOJ lawyers helped to craft. DOJ’s decision also nullifies the orders of two federal courts directing Georgia to implement the procedure for the 2008 general election.
The decision comes seven months after Georgia requested an expedited review of the preclearance submission.
“DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists. DOJ completely disregarded Georgia’s obvious and direct interest in preventing non-citizens from voting, instead siding with the ACLU and MALDEF. Clearly, politics took priority over common sense and good public policy.
Handel's letter demonstrates the absurdity of the claims by DOJ's Civil Rights Division of undue burdens simple verification — i.e., the process airport security personnel put you through if you want to get on an airplane and Amtrak randomly puts you through to get on a train — imposes on minority voters:
It is important to underscore that not a single person has come forward to say he or she could not vote because of the verification process. Further, while DOJ argues that the process is somehow discriminatory, the historic voter turnout among Hispanic and African-American voters in the 2008 general elections clearly says otherwise.
This outrage does not happen in a vacuum. It comes on the heels of the Civil Rights Division's astounding dismissal of the slam-dunk voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia (a case in which the Justice Department surrendered after it had already won), and Justice's blatant undermining of a federal law that commands states to purge their voter registration lists of ineligible voters (e.g., citizens who have died or moved out of state) in order to minimize opportunities for fraud. (See Hans von Spakovsky's incisive work on these issues, here and here). At the same time the Justice Department is busy preserving the infrastructure of fraud, congressional Democrats are filling the overflowing coffers of the notorious voter-fraud practitioners at ACORN — longtime allies of President Obama.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Obama & UAW Screw the Taxpayers
The compliant media allows Obama to get away with empty claims of UAW "sacrifices", while the taxpayer gets hosed:
The U.S. taxpayer will be providing up to $115,000 in incentive and severance payments for tenured GM workers, according to the Kansas City Star.
GM is offering $20,000 cash and a $25,000 car voucher to production workers who decide to retire with their benefits.
For skilled-trades workers, the cash portion of the retirement package is $45,000 with the same car voucher.
For those not eligible to retire, GM also is offering more cash to walk away and sever all ties with the company, along with the $25,000 car voucher.
Employees with less than 10 years could get $45,000. Those with at least 10 years but less than 20 are being offered $80,000. For those with 20 years or more, it’s $115,000.
Those with 28 or 29 years at GM are being offered a bridge to retirement, with the company providing a monthly gross wage of $2,850 or $2,900 until qualifying for retirement.
So much for those massive sacrifices undertaken by the UAW to make GM such a modern, streamlined company.
(courtesy of Zero Hedge)
The U.S. taxpayer will be providing up to $115,000 in incentive and severance payments for tenured GM workers, according to the Kansas City Star.
GM is offering $20,000 cash and a $25,000 car voucher to production workers who decide to retire with their benefits.
For skilled-trades workers, the cash portion of the retirement package is $45,000 with the same car voucher.
For those not eligible to retire, GM also is offering more cash to walk away and sever all ties with the company, along with the $25,000 car voucher.
Employees with less than 10 years could get $45,000. Those with at least 10 years but less than 20 are being offered $80,000. For those with 20 years or more, it’s $115,000.
Those with 28 or 29 years at GM are being offered a bridge to retirement, with the company providing a monthly gross wage of $2,850 or $2,900 until qualifying for retirement.
So much for those massive sacrifices undertaken by the UAW to make GM such a modern, streamlined company.
(courtesy of Zero Hedge)
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Now for some humor: Ted Rall slams Obama
http://www.sj-r.com/opinions/x124603932/Ted-Rall-It-s-increasingly-evident-that-Obama-should-resign
We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
read the whole thing.....
We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
read the whole thing.....
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Sotomayor Spin Job
What a great American story (so they say). Is that a qualification for the Supreme Court.
Its really just spin from the Democrats ... in the minority, they filibuster and slander qualified nominees. In the majority, they serve up affirmative action quotas, and underqualified liberal identity politics nominees and spin like crazy ....
Those ‘Wonderful American Stories’ [Jay Nordlinger]
In recent days, we’ve been hearing a lot about a “wonderful American story” — Sonia Sotomayor’s. Can’t oppose that, can you — that wonderful American story? Oh yes you can, if you’re the Democratic party. They certainly did it in the case of Miguel Estrada.
He came from Honduras, and was no Spanish aristocrat, to put it mildly. Arrived in America at 17 speaking barely any English. Graduated with honors from Columbia and Harvard: Law Review, Supreme Court clerkship, blah, blah, blah. Distinguished record in government service — an American success story, a Movie of the Week, a slam dunk.
Bear in mind that he started here — started here — at 17. What he accomplished, in the next years, is amazing.
George W. Bush nominated him for the Court of Appeals — and bam: The Democrats stopped him. They had to, some people think. Because, if he had been permitted to serve on that court, he may well have been nominated for the Supreme Court. And how could you stop that wonderful American story? How could you stop the first Hispanic justice?
Estrada came up in a talk that some of us NR-niks had with Bush in the Oval Office last December. I wrote about that meeting here. Bush said,
“I just talked about Harriet [Miers], but there’s a lot of other good judicial nominees who get nominated, scrutinized, and they just dangle out there. And all this is going to do is cause good people to say, ‘Why do I want to go through this, why do I want to have my family hang out there, why do I want to jeopardize my career, why do I want to put opportunities on hold, if I cannot get a fair hearing and a vote?’ I mean, I think of Miguel Estrada, unbelievably brilliant, and it’s a fabulous American story . . .”
I interjected, “That’s why he had to be stopped.”
Bush said, “Yes. Oh, absolutely. But I look at it from his perspective, not theirs. And his perspective is, I want to serve, I want to be in a position to exercise my intellect, I want to help my adopted country . . . And yet he just got hung out there. It was very discouraging, I’m sure, to him and to others who watched the process.”
The Democrats would not even grant Estrada a vote — up or down. They filibustered. And this was just an appeals court, mind you, not the Supreme Court. Somehow, I have the feeling that Sonia Sotomayor will get a vote. And there will be plenty of talk about a wonderful, or — to use President Bush’s word — fabulous, American story. When that talk comes from Democrats, you may want to remember Miguel Estrada.
I guess what I’m saying is, Look: Vote for Sotomayor if you want to, because you like her views. But cut the crap about American stories. Such stories didn’t matter much when Miguel desired to serve.
P.S. on ‘American Stories’ [Jay Nordlinger]
Readers are reminding me that this is to say nothing of Clarence Thomas — he of Pin Point, Ga., raised by his grandfather, no indoor plumbing or electricity, Gullah instead of English, etc., etc., etc. Is there a more amazing up-from-nothing story in America today? But Thomas cannot be a “wonderful American story,” of course, because he is conservative. I mean, really.
Its really just spin from the Democrats ... in the minority, they filibuster and slander qualified nominees. In the majority, they serve up affirmative action quotas, and underqualified liberal identity politics nominees and spin like crazy ....
Those ‘Wonderful American Stories’ [Jay Nordlinger]
In recent days, we’ve been hearing a lot about a “wonderful American story” — Sonia Sotomayor’s. Can’t oppose that, can you — that wonderful American story? Oh yes you can, if you’re the Democratic party. They certainly did it in the case of Miguel Estrada.
He came from Honduras, and was no Spanish aristocrat, to put it mildly. Arrived in America at 17 speaking barely any English. Graduated with honors from Columbia and Harvard: Law Review, Supreme Court clerkship, blah, blah, blah. Distinguished record in government service — an American success story, a Movie of the Week, a slam dunk.
Bear in mind that he started here — started here — at 17. What he accomplished, in the next years, is amazing.
George W. Bush nominated him for the Court of Appeals — and bam: The Democrats stopped him. They had to, some people think. Because, if he had been permitted to serve on that court, he may well have been nominated for the Supreme Court. And how could you stop that wonderful American story? How could you stop the first Hispanic justice?
Estrada came up in a talk that some of us NR-niks had with Bush in the Oval Office last December. I wrote about that meeting here. Bush said,
“I just talked about Harriet [Miers], but there’s a lot of other good judicial nominees who get nominated, scrutinized, and they just dangle out there. And all this is going to do is cause good people to say, ‘Why do I want to go through this, why do I want to have my family hang out there, why do I want to jeopardize my career, why do I want to put opportunities on hold, if I cannot get a fair hearing and a vote?’ I mean, I think of Miguel Estrada, unbelievably brilliant, and it’s a fabulous American story . . .”
I interjected, “That’s why he had to be stopped.”
Bush said, “Yes. Oh, absolutely. But I look at it from his perspective, not theirs. And his perspective is, I want to serve, I want to be in a position to exercise my intellect, I want to help my adopted country . . . And yet he just got hung out there. It was very discouraging, I’m sure, to him and to others who watched the process.”
The Democrats would not even grant Estrada a vote — up or down. They filibustered. And this was just an appeals court, mind you, not the Supreme Court. Somehow, I have the feeling that Sonia Sotomayor will get a vote. And there will be plenty of talk about a wonderful, or — to use President Bush’s word — fabulous, American story. When that talk comes from Democrats, you may want to remember Miguel Estrada.
I guess what I’m saying is, Look: Vote for Sotomayor if you want to, because you like her views. But cut the crap about American stories. Such stories didn’t matter much when Miguel desired to serve.
P.S. on ‘American Stories’ [Jay Nordlinger]
Readers are reminding me that this is to say nothing of Clarence Thomas — he of Pin Point, Ga., raised by his grandfather, no indoor plumbing or electricity, Gullah instead of English, etc., etc., etc. Is there a more amazing up-from-nothing story in America today? But Thomas cannot be a “wonderful American story,” of course, because he is conservative. I mean, really.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Sotomayor, part II
National Review weighs in ... (ouch !)
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmJiNzBjYzdhODE4M2ZmNmZiZWNhYzA3Yzc5NDFlOTE=
Advice on Consent
By the Editors
Judge Sonia Sotomayor is female, Hispanic, liberal, and mediocre. Conservatives should draw attention to the third adjective while understanding that the first two are likely to be politically decisive during her confirmation hearings.
Sotomayor’s liberalism would not constitute a reason for denying her a seat on the Supreme Court if it merely consisted of a set of policy positions identical to those of the Senate’s 15 most liberal members. Unfortunately, liberalism has for some time now incorporated a tacit judicial philosophy in which the goal is to impose policies as left-wing as a judge can get away with. Sotomayor seems to march to that beat. More to the point, perhaps, she has shown no signs of marching to any other one.
Judges who decide cases in this manner abuse their office and undermine the rule of law. They also generate policies that are harmful to our economy, dangerous to our national security, and destructive to our social fabric. Liberal activism on the bench has these effects even when the offending judges are geniuses. The nominee’s approach to judging is more important than her IQ, and it is on that subject that senators ought to be trying to shed light. And they should take their time doing it. Thanks to years of activism, Supreme Court justices have more power than most senators. We should spend at least as much time learning how they would exercise it as we do for Senate candidates.
Barring some shocking revelation, we know the outcome of these hearings. Some Republicans say that we could have done worse: Given what we know of her judicial craftsmanship and temperament, she is unlikely to have influence on the Court beyond her vote. But such musings are neither here nor there. The choice for Republican senators is not between Sotomayor and some hypothetical more dangerous Obama nominee; it is between her being confirmed with their consent and her being confirmed without it.
That consent should probably not be given, and should certainly be withheld for now.
Sotomayor: Bad for Business [Iain Murray]
Sotomayor is just as liberal as Souter on social issues like affirmative action and abortion, but far more liberal even than Souter on economic issues, such as punitive damages, preemption, and employment law. The Supreme Court, including Justice Souter, unanimously reversed her decision in the Dabit case, where she allowed lawsuits that were preempted by a federal law (SLUSA).
Business will likely lose billions of dollars over time as a result of her replacing Souter. That probably won’t bother Obama, given that “Obama has regretted that the Supreme Court ‘didn’t break free’ from legal constraints to bring about ‘redistribution of wealth.’”
Judge Sotomayor has managed to take already liberal, redistributionist areas of the law and push them even further down the road in the direction of redistributing wealth to constituencies favored by government offficials. The Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo case that governments can take private property and give it to developers as part of a general redevelopment plan that they rationally believe will benefit the public good (My colleague Hans Bader argued at the time that that violated basic axioms of constitutional construction, and rendered the Constitution’s “public use” clause redundant).
But Judge Sotomayor went well beyond that, to hold that property owners have no legal redress even in the face of what legal commentators have called extortion, in Didden v. City of Port Chester. In that case, a developer told a property owner to either give him $800,000 or half his property, or he would seize it by having the Village of Port Chester condemn it. When the property owner refused, the developer promptly had the town condemn it and transfer it to him. Judge Sotomayor and two of her colleagues upheld this seizure against a constitutional challenge in an unpublished opinion. George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin called this case an example of judicially sanctioned extortion.
Judge Sotomayor has also sided with environmental extremists against businesses, trying to stop the EPA from considering cost-benefit analysis in permitting decisions, another decision that the Supreme Court overturned. See Steve Milloy's Green Hell blog for the full story.
In short, Judge Sotomayor will be much more liberal than Justice Souter when it comes to cases involving business.
Good Justices Are Made in the Image of Obama [Jonah Goldberg]
I just wrote a column about Obama and Sotomayor (it'll be up tomorrow). In the process of reading all this stuff about Obama's criteria for a Supreme Court Justice (blah, blah, empathy, blah blah blah), it occurred to me that maybe what he really wants to do is appoint himself,* or at least the best approximation of himself he can find that politics will allow.
Think about it. He places this huge emphasis on a personal narrative that produces empathy for select disadvantaged groups — minorities, single moms etc. He wants someone who is smart enough, but whose real priorities can be boiled down to trite lefty tropes about "social justice." He allegedly wants someone charming and bipartisan solely so they will seduce conservative members of the court to more liberal positions (I say "allegedly" because you often hear this ascribed to the White House, but never actually stated outright). All of these traits are hallmarks of what might be called "Obamaism."
Now I know that Obama has some very well-thought-out, or at least elaborate, arguments for his idea of a good justice. But isn't it possible that some of this is really just a rationalization for a more fundamental narcissistic projection? After all, it is hardly news that Obama thinks very highly of himself, and sees all sorts of major issues through the prism of Obama. Everything he says about what would make a great, ideal, Supreme Court justice is stuff he clearly sees in himself. I think that is at least interesting.
*Why not cut out the middlewomen and just name himself? Okay, maybe that would be unconstitutional, but he could resign with expectation that President Biden would appoint him. Of course, this would also mean that Obama would have to step down as CEO of GM and Chrysler, as well as the majority shareholder in our biggest banks. And he couldn't give primetime press conferences every couple weeks either. That is a lot to ask.
Judging by Identity [Peter Kirsanow]
During the presidential campaign, there was considerable commentary about the prospect of a President Obama ushering in a post-racial era in America. The candidate himself fueled the commentary, frequently making sounds about the advent of a society that transcends race.The nomination of Judge Sotomayor demonstrates that identity politics not only remains alive and well, but may be accompanied by an unabashedly racialist interpretive doctrine. If there remains a sentient being in the White House press corps, he should ask Mr. Gibbs how a post-racial president could nominate to the Supreme Court a judge who said the following:
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.
So, inherent physiological differences may make a difference in one’s judging. Combined with Sotomayor’s vote in Ricci v. DeStefano, the statement suggests a judge quite comfortable with racial, ethnic, and gender preferences. In the Obama era, identity politics hasn’t gone away; it’s been joined by identity judging.
Judging by Identity II [Peter Kirsanow]
When George W. Bush nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee spent considerable time analyzing the nominees’ respective interpretive doctrines. The Committee will do the same with Sotomayor.Obviously, the best evidence for a nominee’s judicial approach comes from the opinions the judge has authored. Further guidance can be gleaned from the nominee’s articles and speeches. In this regard, Sotomayor’s Berkeley lecture merits scrutiny because it describes the nominee’s view of the decisionmaking process.Senators should ask Sotomayor to expand upon her statement that “whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”Does Sotomayor contend that a judge’s interpretive approach is hard-wired to her gender and ethnicity? Does that mean that litigants should necessarily expect different decisions from a Justice Roberts than a Justice Sotomayor?What would Sotomayor think if John Roberts had made the identical statement? Is there any doubt that several members of the Judiciary Committee would’ve declared the statement sexist and racist?Does the Constitution have different meanings depending on one’s gender and ethnicity?
Sotomayor's Credentials [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Earlier today I described Sotomayor as Obama's Harriet Miers without explaining myself. What I'm suggesting is that both nominees were picked because they were women, because they were members of politically valued groups (evangelicals in Miers's case, Hispanics in Sotomayor's), and because they were considered politically reliable by the people who picked them. Neither was picked based on her impressive legal mind, although the pickers in each case doubtless believed that the nominee exceeded some threshold level of competence. These parallels seem like more than enough to justify the title of a Corner post.
But as the various outraged lefties who have commented on it correctly note, the analogy isn't perfect. For example, Sotomayor is likely to get confirmed. There's a big difference! It's also true, as Sotomayor's defenders keep saying, that Miers never served on the bench and didn't go to Ivy League schools. I am, incidentally, enjoying the spectacle of leftists who spent years saying President Bush was a moron carry on about how insane and probably racist it is for anyone to doubt the intellect of someone who went to those schools. The people who brought up this issue were Jeffrey Rosen's Democratic sources; save the racism charges for them.
For whatever it's worth, I am perfectly willing to assume that Sotomayor's IQ is north of 100. I also don't think that the issue ought to be decisive. A nominee who had a modest conception of the judicial role, constrained most importantly by the public's understanding of the meaning of the constitutional provisions to which it consented, would have my support even if he were less intelligent than the other justices; a genius nominee who held a more plastic conception of the law wouldn't. And I think that Senate Republicans would be well advised to look at the job qualifications the same way.
The Latina Lecture [Rich Lowry]
It's pretty amazing. Have we ever had a Supreme Court justice before who stated quite frankly that he or she is incapable of being objective?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmJiNzBjYzdhODE4M2ZmNmZiZWNhYzA3Yzc5NDFlOTE=
Advice on Consent
By the Editors
Judge Sonia Sotomayor is female, Hispanic, liberal, and mediocre. Conservatives should draw attention to the third adjective while understanding that the first two are likely to be politically decisive during her confirmation hearings.
Sotomayor’s liberalism would not constitute a reason for denying her a seat on the Supreme Court if it merely consisted of a set of policy positions identical to those of the Senate’s 15 most liberal members. Unfortunately, liberalism has for some time now incorporated a tacit judicial philosophy in which the goal is to impose policies as left-wing as a judge can get away with. Sotomayor seems to march to that beat. More to the point, perhaps, she has shown no signs of marching to any other one.
Judges who decide cases in this manner abuse their office and undermine the rule of law. They also generate policies that are harmful to our economy, dangerous to our national security, and destructive to our social fabric. Liberal activism on the bench has these effects even when the offending judges are geniuses. The nominee’s approach to judging is more important than her IQ, and it is on that subject that senators ought to be trying to shed light. And they should take their time doing it. Thanks to years of activism, Supreme Court justices have more power than most senators. We should spend at least as much time learning how they would exercise it as we do for Senate candidates.
Barring some shocking revelation, we know the outcome of these hearings. Some Republicans say that we could have done worse: Given what we know of her judicial craftsmanship and temperament, she is unlikely to have influence on the Court beyond her vote. But such musings are neither here nor there. The choice for Republican senators is not between Sotomayor and some hypothetical more dangerous Obama nominee; it is between her being confirmed with their consent and her being confirmed without it.
That consent should probably not be given, and should certainly be withheld for now.
Sotomayor: Bad for Business [Iain Murray]
Sotomayor is just as liberal as Souter on social issues like affirmative action and abortion, but far more liberal even than Souter on economic issues, such as punitive damages, preemption, and employment law. The Supreme Court, including Justice Souter, unanimously reversed her decision in the Dabit case, where she allowed lawsuits that were preempted by a federal law (SLUSA).
Business will likely lose billions of dollars over time as a result of her replacing Souter. That probably won’t bother Obama, given that “Obama has regretted that the Supreme Court ‘didn’t break free’ from legal constraints to bring about ‘redistribution of wealth.’”
Judge Sotomayor has managed to take already liberal, redistributionist areas of the law and push them even further down the road in the direction of redistributing wealth to constituencies favored by government offficials. The Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo case that governments can take private property and give it to developers as part of a general redevelopment plan that they rationally believe will benefit the public good (My colleague Hans Bader argued at the time that that violated basic axioms of constitutional construction, and rendered the Constitution’s “public use” clause redundant).
But Judge Sotomayor went well beyond that, to hold that property owners have no legal redress even in the face of what legal commentators have called extortion, in Didden v. City of Port Chester. In that case, a developer told a property owner to either give him $800,000 or half his property, or he would seize it by having the Village of Port Chester condemn it. When the property owner refused, the developer promptly had the town condemn it and transfer it to him. Judge Sotomayor and two of her colleagues upheld this seizure against a constitutional challenge in an unpublished opinion. George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin called this case an example of judicially sanctioned extortion.
Judge Sotomayor has also sided with environmental extremists against businesses, trying to stop the EPA from considering cost-benefit analysis in permitting decisions, another decision that the Supreme Court overturned. See Steve Milloy's Green Hell blog for the full story.
In short, Judge Sotomayor will be much more liberal than Justice Souter when it comes to cases involving business.
Good Justices Are Made in the Image of Obama [Jonah Goldberg]
I just wrote a column about Obama and Sotomayor (it'll be up tomorrow). In the process of reading all this stuff about Obama's criteria for a Supreme Court Justice (blah, blah, empathy, blah blah blah), it occurred to me that maybe what he really wants to do is appoint himself,* or at least the best approximation of himself he can find that politics will allow.
Think about it. He places this huge emphasis on a personal narrative that produces empathy for select disadvantaged groups — minorities, single moms etc. He wants someone who is smart enough, but whose real priorities can be boiled down to trite lefty tropes about "social justice." He allegedly wants someone charming and bipartisan solely so they will seduce conservative members of the court to more liberal positions (I say "allegedly" because you often hear this ascribed to the White House, but never actually stated outright). All of these traits are hallmarks of what might be called "Obamaism."
Now I know that Obama has some very well-thought-out, or at least elaborate, arguments for his idea of a good justice. But isn't it possible that some of this is really just a rationalization for a more fundamental narcissistic projection? After all, it is hardly news that Obama thinks very highly of himself, and sees all sorts of major issues through the prism of Obama. Everything he says about what would make a great, ideal, Supreme Court justice is stuff he clearly sees in himself. I think that is at least interesting.
*Why not cut out the middlewomen and just name himself? Okay, maybe that would be unconstitutional, but he could resign with expectation that President Biden
Judging by Identity [Peter Kirsanow]
During the presidential campaign, there was considerable commentary about the prospect of a President Obama ushering in a post-racial era in America. The candidate himself fueled the commentary, frequently making sounds about the advent of a society that transcends race.The nomination of Judge Sotomayor demonstrates that identity politics not only remains alive and well, but may be accompanied by an unabashedly racialist interpretive doctrine. If there remains a sentient being in the White House press corps, he should ask Mr. Gibbs how a post-racial president could nominate to the Supreme Court a judge who said the following:
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.
So, inherent physiological differences may make a difference in one’s judging. Combined with Sotomayor’s vote in Ricci v. DeStefano, the statement suggests a judge quite comfortable with racial, ethnic, and gender preferences. In the Obama era, identity politics hasn’t gone away; it’s been joined by identity judging.
Judging by Identity II [Peter Kirsanow]
When George W. Bush nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee spent considerable time analyzing the nominees’ respective interpretive doctrines. The Committee will do the same with Sotomayor.Obviously, the best evidence for a nominee’s judicial approach comes from the opinions the judge has authored. Further guidance can be gleaned from the nominee’s articles and speeches. In this regard, Sotomayor’s Berkeley lecture merits scrutiny because it describes the nominee’s view of the decisionmaking process.Senators should ask Sotomayor to expand upon her statement that “whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”Does Sotomayor contend that a judge’s interpretive approach is hard-wired to her gender and ethnicity? Does that mean that litigants should necessarily expect different decisions from a Justice Roberts than a Justice Sotomayor?What would Sotomayor think if John Roberts had made the identical statement? Is there any doubt that several members of the Judiciary Committee would’ve declared the statement sexist and racist?Does the Constitution have different meanings depending on one’s gender and ethnicity?
Sotomayor's Credentials [Ramesh Ponnuru]
Earlier today I described Sotomayor as Obama's Harriet Miers without explaining myself. What I'm suggesting is that both nominees were picked because they were women, because they were members of politically valued groups (evangelicals in Miers's case, Hispanics in Sotomayor's), and because they were considered politically reliable by the people who picked them. Neither was picked based on her impressive legal mind, although the pickers in each case doubtless believed that the nominee exceeded some threshold level of competence. These parallels seem like more than enough to justify the title of a Corner post.
But as the various outraged lefties who have commented on it correctly note, the analogy isn't perfect. For example, Sotomayor is likely to get confirmed. There's a big difference! It's also true, as Sotomayor's defenders keep saying, that Miers never served on the bench and didn't go to Ivy League schools. I am, incidentally, enjoying the spectacle of leftists who spent years saying President Bush was a moron carry on about how insane and probably racist it is for anyone to doubt the intellect of someone who went to those schools. The people who brought up this issue were Jeffrey Rosen's Democratic sources; save the racism charges for them.
For whatever it's worth, I am perfectly willing to assume that Sotomayor's IQ is north of 100. I also don't think that the issue ought to be decisive. A nominee who had a modest conception of the judicial role, constrained most importantly by the public's understanding of the meaning of the constitutional provisions to which it consented, would have my support even if he were less intelligent than the other justices; a genius nominee who held a more plastic conception of the law wouldn't. And I think that Senate Republicans would be well advised to look at the job qualifications the same way.
The Latina Lecture [Rich Lowry]
It's pretty amazing. Have we ever had a Supreme Court justice before who stated quite frankly that he or she is incapable of being objective?
Sonia Sotomayor for SCOTUS ?
Score one for liberal identity politics.
Here are a few links:
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/05/26/cupp_sotomayor_obama/
http://volokh.com/posts/1242229209.shtml
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=45d56e6f-f497-4b19-9c63-04e10199a085
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/politics/27websotomayor.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
Here are a few links:
http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/05/26/cupp_sotomayor_obama/
http://volokh.com/posts/1242229209.shtml
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=45d56e6f-f497-4b19-9c63-04e10199a085
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/us/politics/27websotomayor.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
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