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Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Awesome Line of the Day
From Dahlia Lithwick's rundown of the confirmation hearings (the kicker comes at the end):
The Senate Judiciary Committee has complaints about judges. For one thing, Republicans on the committee appear to think that "activist judges" are more dangerous to America than terrorism, hurricanes, and chemical weapons. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., vigorously condemns the "post-modern philosophy" of judicial activism, excoriating the "activist Supreme Court judges" who interpret the Constitution in light of "evolving standards of decency." (He offers no better constitutional test for interpreting the Eighth Amendment because, um, there isn’t one). Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, hurls contempt upon the "Internet Age," including those of us with the ability to download "thousands of documents" and read them—according to him—in "an inaccurate way." Damn readers. And John Cornyn, R-Texas, expresses serious doubt about the judgments of "nine judges isolated behind a monumental marble edifice, far removed from the life experienced daily by average Americans." So, just to recap, the Senate thinks judges are capricious, activist, postmodernists who are dangerously out of touch with the average American.
Thank goodness we have a Senate, then, to speak clearly, think lucidly, and act with selfless devotion to sort out the real-world issues that matter most to you and to me.
Indeed.
Posted by Hillel Levin on September 13, 2005 at 09:46 AM in Hillel Levin | Permalink
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Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, hurls contempt upon the "Internet Age," including those of us with the ability to download "thousands of documents" and read them—according to him—in "an inaccurate way." Damn readers.Does this not remind strongly of Tom DeLay's comment regarding Justice Kennedy's shocking less-than-total reliance on law clerks? Y'all will know that I'm not a big fan of Justice Tony, and I agree with the other part of DeLay's comment ("We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous"), but his comment about Kennedy's research habits, as with Grassley's comment, is just absurd. The problem is never too much information, but is often posessing too little.
The American Conservative magazine recently ran a cover which proclaimed "how the right got bigger and dumber". My God, aren't Tom and Chuck the poster boys. Why on Earth are some of the party's most visible national leaders queuing up to make "Republican" a synonym for "Troglodyte"?
Posted by: Simon | Sep 13, 2005 3:59:59 PM
Re: the Eighth Amendment what about the originalist analysis suggested in part of Scalia's Harmelin concurrence? That is, "cruel and unusual" was a term of art well-understood in English law at the time. Under that understanding it forbade the imposition of punishments not authorized by statute.
As it happens, we have eliminated the idea of federal criminal common law, so the Eighth Amendment has little work left to do, but it might suggest, say, heightened scrutiny (rather than the Court's current reduced scrutiny) to the discretion of prison wardens.
Posted by: Will Baude | Sep 13, 2005 10:45:10 AM
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