Where Is My MO-tuh-VA-tion?
Sorry for the recent absence. I screwed around on (other) hobbies all weekend and shepherded trick-or-treaters last night. At least there hasn’t been a lot of news - okay, scratch that. So let’s see:
* Scooter Libby. May I remind my readers that, as a crusty libertarian type, I thought Bill Clinton was rightly impeached for perjury and that I’d have voted to convict if I were a Senator? (I love . . . oats!) Therefore as regards Mr. Libby’s case, may I say simply, and without fear or favor,
HANG HIM HIGH, BOYS!!!!!
* Samuel Alito. Abortion! Abortion abortion abortion abortion! And a smattering of other stuff! This summary of the, ahem, mainstream media coverage of the Alito nomination brought to you by Blogosphere Inc., Taking Ourselves Too Seriously Since Fall 2001. I’ve become thoroughly cynical about anything the Bush Administration does. What’s more, I haven’t paid all that much attention to the Alito coverage. I see both supporters and detractors saying Alito will be “in the mold of Scalia and Thomas,” but they don’t really make a single mold, and I like one of them a lot more than the other, and not just for that prank with the coke can. Scoop.co in New Zealand tries its best to make me like Alito by citing a gun rights decision and some regulatory rulings. But then there’s Groody (pdf). It should be admitted that Groody is not some sui generis abomination. I just spent an hour or so reading the opinion once through (for you, Loyal Reader, for you!) and I’ll concede that Alito’s “fallback” dissent, Part II, where he argues that even if the warrant was defective reasonable police officers could believe otherwise, thus gaining qualified immunity from suit, is at least tenable. And Alito’s is about the millionth attempt by a sitting judge to carve out one more little “drug exception” to the Bill of Rights.
But Groody is a fascinating contrast in judicial tendencies, between a judge concerned to keep the scope of the police search power narrow and focused (Michael Chertoff, of all people), who worries that “At some point, flexibility becomes breakage,” and one whose bedrock concerns run the other way - protecting the searchers rather than the searched. “I share the majority’s visceral dislike of the intrusive search of John Doe’s young daughter, but it is a sad fact that drug dealers sometimes use children to carry out their business and to avoid prosecution,” writes Alito. So true. It’s also a sad fact that police cut corners, make mistakes and plain lie in trying to catch crooks, and that not every alleged drug dealer is a drug dealer in fact. In that ambiguous ante facto landscape, one can skew toward the agents of state power or toward ten-year-old girls. I don’t find it a tough call.
Reading Groody makes me think I wouldn’t mind having Michael Chertoff on the Court, and it’s not a job where thinking on your feet in emergencies is a crucial requirement, so it might suit him. But I don’t think our President wants to give the nation’s female tweeners that much slack.
* Harry Reid and the Special Session of Congress. Donkeys have vertebrae now? It’s a Fitzmas miracle!
Comment by Gene —
November 2, 2005 @ 11:21 am
”Alito coverage. I see both supporters and detractors saying Alito will be “in the mold of Scalia and Thomas,” but they don’t really make a single mold, and I like one of them a lot more than the other, and not just for that prank with the coke can.”
Actually, on executive power issues, Scalia is much better than Thomas, see Hamdi. CT is good on whether Walmart can take your house, not so good on whether the president can look into your heart and decide whether you should be locked up indefinitely.
Comment by Chris Quinones —
November 2, 2005 @ 11:40 am
Your motivation? George Abbott would have replied, your paycheck.
Comment by Jim Henley —
November 2, 2005 @ 12:14 pm
Chris, the money’s not that good here. Gene, good point. Some kind of unholy amalgamation surgery on Scalia and Thomas could produce either a really good or really bad libertarian Justice. I suppose Leon Kass would disapprove, though.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
November 2, 2005 @ 12:15 pm
May I remind my readers that, as a crusty libertarian type, I thought Bill Clinton was rightly impeached for perjury and that I’d have voted to convict if I were a Senator?
A pretty compelling argument has been made that by Ken Starr’s standards, Cheney has already perjured himself as well.
Comment by Jim Nelson —
November 2, 2005 @ 5:52 pm
Prank with the coke can?
Comment by Bones —
November 2, 2005 @ 10:22 pm
Try reading Bill Clinton’s testimony under oath some time. There is no outright lie there. When we spoke to the American people he outright lied, but under oath, there were NO lies.
Some suspiciously convenient memory loss. (I don’t recall ever being alone with her other than..). But no lies.
Indeed, what is remarkable about the deposition is that Clinton was NEVER asked whether he had HAD (past tense) a sexual relationship. The question was only asked in the present tense, and to that question, Clinton had no choice but to answer NO. Any other answer would have been a lie.
The obvious follow up question: ”Did you have one in the past” WAS NEVER ASKED.
Almost as if the whole point of that line of questioning was simply to get him on record with something that could be spun as a lie.
No lie. No perjury. And thus you were wrong to believe that he should be impeached.
Scooter Libby, on the other hand, should be branded a traitor (tattoo across his forehead, perhaps?). and then thrown in prison for the rest of his natural life.
Comment by Gary Farber —
November 2, 2005 @ 10:28 pm
”(Michael Chertoff, of all people)”
Remember when he also used to have small guest roles as the judge on Hill Street Blues? Man, he was great in those. And I remember his first appearance as a teen on the Patty Duke Show!
Some folks are just better in the character roles than the big parts.
Comment by Barry —
November 3, 2005 @ 9:15 am
What’s been especially disgusting, but expected, has been watching the blawgosphere (Volokh, Bainbridge) hopping like grasshopper back onto the Bushwagon. After five years of Bush, the initial attitude towards his nominess should be ”hang ’em high!”, not ’Glory, Glory, Thy Glory is Glorious”’.
Comment by Nell —
November 3, 2005 @ 11:17 am
OT: but speaking of libertarians… Arthur Silber is back blogging somewhere, but I don’t have the link handy. If someone will be kind enough to post it, Jim could update his blogroll.
Comment by Barry —
November 3, 2005 @ 11:53 am
Nell, thanks. Arthur was always a rare treat.
Comment by Phillip J. Birmingham —
November 3, 2005 @ 1:33 pm
Arthur is at http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com
I am glad to see him back.
Comment by Barry —
November 3, 2005 @ 3:37 pm
Thanks, Phillip. I never figured out why he was hanging out at Cold Fury; reading some of the stuff there should have made him puke up his last meal.
Comment by Mad Science —
November 3, 2005 @ 4:31 pm
1 Harry Reid’s got more than just spine. Hell, Just look at the guns that man’s packing!
2 Hey. Who want’s a Fitzmas card? ’Cause we got ’em.
3 We are shocked that Jim missed a chance to blog about the most recent evidence that Michael Ledeen is an Iranian double super secret agent dude.