PeterDavid.net

At least you have to give Ken Howard's character credit for something -- Barlett asks him what he thinks, and Howard comes out and says it. Roberts, on the other hand, tries to duck and weave at every turn so he doesn't nail himself to any opionion that he doesn't have to -- not only has he been coached that way, he's been actively praised for it.
Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't being a judge completely ABOUT assessing a given set of circumstances and developing a conclusion about them? If I were a nominee, I would WELCOME the opportunity to let the American public know where I stand on a lot of issues. Granted, I would have to qualify a lot of my responses on controversial issues like abortion or gay marriage (i.e. "I feel more this way than that way because ..."), but I would come out and say it, and for two reasons -- 1) If I feel I've spent enough time studying the law and justice, I would want the public to know that I'm capable of doing my job when it comes to making educated and informed decision; and 2) the public has a right to know what my mindset is, and have an opportunity to comment upon it. If either prospect indimidates me, I have no business on the bench in the first place.
Now, a lot of people are going to say that it's prudent when a judge says that he'll continually defer to the law, and let the law make decisions. But what is the law? The law is not a conscious thing. All law IS is the precedent of other human beings making decisions. Responsible legalists in days past gave their opinions and described their reasoning so that others may comment upon it, trusting that the marketplace of the free exchange of ideas would be able to assess and qualify these decisions for applicability in society. Now, too many people in government are about job security -- which is making as little ruffles as possible. That's hard to do when you speak your mind, and especially if you point out that society (or your bosses) may have made a wrong step here or there and suggest that changes should be made.

When it comes to the current administration, the truth is stranger than fiction. Ironically, it still relies on having script-writers behind the scenes to create interest.

John

I'd vote for Martin Sheen for President in a heartbeat.

Administrations lie -- previous ones, the current one, future ones. And many will never be happy with whatever they do.

We have two choices: Do something to change it (other than just vote and talk, which is only marginally better than nothing) or learn to live with it.

ah. a Coup d'état. Cool. Who's our candidate that we've brainwashed?

I've always been surprised that no one has worked to ensure that certain rights -- from abortion to even slam dunks like privacy -- remain permanent by writing them into the Constitution as amendments.  It seems that folks have simply been content to cross their fingers and hope the Supreme Court will always and forever tilt the way they want it to.

Would it really be that difficult to get a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing a right to privacy ratified?

Quotes by Roberts on privacy:

"Questioned about rights of privacy, the appellate judge cited several amendments in the Bill of Rights and said, 'I do think the right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways.'"

"'I agree with the Griswold court's conclusion that marital privacy...extends to contraception.'"

http://www.themoderatevoice.com/posts/1126627728.shtml

Roberts is doing exactly what he should be doing. He doesn't make rulings by opinion, but by law and precedence. While the confirmation has been pretty boring, he's been sharp as a tack.

The privacy that is so craved by the left that isn't mentioned in the Constitution can be made mention of simply by crafting an amendment. Squishy "privacy rights" can be made to apply to anything if they aren't spelled out.

IF Roberts were to help overthrow RvW (which he probably won't) it wouldn't be because he disagrees with it, but because it's bad law.

There is NOTHING about Roberts that is off-base. He is a judge's judge.

Roberts is doing exactly what he should be doing. He doesn't make rulings by opinion, but by law and precedence.

Yes, but if he's going to be on the Supreme Court, you'd expect him to know enough law that he could answer how he'd rule on major issues & cite the reasons (laws and precedences) for his ruling.

Edward James Olmos for the Supreme Court.

Seriously, I have a sticker in my cubicle that reads, "Don't blame me, I voted for Bartlet." However, Martin Sheen has been asked by reporters, and quips that he could never be president, he's a pacifist and we'd be attacked the first week. :)

This is why we love(d) the West Wing. It's the administration we wanted to have and never had the chance to vote for. At least it was until Sorkin left.

PAD concisely points out something I have felt for the last few years. We are living in the Bizzaro World of the West Wing.
If the West Wing and Barlett are Earth 1, we have the Bizzaro President who speaks in broken english and says everthing in opposites. War is peace, polution is good for the enviorment, deficit spending brings surpluses, etc...
"Me not make mistakes when am wrong"

Ehop:
Good one. I hadn't thought of it like that, but you are CORRECT!

There is NOTHING about Roberts that is off-base. He is a judge's judge.

You're making a rather large presumption about a guy who's only been on any judicial bench for a handful of years.

I'm sure many called Sandra Day O'Connor a "judge's judge" when she joined the Supreme Court. Now look how badly she's been villified by the right since she retired.

"Yes, but if he's going to be on the Supreme Court, you'd expect him to know enough law that he could answer how he'd rule on major issues & cite the reasons (laws and precedences) for his ruling."

This is exactly why he can't answer these kinds of questions. Part of me hates to say it, but Roberts is giving exactly the kind of answers you want to hear from a candidate for any court. Judges don't sit the bench to discuss what ifs and maybes, they decide factual cases and real disputes. And there's been many a judge that has written an opinion that states they personally don't like the outcome, but because of legal precedent, have to rule in a certain way.

The only criticism of Roberts that I have is his inexperience. By all accounts, he's brilliant, certainly intelligent enough to sit on the Supreme Court, and he's been pretty perfectly groomed for the job. I question his eligibility to take the Chief Justice spot, though.

But I don't see his confirmation taking all that long. There really isn't any reason not to confirm him.

Yes, but if he's going to be on the Supreme Court, you'd expect him to know enough law that he could answer how he'd rule on major issues & cite the reasons (laws and precedences) for his ruling.

Oh geez..that's smart genius. Let's get the future Chief Justice of the Supreme court to specify in congress on how he'd rule on major issues, so that if and when those issues come before him, he has to recuse himself. Smaaaart....

Christ... I know the rule is to hate everything Bush or anyone related with him does, but pretty much all of the recent Supreme Court nominees (including those nominated by Democrats) won't go on record with how they would rule on certain issues. It's not proper. It's one thing for a potential Justice to meet with the President and/or his staff in private and voice how he might rule. It's another thing altogether to make those statements in a public hearing.

I'm not so sure that Judge Roberts doesn't believe in a right to privacy. Here are some bits and pieces of his testimony.

SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER: [In] a 1981 memo to Attorney General Smith, December 11th, 1981, you were referring to a lecture which Solicitor General Griswold had given six years earlier and you wrote, quote, that, “Solicitor General Griswold devotes a section to the so-called right to privacy … arguing, as we have, that such an amorphous right was not to be found in the Constitution.” Do you believe today that the right to privacy does exist in the Constitution?

ROBERTS: Senator, I do.

The right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways. It's protected by the Fourth Amendment which provides that the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, effects and papers is protected. It's protected under the First Amendment dealing with prohibition on establishment of a religion and guarantee of free exercise. It protects privacy in matters of conscience. It was protected by the framers in areas that were of particular concern to them. It may not seem so significant today: the Third Amendment, protecting their homes against the quartering of troops.

And in addition, the court has -- it was a series of decisions going back 80 years -- has recognized that personal privacy is a component of the liberty protected by the due process clause. The court has explained that the liberty protected is not limited to freedom from physical restraint and that it's protected not simply procedurally, but as a substantive matter as well. And those decisions have sketched out, over a period of 80 years, certain aspects of privacy that are protected as part of the liberty in the due process clause under the Constitution.

SPECTER: So that the views that you expressed back in 1981, raising an issue about “amorphous” and “so-called,” would not be the views you'd express today?

ROBERTS: Those views reflected the dean's speech. If you read his speech, he's quite skeptical of that right. I knew the attorney general was. And I was transmitting the dean's speech to the attorney general, but my views today are as I've just stated them.

…

SENATOR JOSEPH BIDEN: Do you agree that there is a right of privacy to be found in the liberty clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

ROBERTS: I do, Senator. … Liberty is not limited to freedom from physical restraint. It does cover areas, as you said, such as privacy. And it's not protected only in procedural terms but it is protected substantively as well. Again, I think every member of the court subscribes to that proposition.

If they agree with Bowling against Sharpe, as I'm sure all of them do, they are subscribing to that proposition to some extent or another.

BIDEN: Do you think there's a liberty right of privacy that extends to women in the Constitution?

ROBERTS: Certainly.

BIDEN: In the Fourteenth amendment?

ROBERTS: Certainly.
…

SENATOR HERBERT KOHL: The Griswold v. Connecticut case guarantees that there is a fundamental right to privacy in the Constitution as it applies to contraception.

Do you agree with that decision and that there is a fundamental right to privacy as it relates to contraception? In your opinion, is that settled law?

ROBERTS: I agree with the Griswold court's conclusion that marital privacy extends to contraception and availability of that. The court, since Griswold, has grounded the privacy right discussed in that case in the liberty interest protected under the due process clause.

By no stretch am I fan of the current administration, but the only thing that Roberts has not answered about the right to privacy are its parameters. He does believe the right exists, but he hasn't laid out how far it goes. As a judge, this probably is something he should wait to decide until a specific set of facts reaches him.

There is justifiable disagreement on the issue, precisely because it is not defined explicitly in the Constitution (e.g. the people shall have the right to privacy in form of person, body and dwelling). Instead it is implicated by some of the Bill of Rights.

There is some disagreement over how far the Supreme Court, a court of limited jurisdiction, can go in interpreting those parameters without becoming a legislature.

I'm of mixed mind about his tactic in answering questions, but his views do hold historical and precedential value.

Stuff the West Wing.

My favorite "how can this be a repeat if it's real life" moment came back during Clinton thanks to, Yes, Prime Minister.

There was an episode titled, "The Bishop's Gambit" that centered around a you English student abroad who broke a foreign law and was sentenced to a public caning. The English public went goofy and the people in the places of power lost their minds trying to figure out how to get out of the situation and what voter block they most needed to appease (there was a bit more going on as well involving the appointment of a bishop.)

I was laughing my tail off when it started to play out, almost as per scripted more then a decade earlier, scene for scene in real life(minus the Bishop.) I could actually see Clinton in the Jim Hacker role in my mind's eye.

God, I thought that was funny.

What many people seem to misunderstand about what Roberts has said about his views on Roe v Wade is that, AS AN APPELLATE JUDGE, he believes that Roe is "settled law". Unfortunately, as a SUPREME COURT JUDGE, the whole "settled law" argument flies out the window. He has not put forward any statements that would indicate that a Supreme Court Justice is free to completely undo prior Court decisions. In my opinion, Roberts likely believes that Roe could be overturned just as other "wrong" decisions have been, but he won't admit to such a theory because he will lose support from the pro-choice Republicans (or, at least, those Republicans who are not actively anti-choice) and other Senators who may not like the idea of abortion but feel that the procedure is wholly a private medical matter that should not be a matter of government concern (at any level of government).
This little tidbit was reported by the Associated Press and can be found at http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-scotus261.html (this is the Chicago Sun-Times' printing--well, okay, the electronic-printed version--of the story), but as Atty Gen Alberto Gonzalez is quoted, "If you're asked as a circuit court judge . . ., it is settled law because you're bound by the precedent. If you're asked as a Supreme Court justice, that's a different question because a Supreme Court justice is not obliged to follow precedent if you believe it's wrong." Granted, that is the Attorney General's statement, but I have little doubt that the AG has some insight into Roberts' views.

"Questioned about rights of privacy, the appellate judge cited several amendments in the Bill of Rights and said, 'I do think the right to privacy is protected under the Constitution in various ways.'"

"'I agree with the Griswold court's conclusion that marital privacy...extends to contraception.'"

Very clever, very carefully phrased responses. It's interesting that people were quick to jump all over Clinton when he carefully parsed specific language in lawyerly fashion, but when Roberts is doing pretty much the same thing, people are nodding and saying, "See? There's your answer." And by the phrasing, I think that, yes, the answer is very much there...but I'm seeing a different answer.

"The right to privacy is protected in various ways." Yes. There are specific enumerated instances of right to privacy. That is indisputable (and, indeed, they were enumerated in "The Short List"). Any first year law student--hell, any bright high school student--can tell you that. So it's nice to know that he's got a body of knowledge on par with a qualified high school freshman or an avid "West Wing" fan. But he is not saying that the right to privacy is an absolute. He is not saying that the right to privacy should be extended beyond that which is specfically enumerated in the Constitution. This makes him the ideal nominee for Bush who actively opposes "activist judges"...except, of course, when those activist judges are on the Supreme Court and fabricating law in order to put him in office.

Of course privacy extends to marital contraception. To say otherwise would violate the prohibition against illegal search and seizure. But it is abundantly obvious that that answer not only doesn't cover abortion, IT DOESN'T EVEN COVER NON-MARITAL CONTRACEPTION. Consider that that answer leaves open the door for government intrusion into contraception decisions if the people are not married. Taken to extremes, it even means that he's leaving open the door to forbid--for instance--lesbian couples from embarking upon artificial means to conceive a child.

And if there's one thing this administration has proven, it's that there's no aspect of life that they're not willing to stick their noses into given the opportunity. The right to marry...the right to let loved ones pass away in privacy...the right to take out a damned book in a library without prying eyes looking over your shoulder...this government just loooooves to know what you're up to, and they'll cloak that nosieness in everything from moral high-horse to national security in order to do it.

And there's nothing in Roberts' carefully phrased answers that indicates to me he'd oppose this.

PAD

"But he is not saying that the right to privacy is an absolute."

The right to privacy isn't absolute. No right is.

What I see about Roberts is this: For a Bush guy, he's not all that bad, considering that Bush also gave us Chertoff and Brownie. At least it appears that Roberts has the pedigree of a Supreme Court Justice, and once he's appointed, all his ties and obligations vanish. He's there for life.

Now, Gonzalez is another matter entirely. I'm hoping O'Conner's husband talks her into sticking around another 3 years before stepping down.

>And if there's one thing this administration has proven, it's that there's no aspect of life that they're not willing to stick their noses into given the opportunity.

I was always taught that Republicans were the party that took a hands-off approach to most matters and only intervened in matters of NATIONAL importance: defense, taxes, etc. How has this changed in the (wow!) 25 years since Reagan was elected??

Yes, but if he's going to be on the Supreme Court, you'd expect him to know enough law that he could answer how he'd rule on major issues & cite the reasons (laws and precedences) for his ruling.

He could, but the judicial canons of ethics specifically forbids him from doing so. That makes this whole week of hearings just a farce to allow the senators on both sides to do some posturing for the cameras.

He has not put forward any statements that would indicate that a Supreme Court Justice is free to completely undo prior Court decisions.

The Supreme Court can undo prior Court decisions. The SC is the only court that isn't bond by precedent because it's the last word on what is precedent. If it were bond to precedent, we never would have gotten Brown vs. Board of Education. Most justices, however, have enough respect for Stare Decisis that they are reluctant to reverse an earlier SC ruling unless they believe that it had been grossly decided. The only one that has no regard for Stare Decisis is Thomas and that makes him the most activist justice on the bench.

But it is abundantly obvious that that answer not only doesn't cover abortion, IT DOESN'T EVEN COVER NON-MARITAL CONTRACEPTION. Consider that that answer leaves open the door for government intrusion into contraception decisions if the people are not married. Taken to extremes, it even means that he's leaving open the door to forbid--for instance--lesbian couples from embarking upon artificial means to conceive a child.

The rational part of my brain tells me that under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, you can't make it crime for nonmarried couples to do something that is legal for married couples to do. But the half of my brain reminds me that as long as Scalia and Thomas are on the bench, no one's sex life is safe. Which is ironic, given Thomas' documented love of porn.

I was always taught that Republicans were the party that took a hands-off approach to most matters and only intervened in matters of NATIONAL importance: defense, taxes, etc. How has this changed in the (wow!) 25 years since Reagan was elected??

Even during Reagan's time, the GOP was the party of regulating America's bedrooms. That hasn't changed one bit. The GOP is only opposed to regulations that may cut into Haliburton's profits. Period.

Peter, others have pointed out that Roberts openly and plainly admits he believes that a right to privacy exists in the Constitution. I will ask you how Bush is "shoving" Roberts down our throats? An opening on the court exists, Bush has nominated a judge to fill it. How is that "shoving" anything? If you see too much of Roberts in the media, blame them, not Bush. This blog is all about your opinions, but when you exaggerate even how the president you don't like presents his nominees (along with how that nominee presents his beliefs), how can one take you seriously?

Because as I have pointed out to others, "a" right to privacy is different from "the" right to privacy. I have exaggerated nothing. I don't have to.

PAD

I was always taught that Republicans were the party that took a hands-off approach to most matters and only intervened in matters of NATIONAL importance: defense, taxes, etc. How has this changed in the (wow!) 25 years since Reagan was elected?

Well then you were taught wrong. For most of the past century Republicans have had moral issues as part of their platform. As the minimum, pro-life has been part of the part platform since Reagan was elected.

The fact of the matter is, both parties LOVE to get into our personal lives, just in different areas. And they both love to claim some sort of moral superiority when they do it. And party fanboys (really, is there a better description for it?) like to imagine their party doesn't do it, but the other does. Anyone who believes that is fooling themselves.

if accepted practice is for candidates not to state their positions, how can an appointment be anything but a crap shoot?

prior to Bork, i believe, appointees did tend to state their positions on hot-button issues.

as i recall, Ginsburg made quite clear her stance on abortion (and other issues) during her confirmation hearings.

if accepted practice is for candidates not to state their positions, how can an appointment be anything but a crap shoot?

It isn't. Why do you think that conservatives are fuming about how Souter "betrayed" them?

prior to Bork, i believe, appointees did tend to state their positions on hot-button issues.

Bork is regarded a watershed moment where the SC nomination process was believed to become very polticized. Politics have always played a role, but Bork was the first nominee in modern times to have his views put under a microscope.

as i recall, Ginsburg made quite clear her stance on abortion (and other issues) during her confirmation hearings.

Not really. Many of her earlier writings on the subject were dredged up, but at her hearings, she declined to answer any questions about how she would rule in a specific case.

"[The right to an abortion] is something central to a woman's life, to her dignity. It's a decision that she must make for herself. And when government controls that decision for her, she's being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices."
--Ginsburg, from her confirmation hearing.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200507060008

my understanding (upon further scanty research) is that she demurred on several topics (gun control, gay rights).

however, while she may not have said how she would rule on an abortion case, i believe she made her position clear.

What's interesting about Ginsburg views, however, is that while she very obviously held the personal view that abortion should be legal, she had criticized the logic of using the "right to privacy" penumbra in Roe v. Wade than the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. So there was no certainty that Roe v. Wade was "safe" under her. She might have ruled that abortion should be legal under equal protection, but sided with the justices who wanted to overturn it by a concurrent opinion that the right to privacy didn't extend to abortion.

So no, she never made a clear statement on how she would rule if given the chance on Roe v. Wade.

however, while she may not have said how she would rule on an abortion case, i believe she made her position clear.

And? She was more than willing to discuss her positions on issues where she had previously published papers or had made her position clear, but on other issues that might come before her, she refused to answer. See this quote...

Senator Thurmond: What are your views on the constitutionality of some form of voucher system, so that working and middle-class parents can receive more choice in selecting the best education available for their children?
Judge Ginsburg. Senator Thurmond, aid to schools is a question that comes up again and again before the Supreme Court. This is the very kind of question that I ruled out.

Senator Thurmond. Would you prefer not to answer?

Judge Ginsburg. Yes.

Now do you or do you not think it is pretty bloody likely that some sort of abortion rights case will come before the SCOTUS in the next few years? How stupid would it be for the next chief justice to have to recuse himself on that issue?

Or the privacy issues?

Lets take it another way. This candidate could be the best advocate for privacy, gay rights, and women rights the left could ever have, but if he did state his views, he would (assuming he's an honest man) need to recuse himself from those cases, if they came before him.

Watching some of the hearings made me a little nervous. Not because I don't like Roberts or Bush or y'know, whoever. No, what concerned me was the fact that several states have had large portions pretty much decimated and not one of the participants have been shown to be interested in anything other than where Roberts may fall on their particular views. Granted, not much that they can do from Washington...or is there? Couldn't their time be better spent working with their various constituencies to help in the recovery and maybe pushing this off until at least some modicum of order has been established? Call me short sighted, but to use an analogy, when one of your bedrooms is falling off your house, you don't keep interviewing the housekeepers until everything's been fixed.

The extent of the coverage of any unenumerated Natural Right will forever be open to debate. Natural Rights theory is not set in stone, and neither are the rights ascribed to it. SCOTUS precedent does not solidify a Right as being a fundamental Natural Right, because that is a philosophical concept that is always open to debate. SCOTUS precedent does carry a lot of weight with jurist though, as Roberts has said it would with him, because of concerns about the ramifications of a constantly changing legal foundation.

That said, if an individual does not ascribe to your particular take on Natural Rights, that does not mean the individual would not be upholding his/her duty on SCOTUS.

"And there's nothing in Roberts' carefully phrased answers that indicates to me he'd oppose this. -PAD"

Good. There isn't anything that suggests he would necessarily support it either.

Not committing to a specific answer because it's a situation that might come before the court.

On another subject, it's fun to watch Roberts blast folks like Teddy, who seems more interested in happy hour than understanding any of the questions that he's posing to Roberts.

RLR

edhopper: good point! Bizzarro president! (Though it's almost an insult to Bizarro to say that he speaks as badly as Bush ;) ... Kidding! Kidding! Pretty much ....)

Elizabeth Donald: cool sticker! Cool post end-to-end, actually.

As far as Roberts goes, I'm unsure at this point. Accidentally or not - weighing the decent regard in which I hold Bush Senior against the fact that he also gave us Clarence Thomas - we did get a good justice, David Souter, from the last Republican administration. The idea that Roberts can just walk in as Chief Justice doesn't feel right, though. I've learned that it has been done before, and that they want to have a Chief who will lead the court for a very long time - so let's name the newbie - but still ....

Anyway, back to West Wing - thanks for bringing it up, PAD; Aaron Sorkin did give us some amazing eloquence and remarkable thought in this series. Again and again recently, I've been brought back to something which I believe President Bartlett - during re-election? - said about the office of the President of the United States being something to which surely we can rise above aspiring to the lowest common denominator for (and I KNOW my feeble memory has butchered the hell out of it; but the gist of it - that "At least he's not THAT bad" just SHOULDN'T be the best thing anybody can say about a president - has stuck with me). Yes, I would love to have that adminstration running things ... but it is (especially under Sorkin, yes) such an idealized administration.

While Bartlett and his west wing staff consider political factors (especially Josh), the primary concern of their administration is doing what is best for the country, led by an amazingly intelligent and eloquent, idealistic, compassionate president with a strong conscience. Unfortunately, I'm not naive enough to expect to see a comparable administration here on "Bizzaro World" from either party, possibly ever. All of the party politics and the garbage necessary for "our side", whichever side is in power, to stay in power - whether power for power's sake or "OUR side is the right side, the other side can't be trusted" is the motivation for a particular administration - is the primary focus of whichever side is in control of our real-life government. When I read in high school that one of the Founding Fathers (for years I was thinking it was Washington, but something I came across later made me think - Jefferson?) argued against having established political parties, I thought "Hey, that's a pretty good idea"; hasn't really been much subsequently to exactly drive me away from that opinion ....

Okay, could I FIND more ways to spell "Bizarro" if I tried?! :) (Also, the end of that paragraph should read "Kidding! Kidding! ... Pretty much ....)".)

Being somewhat left of center I wish there was a right to privacy in the constitution for the usual birth control, p0rn and abortion reasons. However I don't know that I think there IS one in it (excepting the 9th, which leaves it open to be limited by the states in the 10th). It's a flaw we should fix with an amendment. I won't bash someone for not demanding that there is when there's little support for it, however.

Bork got Borked because he was so ugly.

Roberts sucks. :)

I worked with a twit who, after Twice-Elected President George W. Bush, won his first election in 2000, commented: "I like watching The West Wing because it's like Clinton is still in office." It's. A. TV. Show. And not a very good one at that.

Peter David: But he is not saying that the right to privacy is an absolute.
Luigi Novi: Well, thank God for that, since the right to privacy isn't absolute, nor is any other right. If a nominee for Chief Justice asserted that a right were "absolute," then I'd have a big problem with him.

I've just finished watching the third day of the Roberts hearings (or - the reruns on CSPAN2). I think I've watched about 6-8 hours in total since they started. What strikes me is how much he's been able to go around the political pandering of both parties. Feinstein tried to ask him about a 9-survey case review of his opinions where he had "always" ruled for the corporation. He immediately brought up a larger study that contradicted hers. Feinstein - clearly not expecting that response - said "Let's move on".

The Democrats have been trying time and again to tar him as an extremist and haven't been able to land a serious blow. Yes, he's conservative, but he's not an extreme conservative like Scalia. As a replacement for Rehnquist, he will not affect the court balance much at all.

Roberts' view time and again (including his opinions quoted by the witnesses) has been that he examines the law and facts, but not his personal feelings. That's what makes him more conservative than not. Liberal judges are interested in legal evolution, conservative judges in legal consistency. Both are needed. If there is room on the Court for Stevens and Ginsburg - who continue to move the Court to the Left, then there should be room for Roberts.

As far as the comparison to The West Wing. Well, TWW is an idealistic fantasy. Killing a slam-dunk nomination on principle? Doubtful. A President accepting a Congressional censure? Highly unlikely. A President invoking the 25th Amendment giving control to the opposition? I don't think it would ever take place.

One of my favorite episodes of TWW is the one where Sam wrote the opposition memo on public education and vouchers. He spent the entire episode arguing "in favor" of vouchers (only to have the Deus Ex Machina ending that he was really opposed to it. However, they had a good discussion on it from both sides. TWW typically shows all the major White House players as people of principle, but almost everyone on the Hill (Republicans and Democrats) as creatures of politics and power. If there was one improvement in the show, it would be to have REAL debates with people on both sides being people of principle. I don't mind that the liberals always seem to win on the show - in fact I expect it, but I would rather the other side be given the same eloquence.

>Luigi Novi: Well, thank God for that, since the right to privacy isn't absolute, nor is any other right. If a nominee for Chief Justice asserted that a right were "absolute," then I'd have a big problem with him.

The right to chocolate is sacred.

actually borks appearance didnt help him
he practically looked like satan with that beard

actually borks appearance didnt help him
he practically looked like satan with that beard

> Every single place where, on the "West
> Wing," the Bartlet administration -- an
> administration of conscience -- zigs, Bush's
> administration zags. I just find that
> interesting.
>
> I wonder if the next real-life election will
> involve a youthful Hispanic lawyer/cop going
> head to head with a likable former surgeon
> from a MASH unit.

I predict that the West Wing election will be won by Arnold Vinick. The prospect of showing a "good" Republican president in contrast to Bush will be too great an opportunity to ignore.

Also, given that fact that while Vinick is good, the conflict he'll have with Republicans in Congress (and perhaps with his own West Wing staff) who are more like real-life Repulbicans will provide plenty of "dramatic" conflict.

Oops. Sorry for the typo, I need to go to bed.

I've wondered... if Vinick wins, does that mean a whole new cast? Otherwise, the idea of a REPUBLICAN keeping these staunch DEMOCRATS in positions of power is just to hard to swallow.

As big a fan of West Wing as I am, one thing that bothered me about the first season especially, was how two-dimensionally the Republican 'villain of the week' was presented.

The one that leaps to mind was the general who was going to do the 'ring and run'; at his retirement, he planned to go on the talk-show circuit and loudly disagree with the way that President Bartlett was running things.

C.J. intelligently debated with him before shutting him down by pointing out that he had been photographed wearing a medal that he hadn't earned, and threatening to expose him to the media if he didn't get in line.

What bothered me was the show's early core belief that the Republicans didn't disagree with 'our' side because they had a different point of view; they disagreed because they were evil and corrupt.

What if the general in question hadn't been stupid enough to claim a medal he didn't earn? How often does that sort of thing happen in real life (I mean, since it's so easily checked)? What if it had been someone like Powell or Schwartzkopf (I apologize for any misspelling), whose service records are pretty much unimpeachable?

I'm glad to say that WW got better quickly at their portrayal of Republicans. I don't like knee-jerk liberal propaganda any better than I like knee-jerk conservative propaganda.

Abortion is a matter of the right of privacy? Bizarre. Just what couldn't you shoehorn into being a matter of privacy with that mindset?

"Abortion is a matter of the right of privacy? Bizarre. Just what couldn't you shoehorn into being a matter of privacy with that mindset?"

What's bizarre about it? So long as the debate about when human life begins is still open, what else could it be? If human life is legally recognized to begin sometime after conception (i.e., sometime along the development path of the fetus) then any regulation on abortive procedures prior to that point in an infringment on a woman's ability to decide what to do with her body. What we choose to do with our bodies is one of the essential concepts included in the privacy right.

Bobb/bb: Question for the both of you (or for anyone, at this point). I do, of course, support legalized abortion. I am increasingly uncomfortable with this issue being regulated at the federal level, however. Do either of you believe this should be a state's rights issue (or anyone, for that matter)? If so, why? If not, why?

What we choose to do with our bodies is one of the essential concepts included in the privacy right.

Yeah, right. When the pro-choice politicos start to roll-back the War on Drugs, then maybe I would stop seeing them as the hypocrites they are when they talk about a Right to Privacy. Right to Privacy is a polite way of saying Right to Do What I, Your Political Master, Think You Should Be Allowed to Do.

Knuckles,

The outcome of the debate about what are a person's Natural Rights is best caried out at the local/state level for it to be most acceptible to the populace. However, there are times when local standards are simply unacceptible. Determining when those times are, and thus imposing a National doctrine, is probably the most important decision any SCOTUS jurist ever has to make. But there is certainly no clear way to determine when those times exist.

Personally, and constitutionally, I see it as a state issue. I suppose you could say that there's some Federal commerce issue that you could invent to give the Federal government jurisdiction, but that'd be paper thin. Although the Feds, as they've tried in the past, will probably attempt to use finance power to regulate hospitals. It's essentiallythe same trick they used to impose national speed limits...threaten to take away Federal highway money from any state that didn't pass a 55 mph speed law. I guess someone could also put forward a General Welfare argument, but I don't see abortion as such a wide-spread issue that it would fit that concept.

Roe v. Wade talks in general terms about the power of "the state," but was specifically looking at a state law. Basically, I agree with the SCOTUS Roe v. Wade opinion, that being that the States have some interest in a developing fetus that at some point during the pregnancy trumps a woman's right to do with herself as she wishes. While the Constitution does say something like "All men born..." when talking about rights, it seems rather arbitrary to use an event that means less and less as our medical science improves to decide when an individual's personal rights begin. Recognizing this, Roe v. Wade grants that there's some point where a state interest becomes more pressing that the woman's privacy right in her own body. The troubling part is that, where those two interests clash, and the exact point where the State interest takes precedence, is unclear, and likely to keep sliding as medical science improves.

Which in my mind is fine. We'll start with the easy steps. It's fairly clear now that any third trimester abortion needs to have a medical need based on the health/life of the mother. And that's the problem with all the state abortion laws (Michigan being the most recent, just this past week) that keep getting struck down. They try to abolish a practice, rather than regulate it, and the health exemptions they try to include do not go far enough to protect the mother. As gruesome as the so-called D&X procedure is, there are some medical conditions that occur to thousands of women in the US every year that call for such a procedure.

Bobb,

Don't make the mistake SCOTUS did and forget about the Ninth amendment. Also, don't confuse the concept of The State (a synonym for Government) with a State (i.e. one of 50).

MP took the post right out of my fingers (which, considering the debacle with Jerry over on the other thread, might be for the best).

"Yeah, right. When the pro-choice politicos start to roll-back the War on Drugs, then maybe I would stop seeing them as the hypocrites they are when they talk about a Right to Privacy. Right to Privacy is a polite way of saying Right to Do What I, Your Political Master, Think You Should Be Allowed to Do."

Someone help me out here, but isn't the War on Drugs mostly backed by Republicans?

"Don't make the mistake SCOTUS did and forget about the Ninth amendment. Also, don't confuse the concept of The State (a synonym for Government) with a State (i.e. one of 50)."

Ok, how did I or the SCOTUS forget about the Ninth Amendment (which, for those not keeping score at home, reads "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.")

I started to post that, Bobb, but then realized that there was a larger point that I think MP was making: Once the pro-choice (and by extension, pro-right to privacy) pols start supporting the legalization of drugs, then MP will believe that they are serious about the right to privacy. You are correct, the War On Drugs is a Reagan Administration holdover. MP is also correct, as there has never been any movement from the left on attempting to declare the "war" a failure, and try to approach the problem from a different direction.

That clears it up a little, kinda sorta (the War actually pre-dates Reagan, going back to Nixon and Rockefeller in the US).

Drug use is actually a good example of parallel logic when compared to abortion. It presents a clash between societal rights and interests against private rights. Drug use, or rather drug abuse, doesn't impact just the individual using. There are a series of ripple effects that stem from drug abuse that implicates state action/regulation. The War on Drugs wasn't initiated because some college kids wanted to get high behind their locked door on a weekend. It was initiated because of the criminal acts such abuse engenders, and it's maybe a rare governmental act that recognized the cause of a problem, rather than just trying to treat the symptoms.

Now, how that war has been prosecuted is fur sure up for grabs, but I haven't seen any persuasive argument stating that there wasn't a significant enough problem that justified the intrusion into the aspect of the right to privacy where drug abuse was concerned.

Just like any other right, the right to privacy is not absolute. There are always going to be times when that right must cede to some government regulation.

Ok, how did I or the SCOTUS forget about the Ninth Amendment

Roe was decided on Substantive Due Process grounds, a legal theory which I hold little respect for. Although the district court decided Roe on Ninth amendment grounds, Blackmun's opinion specifically discards this in favor of Substantive Due Process.

BTW, I had briefly read your earlier post before. A more thorough reading shows that you did accept that there was a Natural Right to making a choice (at least early on in the pregnancy).

a significant enough problem that justified the intrusion into the aspect of the right to privacy where drug abuse was concerned

I absolutely reject this statement, but prefer at this time not to get into an in-depth debate over while I feel this is fundamentally flawed.

"I absolutely reject this statement"

That's fine, you're not alone in that stance. But you are in the vast minority, and there's over 80 years of historical precedent suggesting that it's true.

As big a fan of West Wing as I am, one thing that bothered me about the first season especially, was how two-dimensionally the Republican 'villain of the week' was presented...

I'm glad to say that WW got better quickly at their portrayal of Republicans. I don't like knee-jerk liberal propaganda any better than I like knee-jerk conservative propaganda.

True enough. But the first season also gave us that great exchange between Bartlet and a Republican senator where Bartlet explains that they disagree because he (Bartlet) is "a lily-livered, bleeding-heart, liberal, egghead communist" to which the senator responds "And I'm a gun-toting, redneck son-of-a-bitch."

So, continuing talk of the West Wing and the real-life...anyone want to take a stab on incorporating the 5th Season episode "The Supremes" into this analysis? (That's the one where our heroes have the opportunity to name a judge to the Supreme Court, become discouraged that politics would preclude appointing anyone of strong opinions such as Glenn Close's character, then finnagle a way to get appoint two judges--Glenn Close's "liberal lion" as the Chief Justics, and a conservative justice popular with the Republicans.)

After all, GWB has another appointment to make...

"The War on Drugs wasn't initiated because some college kids wanted to get high behind their locked door on a weekend. It was initiated because of the criminal acts such abuse engenders, and it's maybe a rare governmental act that recognized the cause of a problem, rather than just trying to treat the symptoms."

But did it? I'd argue quite the opposite. The criminalization of drugs and alcohol caused the rise in drug and alcohol related crime, rather than the opposite.

My mistake on the Nixon/Reagan thing. I knew better, but had visions of Nancy and her oh so effective "Just Say No!" campaign in my head.

The Vietnam War didn't help much with drug and
alcohol addiction either, of course.

Nancy popped first into my head, too, but I also had a vague recollection that Reagan wasn't the first to come out strongly against drugs.

"But did it? I'd argue quite the opposite. The criminalization of drugs and alcohol caused the rise in drug and alcohol related crime, rather than the opposite."

This is what I mean when it's hard to argue against the War, but very easy and appropriate to discuss the battles. Drug abuse has long been a problem. The question is, how to combat it. And the 2 basic lines of attack are to either criminalize it or legalize it. The first does drive the market for the activity underground, and once removed from the protection of society's laws, it leads to other crimes. The second allows you to regulate it, hopefully mitigating the worst of the impacts of abuse. And as you're creating a legal supply, the demand for the worst of the product should go down, and you can also work on cutting back on the addictive drugs.

To a certain extent, I'd agree that some of the symptoms of drug abuse, especially the harder criminal aspects, are related to the underground nature of the market. But if you look at alcahol as an example of a regulated drug market, I don't know that you can say that it's entirely a success, either. There are still societal costs and impacts from abuse of alcahol. So maybe the lesson to be learned from booze is that there's not enough regulation. There's a news story floating around of two wedding parties getting into a 3am drunken brawl, and a co-worker back from Iraq told us how that "incident" on base were almost non-existant due to the abscence of booze.

Just like any other right, the right to privacy is not absolute. There are always going to be times when that right must cede to some government regulation.

I reject this as well. Natural Rights are not absolute with respect to other Natural Rights of other parties. However, they are absolute with respect to laws that suppress them, unless the laws in question are seeking to project other Natural Rights.

Would I be off base in guessing you support McConnell v. FEC?

I think the problem with the regulated market of alcohol is that it's still restricted. You must be of age to purchase and consume alcohol legally. In many cases what that leads to is a complete abdication of responsibility on the part of those raising the children in terms of how to treat alcohol responsibly. So you are then dealing with the probelm in two ways:

1) Underage people that want it because it is verboten, and
2) New drinkers who are of age who haven't the faintest idea how to handle alcohol responsibly.

AZTeach: Aside from the fact that link takes me to a site dedicated to refuting the mythical "liberal media bias" (every bit as ridiculous as Hillary's "vast right-wing conspiracy), it doesn't take me to anything about the post-presidential debate interviews. It takes me to something about Katrina victims loving Bush and blaming Nagin. Now if you like, I could provide you with a link to Media Matters for the liberal perspective...

Crap. Wrong thread. Dammit.

"Would I be off base in guessing you support McConnell v. FEC?"

Now, be honest, MP...you really asked this question just to get me off the boards for the rest of the afternoon, right? :)

Ok, I didn't read every page of the 298 page opinion, but I think I have the gist of it...controls on how money is spent to influence an elections. Specifically so-called soft money, in this case.

I can't say that I support or oppose the holding in McConnell. Personally, I don't think that a corporation should be allowed to spend money on a campaign at all. There's nothing in the Constitution that suggests that corporations have any rights, legal, natural, or otherwise. And since they're legal creations to begin with, I don't have any issue whatsoever in regulating them up the ying yang.

Private donations are another matter, I'd say. I recognize the rationale to regulate private spending on election issues, but it leaves me uneasy. If pressed on the particulars of such regulation, I'd probably come out against them.

"However, they are absolute with respect to laws that suppress them, unless the laws in question are seeking to project other Natural Rights."

You say you reject that no right is absolute, but then you turn around and say that no right is absolute. Hah! Duck Season!

Your reasoning, phrased differently, is how I read Roe v. Wade. The state interest in protecting the unborn is more or less born from an advocacy of future rights. If we use your language, the State is stepping in to protect the Natural Right of the unborn to life, conflicting with the Natural Right to privacy of the mother. In criminalizing and regulating drug use, the state is again advocating for the Natural Rights of the many innocent victims of drug abuse and the crimes that surround it, conflicting with the private right of the individual to use such drugs.

At least, that's the idealogy that supports such regulation. Whether the government acts in ways that are consistant with this ideology is another matter alltogether.

I concur with your Roe reasoning. However, I do not believe that preventative laws are just. I do believe that premeptive laws are just. Admittedly, there is no razor sharp distinction between the two. It is a matter of degrees of separation. If some is actively planning to murder another person, then a charge of attempted murder is sound. But a wife beater could not be charged with attempted murder, even if there was a pattern of escalating violence, unless the intent can be proven.

This is the same with drugs. It is one thing to use drugs. However, it is not clear-cut to say someone is abusing drugs. It is even a further leap to say that a user and/or abuser will conduct a criminal act. And without an actual criminal act, you are engaging in statistical profiling.

Finally, this waterfall logic (A may lead to B may lead to C) is the same errant logic that leads SCOTUS to uphold Wickard and Raich, thus making a mockery of the Commerce Clause.

"This is the same with drugs. It is one thing to use drugs. However, it is not clear-cut to say someone is abusing drugs. It is even a further leap to say that a user and/or abuser will conduct a criminal act. And without an actual criminal act, you are engaging in statistical profiling."

I can't disagree with anything you say here. It is true, by criminalizing, we're casting a very wide net, and in addition to all the tuna we catch (drug abusers) we're also getting some dolphins (drug users). Although in actuallity, it's probably more accurate to say that we're catching mostly dolphins, and only a few tuna.

But to come from the other side, there's the issue of child porn. In order to protect a vulnerable class (children) from the abuse that forced (or even consentual) child porn creates, we make all child porn illegal. Creation, distribution, and possession.

At least in these 2 cases (better supported in the child porn instance, perhaps, then for drugs), it's not an assumption that A leads to B leads to C. It's based on historical observation. The fact that the logic theorem does not always hold true does not dispute the fact that in some instances, it does. In those cases, society, acting through the government, decides that local preemptive measures do not go far enough to protect those that are injured by such acts, and thus consents to enforced restrictions on what would otherwise be a natural liberty.

Which is not to say that such laws should remain in force for all time. I'm actually in favor of legalizing many so-called recreational drugs. The advent of the more potent chemical high is, to my mind, reaching a critical mass. And as Knuckles said, the taboo nature of drugs makes them appealing to many younger folk, in addition to preventing or discouraging parents from instilling temperance and responsibility in their kids. After all, if all a parent has to say about drugs is "don't do them, they're illegal," that doesn't really present any helpful knowledge to a child. But this has more to do with the Zero Tolerance nature of the drug regulations. It's quite apparant by now that there's a sizable population that wants to be able to use drugs, so this idea that we can stamp out drug use through criminalization is pretty hopeless. And doctors are writing scrips for controlled substances that are just as addictive, and potentially dangerous, as many things found on the street.

While we're discussing alcohol laws, can someone please tell me why making moonshine is illegal (unless it's happening in dry counties, in which case I get it)?

For the record, we don't have a great moonshine tradition here in the Pacific Northwest, other than watching an assload of 'Dukes of Hazzard' episodes when I was a kid.

AFAIK, moonshine remains illegal in many states under the pretense that it is potentially a very dangerous, and possibly fatal, substance to consume.

Because the Feds don't get their taxes on alcohol made by private citizens. Hence, the Revenue Dept being the ones to go after moonshiners. (aka 'Revenoors'...)

As with so many of our laws, it's all about the mighty dollar, bay-bee! *g*

But MP, if that were true, then the theme song to the "Dukes of Hazzard" would be a like. They may be good ol' boys, but apparently they WERE meaning some harm.

Aha. Thanks, Patrick. I frequently need the obvious pointed out to me, and hadn't even considered that angle.

Patrick,

In light of recent (past 20 years) homebrewing laws, that rationale is no longer valid.

I reject this as well. Natural Rights are not absolute with respect to other Natural Rights of other parties. However, they are absolute with respect to laws that suppress them, unless the laws in question are seeking to project other Natural Rights.

But that's exactly what (at least as ideals) all laws are: Attempts to protect the rights of other members of the society or community from the excesses of the individual. And as such, no single Natural Right is absolute, because the rights of every individual are held in tension with the rights of every other individual, and the point at which the line should be drawn (i.e., the legal equivalent of "your rights end at the tip of my nose") are determined by the appropriate legal bodies -- sometimes, as we see both in the appellate process and in the case of the SCOTUS overturning its own previous rulings, having to go through several drafts before an appropriate balance is reached.

In light of recent (past 20 years) homebrewing laws, that rationale is no longer valid.

Actually, MP, that's not true. Moonshining is a for-profit business, whereas home brewing is not. Were you to get caught selling your home brew (as a home brewer myself), you'd get your ass handed to you by the feds. That said, I think your explanation probably plays into it as well.

Bootlegging is the sale of Moonshine. Moonshine is simply homebrewed whiskey. To my knowledge, federal law prohibits the production of "spirits" other than Beer and Wine, even simply for personal use. See more here.

The other thing to consider, of course, is the bifurcated nature of alcohol laws. There is wine and beer (and sometimes mead), and there is hard liquor. The difference, of course, is that hard liquor is distilled, wine, beer and mead are not.

A fitting quote for this useless TV show:

"Hollywood executives really love the smell of their own urine and what they really like doing is urinating on things. And then going, 'Hmm, now this smells really good" and being really puzzled when the rest of the world goes 'No, actually that smells like pee.'"
– Neil Gaiman

I can see how useless people would consider it a useless TV show...

PAD

> I've wondered... if Vinick wins, does that
> mean a whole new cast? Otherwise, the
> idea of a REPUBLICAN keeping these
> staunch DEMOCRATS in positions of power
> is just to hard to swallow.

The political appointee members of the cast will undoubtedly change (Richard Schiff has already noted in newspaper interviews that he will leave the show part-way through this new season) but others don't have to change: for example, Vinick could keep a Bartlett appointee or two to show national unity after the campaign, or as an example of "competence over partisanship"; also, as a career military officer, Mary McCormack's character would likely stay on as Deputy National Security 'Advisor.

New West Wing aides: Patricia Richardson character seems a shoo-in for Chief of Staff, and undoubtedly Stephen Root, an extremely versatile actor, might continue in his role as a Vinick staff member as well.

The obvious thing to do would be to do the fantasy version of the 2000 election--the Republican wins a razor thin close race but loses the popular vote so he decides to make his administration a unity one--keep lots of the old administration's people. If his Vice President dies he could even take his defeated foe into the fold.

Or maybe the race gets thrown to the House and the two guys work out some kind of unity administration.

"I can see how useless people would consider it a useless TV show..."

What about people who consider it ham-handed and overwrought political fanfiction?

As a conservative and a screenwriter, I love the West Wing. Great characters, great conflict, and flat out incredible writing (although I'm watching it on DVD from the library, so I've only seen the first four seasons). While I find many of the arguments easy to shoot down, I like the fact that the people "care" and I'm only lightly annoyed by the villianization of Republicans. I do miss the cute blonde Republican lawyer, though.

And Knuckles, you must live a sheltered life in the PNW if you think Moonshine wasn't big business. Either that, or you didn't live by any of the reservations. Rotgut whiskey killed more of my friends than car accidents (and there were a lot of those. Took a stroll through the cemetery where my grandparents are buried and was horrified to see so many young people I knew planted there as well. Statistically way off the charts, but true nonetheless).

What about people who consider it ham-handed and overwrought political fanfiction?

Not watching much of real life, are they....

And Knuckles, you must live a sheltered life in the PNW if you think Moonshine wasn't big business. Either that, or you didn't live by any of the reservations. Rotgut whiskey killed more of my friends than car accidents (and there were a lot of those. Took a stroll through the cemetery where my grandparents are buried and was horrified to see so many young people I knew planted there as well. Statistically way off the charts, but true nonetheless).

Sheltered? Not really. Where in the NW did you live? I'm talking moonshine/bootlegging. People running from the revenooers. Brewing rotgut whiskey on the res isn't illegal. Taking it off the res is. There is a strong history of smuggling alcohol in across the border from Canada, but not much of one here in the Puget Sound area.

That said, I've got a ton of friends who grew up on the res in WA, ID and MT. None of them have ever had moonshine (or homemade whatever). It was far easier to jus tget someone to buy the shit off the shelf for you than actually try to get your hands on it.

Mind you, Robb, I'm not saying it didn't exist. I know it did/does. But as mentioned before, I've got a lot of friends from the res (Colville, Crow, Puyallup, etc.) and none of them were ever crazy enough to try it. The point I was trying to make, and clearly didn't, is that moonshine is not just a pastime in the South, it's big business. That big business simply does NOT exist here in the PNW.

I have a mason jar full of moonshine in my cubbard, given to me as a Christmas gift. Since I'm not a drinker (to the eternal shame of my ancestors) I have no idea what to do with it. Are there recipes using moonshine? Right now it's just there in case I need to make a molotov cocktail.

I used to love West Wing, even when a great deal of what they were saying flew right over my head. Not so into it now but anyways... I'd just be happy if next election there were a Democrat candidate with a backbone.

One of my favorite "fun" scenes from the early episodes of West Wing is Sam debating Toby on whether 2000 is the millienium or not. ("In Excelsis Deo" is the episode - probably one of the top five shows).

TOBY It’s not the new millennium, but I’ll just let it drop.

SAM
It is.

TOBY
It is not the new millennium. The year 2000 is the last year of the millennium. It’s not the first one of the next.

SAM
But the common sensibility, to quote Steven J. Gould...

TOBY
Steven J. Gould needs to look at a calendar.

SAM
Gould says that this is a largely unresolvable issue.

TOBY
Yes, it’s tough to resolve. Yes, you have to look at a calendar.

(Being a math geek, I was in Toby's camp.)

Peter, the solution to privacy concerns is simple:

BUY A GUN.

Gun privacy is the one form of privacy Bush holds sacrosanct--even over the threat of terrorism. Whatever information is included on the documents of gun transactions won't be searched.

[Exit Smart Alec Mode]

Or wait until high-ranking Republicans their privacy intruded upon at which point they'll discover an appreciation for privacy (often when accused of illegal or unethical behavior)

It's kinda like how Repubs and Dems did a 180 flip about the Independent Prosecutor when their president was in office, suddenly both sides saw the need for limiting it.

-- Ken from Chicago

P.S. "Conservatives are liberals who've just been mugged. Liberals are conversative who've just been arrested."

P.P.S. EVERY year is the end and start of a millenium. And if you're talking about 2000 years the birth of Christ, pretty strong evidence points more to 1996-7 instead of 1999-2000 or Y2k-Y2k1.

Ken,

Haven't you heard? The PC movement has eliminated BC and AD from the calendars. It's now BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era). So, marking the calendars in 2000 compared to Christ is now irrelevant.

:)

I always liked the bit from "Sports Night" where Casey (I think it was) receives an invitation to some fancy event, and the invite says the event is "7PM, October 18, 2001 AD." And Casey says, "I'm glad they put the 'AD' to clarify it. It would have been embarrasing to accidentally arrive two thousand years before the birth of Christ."

PAD

Haven't you heard? The PC movement has eliminated BC and AD from the calendars. It's now BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era). So, marking the calendars in 2000 compared to Christ is now irrelevant.

Soooo....what exactly do they say it was that started the common era?

This is one of those things that actually calls MORE attention to the thing that they are trying to hide in the first place. It's like how I now hear, when people say the pledge of allegence, the "Under God" part is much, much louder than the rest of it.

Oh, lighten up, codgers. Using "BCE" or "CE" isn't PC, it's just good manners when publishing for a worldwide audience. I still teach "BC" and "Anno Domini" to my students (most of them think it stands for After Death) and it's no big deal to add the information about CE as a synonym. The customs of your tribe and island, paraphrasing Shaw, are not the laws of nature.

Bootlegging is the sale of Moonshine.

Actually, "bootlegging" is the smuggling of any regulated product for illicit, unregulated sale. The term comes from the Prohibition-era habit of some purveyors of "bathtub gin" of carrying their product in a hip flask, which could be concealed in the shaft of one boot, next to the leg. It's also applied to the illegal smuggling and sale of, for instance, illicitly-recorded movies and music (the Grateful Dead fans were notorious for "bootlegging" their concerts). The term was adapted by Larry Niven for the illicit collection and sale of human organs, in a future with reliable anti-rejection drugs - "organlegging".

Okay, lecture over... :)

just curious PAD
if you were writing the west wing
how would the election play out?
would the 5th and 6th sesaon be any different ?
and if you wrote the series finale
how would you end the show ?

Knuckles,

Grew up in the Everett/Lynnwood area, school in Bellingham.

During Prohibition, bootlegging was an art in Seattle (no, I'm not that old) but a lot of people kept up the tradition - especially in the mini Chinatowns all over. We were on the lower end of the economic spectrum, which opened a whole new part of the state...

I've heard so many times about the villainization of Republicans on the West Wing. They've had one truly villainous Republican that I remember off the top of my head: The Speaker of the House who drove the President into a government shutdown in a stupid dick-measuring contest over the budget. Except... OOPS, that really happened.

But the Republicans have been just as nuanced and fleshed-out as the Democrats. Witness:

* When a Democrat tries to wrangle a pile of pork-barrel promises from Our Heroes over his vote on the estate tax, they tell him to take a hike and make their deal with a fiscally conservative, intelligent Republican.

* When Josh and Sam totally bungle the drug investigation of the first season, a Republican tells them exactly how they screwed up, and gives them a lifeline to make a deal and get Leo out of the hearings.

* When a senator plans to sandbag Leo in the hearings over Bartlet's MS and Leo's alcoholism, it's a Republican lawyer who steps in and gets the hearings shut down, choosing honor and dignity over political horror shows.

* As someone has mentioned, they had a positive Republican as a REGULAR, until Emily Proctor got a better offer from CSI. She was the voice for conservatism, and argued Sam to a standstill too often, from my POV. :)

* John Goodman took over as a Republican president and managed not to destroy the country. In fact, he concentrated on national security and ensuring continuity of government while Our Heroes fretted about political leverage.

That's all I can remember off the top of my head. Frankly, the Democratic party apart from Our Heroes gets a worse rap than the Republicans. In the second or third episode, Josh berates a Democratic congressman who is withholding his vote because he hasn't had enough photo-ops with the president. Every time they do a major speech, some Democrats come storming to the White House with political bullshit to throw at them. And then there's the utter disaster that the various Dem candidates went through, led by the brainless VP.

Sorry, folks. Just don't see it.

I forget who said it but there are *two* superpowers in the world: the United States and Everyone else...

Many times they represent the conservative side of the argument, but more often they don't. The Christian group are idiots, anyone who holds to "family values" are portrayed as stupid, drunk or rude. The Florida Governor who ran against Bartlett - apparently a characture of Bush - was as inept as they come. A better opponant would have been welcome - not to mention that the debate responses that Jeb gave were eloquent, but empty...
On the other hand, when they do it right, they do it right. The gay Republican senator comes to mind.

A good show, and believe me, you don't hear that from me often.

You know, I think West Wing may be more accurate than the news media. The news outlets were predicting New Orleans would have thousands dead (at last count, it is 579), it would be flooded for 6 months (large portions of it are already drained), and that gas would reach as high as $4 a gallon (yesterday gas in Iowa was back down to the $2.49 it was before Katrina).

Iowa Jim

I realized two things about the West Wing/real world divide a while ago. First that just as Jed Bartlett's administration could be considered the dream liberal presidency then GW Bush's administration is considered by many conservatives to be the dream conservative presidency. Second that the West Wing could be considered an alternate universe from our's and, in true Star Trek tradition, one will lead to the "mirrorverse" and one will lead to the Federation. I imagine it is up to each person to decide which one our universe is.

I know that, personally, I'm fairly certain that our's will be the one to spawn Spock-with-a-beard sometime in the distant future but then my brother calls me a hippie liberal anyway. =D

Haven't you heard? The PC movement has eliminated BC and AD from the calendars. It's now BCE (Before the Common Era) and CE (Common Era). So, marking the calendars in 2000 compared to Christ is now irrelevant.

Well then the entire state of Israel must be overrun by hippie, tree-hugging, PC-spouting liberals.

> "Conservatives are liberals who've just been
> mugged. Liberals are conversative who've
> just been arrested."

And a Libertarian is someone who got mugged, called the cops to report it, and got arrested for his trouble.

Well then the entire state of Israel must be overrun by hippie, tree-hugging, PC-spouting liberals.

Yes. God forbid (pun intended) that the scientific community actually try to seperate itself from religious terminology.

First that just as Jed Bartlett's administration could be considered the dream liberal presidency then GW Bush's administration is considered by many conservatives to be the dream conservative presidency.

Arrrr, ye scurvy son of a dog! Be ye so knave that ye can't see that Bush spends doubloons like a man about to walk the plank! Arrrrr! If Bush be the dream conservative presidency, than my name not be Black Tom Kidd. Which it be.

Arrrr!

(This had better be Talk Like A Pirate Day or I be looking pretty stupid by now, methinks. Arrrrrr?)

Yes. God forbid (pun intended) that the scientific community actually try to seperate itself from religious terminology.

Yeah but if you are still saying it's 2005 CE you are STILL buying into the religious dogma, even if you give it new letters. What happened around the year 0 that made it the common era, as opposed to, say, 1564 or 1643?

It's like saying "Ok, we'll say 'One nation under God' but "God" means Generator Of Diversity. Ha! THAT'LL show 'em!

Arrrrrrrr!

(This had better be Talk Like A Pirate Day or I be looking pretty stupid by now, methinks. Arrrrrr?)

Bill, Bill, Bill.....you know better than to hand out a straight line like that.....

Arrrr.

GW Bush's administration is considered by many conservatives to be the dream conservative presidency.

Not hardly. Sky high deficits and an increase in the size/power of the federal government is not something most conservatives want. They want decreased spending, more local government to increase accountability and a strong foreign policy. With Bush only the last has been in sight.

Oh, before I forget: Arrrrrrrrr!

BUSH SUCKS!

Yeah but if you are still saying it's 2005 CE you are STILL buying into the religious dogma, even if you give it new letters. What happened around the year 0 that made it the common era, as opposed to, say, 1564 or 1643?

You're not buying into religious dogma, you're simply recognizing that a sizable percentage use a different reckoning system than you do and for convenience and to avoid confusion, you give it a nod. There's no obligation to actually believe the dogma to which it's attached.

Not hardly. Sky high deficits and an increase in the size/power of the federal government is not something most conservatives want. They want decreased spending, more local government to increase accountability and a strong foreign policy. With Bush only the last has been in sight.

And given how badly his bungled out relationships with just about every other nation in the world, his foreign policy isn't exactly something to be proud off.

What gets lost in these debates is that there are different breeds of conservatives and liberals. Bush, for example, is the wet dream of social conservatives and the anti-science conservatives, the factions that believes stopping abortion and the teaching of evolution are the most important issues of the day. He's also favored by big business conservatives, since his main philosophy of government is figuring out how to transfer as much taxpayer's money into the coffers of his corporate buddies.

The main faction in conservative circles that's disappointed with Bush are the limited government conservatives. Fortunately for the GOP, they're being hunted to extinction. :)

Seriously, if we've learned anything in the past tens years, is that if you want to make the GOP the party of big spending, make them the majority party in Congress. If you want to turn the Democrats into deficit hawks, make them the minority party.

And vice versa. It's just the nature of the beast and when you're sitting on $3 trillion dollars to spend, it's easy to justify slipping in a line for a "mere" $221 million for a bridge to nowhere, regardless of what party you belong to.

"Yeah but if you are still saying it's 2005 CE you are STILL buying into the religious dogma, even if you give it new letters. What happened around the year 0 that made it the common era, as opposed to, say, 1564 or 1643?"

Well, no, not really. Common era simply denotes when the calendar that we are all now using started. And sure, you're more then welcome to get into a semantic argument about how that all was organized by the Church in Europe, woppity wop, but that isn't the point. The point is that the Gregorian calendar (a Catholic creation) has been adopted by all nations of the world in common. If this stemmed from a worldwide conversion to christianity, then great. But it didn't. Now, do all nations use it exclusively? Also no. But most use it for international business, politics, etc. So yes, I'd say 'common era' is far more appropriate. Now if you want to rail about it being far too PC, that's your business. I, however, think you're being silly if you do.

So am I buying into the religious dogma? Nope. I'm simply accepting that the current calendar is the one we are using, one that has selected an arbitrary Year Zero that happens to land around the time that Christian legend claims that Jesus Christ was born (even if he was born in 3 BCE or something like that). It's the standard, love it or leave it. I'd use the Iranian calendar or the calendar that the former USSR used, but those aren't really all that popular these days (even if they are basically the same as the one we are using now).

"Every single place where, on the "West Wing," the Bartlet administration--an administration of conscience--zigs, Bush's administration zags."

And that sums up the difference between democrats and republicans. If Alda's character were to be elected this season I believe we would see a much more Bush-like administration.

I was thinking last night about "West Wing" and the desire for a real President Bartlet. I think a lot of what makes Bartlet a president we all admire is that we see what an honorable person he is in his daily life. (The Thanksgiving when he gives Charlie the Bartlet faimily knife I still think is the greatest act of his administration.) I would actually like for the powers that be to do a reality show on the next presidential campain. (Either have one show covering both candidates or one for each.) I think that being able to see the true nature of the Presidential hopefuls would be very beneficial and enlightening to the Americain public.

"(This had better be Talk Like A Pirate Day or I be looking pretty stupid by now, methinks. Arrrrrr?)"

Can't it be both?

"If Alda's character were to be elected this season I believe we would see a much more Bush-like administration"

Absolutely not. Because Bush's administration serves the interests of religious extremists in everything from invasion of privacy to making decisions about science based upon religious dogma; whereas Alda's Arnold Vinnick is a man of fractured faith who has taken all questions about his religious practices off the table (an action that, in real life, would not settle the issue but instead serve as the starting gun for the press to make EVERY question about his religious practices. Then again, "West Wing" has been something of a political fantasy since the beginning, so...)

PAD

I think that being able to see the true nature of the Presidential hopefuls would be very beneficial and enlightening to the Americain public.

Which is exactly why it'll never happen. Both parties spend far too much time and money creating an image of what they think the American people want in a president to mess it up by letting the American people see what they're really like in person.

Alan Alda plays a Republican? So if he wins the presidency and WW follows him, it's a safe bet that conservative views WON'T be shown. While I don't doubt it would be interesting, I doubt it would be fair...

> I was thinking last night about "West Wing"
> and the desire for a real President Bartlet.

He exists: his name is Howard Dean.

I head Dean give a speech on C-Span in February 2004 which sounded as if Aaron Sorkin had written it...and he was Governor of Vermont vs. Bartlet's Governor of New Hampshire.

"(This had better be Talk Like A Pirate Day or I be looking pretty stupid by now, methinks. Arrrrrr?)"

Can't it be both?

Arrrr, just couldn't resist sticking your mizzenmast up me poopdeck! I'll Keeh-haul ya for this!

He exists: his name is Howard Dean.

Oh great, now I have to clean coffee off my keyboard...

Speaking of Dean, I've been wondering: obviously Hillary Clinton is running (Bill's appearance this weekend made that clear). Obviously John Kerry is ready for another shot at it. Am I right in thinking that Dean has already taken himself out of the race? I seem to remember something to that effect. Which might be too bad for those who like him because I could imagine a scenario where he benefits from a Kerry/Hillary slugfest.

Not that I don't fully expect Hillary Clinton to be the next Democratic nominee, because I do and I think that those who have for some reason insisted that she would never get the nod will have some serious crow to eat. Whether or not she will win may well depend on who the Republicans nominate. McCain or Rudy--she loses. Any other Senator or Romney--she wins. Some governor to be named later...we'll see.

Dean is out for at least the next election. His job as chair of the DNC is to basically hand everyone their balls back. I'd love to think that Kerry and Edwards know better, but sadly, I know better. They will be also-rans in the next cycle, much like Slieperman was in 04.

I don't find it improbable at all that Hillary would get the nod, I just find it improbable that she'd get elected. She never seemed to engender the same good feeling amongst people that Bill Clinton did. That said, I'd like to see it come down to Wes Clark and Hillary as the final two. I'd love to see who the Democrats vote off the island then...

Ladies & Gentlemen, Mr Lawrence O'Donnell, writer and, sometimes, co-producer of The Left, I mean The West Wing:

http://www.dailyrecycler.com/blog/2004/10/breakdown.html

Didn't Ruth Bader Ginsburg desire to lower the age of sexual consent to.... what was it... twelve? Thirteen?

There's your absolute right to privacy.