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Posted by Kurt Ullman on May 9, 2008, 5:20 pm
> NY Times 5/8/08
>
>
> On a day when Mr. Obama won a decisive victory in North Carolina and
> Mrs. Clinton eked out a win in Indiana, Mr. McCain spoke about his
> judicial philosophy.*** He is determined to move a far too
> conservative and far too activist Supreme Court and federal judiciary
> even further and more actively to the right.***
>
> Mr. McCain predictably criticized liberal judges, vowed strict
> adherence to the Founders’ views and promised to appoint more judges
> in the mold of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito.
> That is just what the country does not need.
>
> Since President Bush chose Justices Roberts and Alito, the Court has
>
> ***ordered Seattle and Louisville to scrap voluntary school
> integration,
>
> ****protected employers who illegally mistreat their workers,
>
> *** and constrained women’s right to choose and voters’ right to vote.
>
> Mr. McCain did not mention, of course, how the Roberts-led Court
> blithely overruled Congress by nullifying a key part of the
> McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. He did wax nostalgic about what
> “the basic right of property” has meant “since the founding of
> America.”
>
> ***(He did not mention that in 1789 many women could not own property
> and African-Americans were property, but he did criticize the idea
> that values evolve over time.)***
>
> There was a moment when we were briefly cheered. Mr. McCain declared
> that “all the powers of the American presidency must serve the
> Constitution and thereby protect the people and their liberties.” We
> hoped that would be the start of a serious critique of how
>
> ***President Bush has violated cherished civil liberties: endorsing
> torture, ordering unlawful domestic spying and depriving detainees of
> the most basic right of habeas corpus.***
>
> Mr. McCain himself has eloquently criticized Mr. Bush’s policies on
> some of these issues, but he did not raise any of them on Tuesday.
>
> Which brings us back to the Democratic primaries. Unless Mrs. Clinton
> decides to quit the race — and she certainly did not sound on Tuesday
> like that was her plan — it is going to be up to the superdelegates to
> settle this contest. There has already been a lot of discussion about
> how they should do so. Choose the candidate who won his or her state
> primary or caucus? Or the one with the most delegates? Or the most
> votes overall? Or the one who won the biggest states?
>
> Mr. McCain’s speech suggests an additional metric:
>
> *** the candidate best able to explain to voters in coming days what
> is truly at stake in this election and why the country cannot, for
> example, afford another president committed to packing the courts with
> activist, right wing judges.***
>
>
Interesting that liberals want to appoint judges that agree with
their outlook and world view, but then get all bent out of shape when
the GOP does exactly the same thing. Never have been able to understand
how a judge's view on abortions (for instance) are a litmus test when
against it, but not when for it.
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