Wednesday, March 30, 2005

I (heart) American jurisprudence today.

"Any further action by our court or the district court would be improper," wrote Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., who was appointed by former President Bush. "While the members of her family and the members of Congress have acted in a way that is both fervent and sincere, the time has come for dispassionate discharge of duty."

Birch went on to scold President Bush and Congress for their attempts to intervene in the judicial process, by saying: "In resolving the Schiavo controversy, it is my judgment that, despite sincere and altruistic motivation, the legislative and executive branches of our government have acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers' blueprint for the governance of a free people — our Constitution."


Couldn't have said it better.

Now that the ice is broken, will a fucking DEMOCRAT stand up and say the same thing??? Just one? Please?

UPDATE: Thanks to Rachel Maddow on the final broadcast of Unfiltered on AAR this morning, I was directed to my answer (sorta):

Two Democratic senators who have thought [the Schiavo issue] through, Tom Harkin and Ron Wyden, took very different positions. Harkin, of Iowa, was a prime mover behind the Senate decision to join with the Republicans to urge federal judicial review. Harkin is close to the disability community, which worries about "right-to-die" issues, and Senate Democrats deferred to him on Schiavo. He forged the coalition with Republicans Frist, Santorum, Martinez and, according to two sources, had the support of former President Clinton for his actions. While Mr. Clinton apparently didn't talk to Harkin until after the vote, one source described Mr. Clinton as "egging him on."


SOURCE

Someone please remind Harkin that in his time as president and consiglieri, the Democrats show net losses in (a) state Democratic governors, (b) state Democratic legislators, (c) Democratic House memberships, (d) Democratic Senate memberships, (e) registered Democratic voters, (f) Democratic Party identification, and (g) 0-2 versus the GOP nationally since he was term-limited out. He even managed a net loss in the 1996 midterm elections, which was nigh unprecedented.

Whether or not you like Clinton, and whether or not you thought we were better off under Clinton, that's food for thought.

You keep doing what you're doing, and you expect different results.........

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure the picture is as bleak as all that. There are 22 Democratic governors; last I checked, that made the margin only 3 states. And Dems are governors of both highly populated states (IL, MI, WI), and of rural states (KS, IA), so something in the formula must be working.

In seven states, there's a Dem governor and Dems control both houses of the Legislature, to the Republicans' 12 states.

Also, there is a majority of Democrats holding seats in the state legislatures - by only two people, I'll grant you, but we're not getting our asses kicked. 23 state Houses are held by Democrats; 24 states have Senates ruled by the Democrats. NC, CO and MT had a state legislative body flip to the Dems in '04.

And the 'red state' myth is largely that on the ground: Alabama's entire state government is controlled by Dems. So is Arkansas'; LA, MS and WV are the same. TN's House is still Democratic and the margin is razor thin in the Senate.

Sure, it'd be nice if more folks on the national level 'stood up on their hind legs,' as Larry Daughtrey commented they ought, but let's not lose sight of how much legislation actually gets passed on the state level.

Sources: http://www.statedecisions2004.com/legislature.aspx; http://www.democraticgovernors.org/governors/index.html; http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/state/2004-12-14-dems-hidden-election_x.htm?POE=click-refer.

Andy Axel said...

...something in the formula must be working.

Why Bill Clinton insists on adopting Republican policy as a means of winning the hearts and minds of the Democratic constituency, I don't know. That's the point. The results are a mixed bag. If nothing else, the mere fact of a George W. Bush presidency is testament to that.

And I'm not sanguine when I consider whether or not that formula works for anyone other than Bill Clinton. That goes for Tom Harkin, that goes for Ron Wyden, that goes for John Kerry, and that sure as hell goes for Hillary Clinton (if that, ultimately, is the point of this little exercise in capitulation).

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