RUSH: Somebody said in the last hour that this Rove thing has taken the Supreme Court off the front page. It really hasn’t. Mike, grab audio sound bites 16, 17, and 18. We have some audio from yesterday and this morning about this subject. Let’s go to the White House this morning, President Bush and India’s prime minister held a joint press conference. Reuters reporter Adam Entous says, “We understand you’re now close to a decision on the Supreme Court nominee, sir.”
BUSH: Really? (Laughter.) Well, thank you for telling me where I am in the process. I appreciate that. We’ve consulted with the Senate, we will continue to consult with the Senate. I, of course, am the person that picks the nominee and they get to decide whether or not the nominee gets confirmed. That’s the way it has worked in the past, that’s the way it’s going to work in this administration. This is a really important decision and I’m going to take my time, and I will be thorough and deliberate. But make no mistake, we’ve heard a lot of suggestions from members of the United States Senate. A lot. As it turns out, many of the senators have strong opinions one way or the other, and of course we’re listening to them, and if that’s the backstop, we’re working back to try to accommodate the Senate and their desire. Part of the consultation was to ask the senators, you know, what’s it take to get somebody in place by the October session? Thank you for your question, and thank you for telling me how close I am to — or at least indicating what others think.
RUSH: And that has been reported today that the president is going to have a name by the end of this week. I think that’s what the reporter was referring to. Now, I wouldn’t get too concerned here, folks, about the president saying he’s consulting with the Senate. The key line there is, he’s going to pick the nominee, and they will get to vote to confirm or not. I think all of this is simply to show how cooperative he’s willing to be even with these little Chihuahuas nipping at his heels. He’s going to do what he can to show the American people he’s working together. He does not speak in a partisan way, he does not speak in a confrontational way. Only the Democrats do that. It’s just going to be another nail in their coffin because the one thing he knows, that no matter who he nominates, unless it’s one of the names that Dingy Harry gave him, unless it’s one of those people, they’re going to just go to town. They won’t be able to help themselves.
They literally won’t be able to help themselves. Now, yesterday on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, the guest is Chuck Schumer, who’s everywhere. He’s with Joe Wilson, he probably took Valerie Wilson to dinner one night last week when Joe was on TV — who knows, he’s all over the place. Put a camera there and you can be guaranteed to find Chuck Schumer, and who outside of New York cares? He’s exactly the wrong guy for the Democrats to be using as a point man on anything, but they will keep doing it. So Bob Schieffer says, “The nomination to the Supreme Court to replace Justice O’Connor. Do you think this needs to be done sooner rather than later? Do you believe the president ought to share with you, those of you who will confirm the next nomination, the list of people he’s considering before he names a nominee?”
JUNIOR SENATOR: Those are both good questions, and the answer to both is yes. I think the president has to get us a name by August 1st if we’re going to meet the goal of having someone in place by October 1st and that’s because you need about a month to actually just do all the research, looking at the nominee’s entire history, their writings, their philosophy, et cetera.
RUSH: As if they haven’t already done that. They’ve got a dossier on probably a thousand people. And they’re ready to go to town to destroy every one of them that they think Bush might nominate. So here’s Schumer, he’s giving President Bush’s deadlines, gotta be by August 1st. But what a sycophant question from a sorry excuse for a journalist, Bob Schieffer. He knows the Constitution as well as anybody else, and if he’s going to ask this question the right way, the question should be, “What are you Democrats demanding that you be consulted with on a pick for the Supreme Court? The Constitution says the president gets the nominations, and that’s what elections are all about. You guys didn’t win the election. Why in the world do you think you have a role at all in selecting the nominee?” But, no, that’s not what we got from Schieffer, because he’s one of this gang. He says, “You believe the president ought to share with those of you who will confirm this next nomination the list of people he’s considering before he names a nominee?” Oh, yes, yes, yeah, like that’s done all the time. You just have to remember here, folks, as far as these people are concerned, Bush is a criminal because he’s a Republican.
He’s an even worse criminal because he’s the president. Conservatives, conservatism, conservative ideology, all criminal, according to Democrats. It’s all out of the mainstream. It’s just the continuation of the attempted criminalization of Republican policy and conservative policy. Then in this next bite, Schumer denies that he and the Democrats are going to go to war over the nominee. Jan Crawford Greenburg, participating journalist on Slay the Nation, she’s of the Chicago Tribune. She said, “Senator Schumer, you’ve suggested there’s going to be a war, no matter what, you’ve been quoted saying that as have other Democrats. Does that send a signal to the White House that it may not need to reach a consensus nominee, and perhaps nominate somebody as conservative as possible, since there’s going to be a battle no matter what?”
JUNIOR SENATOR: Well, that’s absolutely false. I have said over and over again, publicly ’til I’m blue in the face that we want a consensus nominee and we want to support a nominee that the president chooses. You know, we know that the president’s nominee is going to be a conservative, no question, the president himself is a conservative. But it can be a Sandra Day O’Connor type conservative, thoughtful, willing to see the other side, pragmatic, or it can be someone way, way off the deep end and I’m hoping that there can be a consensus nominee. The blog that reported that did not report it correctly.
RUSH: Okay, the blog that reported that you said it was going to be war. (Laughing.) He hasn’t said the opposite ’til he’s blue in the face, and he is gearing up for a war, and it’s how he’s going to make points because he hates being the junior Senator from New York when he’s really the senior senator. He’s been there longer than Mrs. Rodham but he’s considered the junior Senator for New York while she gets all the publicity. So he’s trying to outshine her and get himself known and all this. Of course, there’s a Sandra Day O’Connor type conservative, thoughtful, willing to see the other side, meaning wuss, meaning somebody agrees with us, because we know conservatives are criminals, we know conservatives are extremists and kooks.
Say we need somebody that agrees with us. It’s the arrogance and the condescension of these people that just grates, it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. As I say, Chuck, go win an election. Go win a national election and then you get to do all this. And after do you win the next national election, whatever it is, I want to see how cooperative you are, or your president is, with the Senate in letting the opposition party choose the nominee. I just want to see how cooperative you all end up being the day that happens. I’ll not hold my breath.
The San Francisco Chronicle today, a piece by Mark Sandalow, who is their Washington bureau chief. “The Bush legacy. What voters never see is the political grace of a man that once made him a good guy in American politics.” Now, listen to this. “It’s not too late for George W. Bush to rescue his reputation as a good guy in American politics. That is not a statement many readers will find easy to accept. It is clear from thousands of e-mails from Northern Californians, liberal friends, and even family members, that many on the left are so appalled by Bush’s policies, triumphs, and even his manner, that they are incapable of seeing what made him the winner of two consecutive elections.
What they never see is the political grace of a man who works easily with Democrats, who is comfortable sharing credit, who understands that ends do not justify means, and recognizes that opponents are as well intentioned as supporters. It is little wonder that they don’t see it. Such traits have not been evident since Gov. Bush left the Texas statehouse 4 1/2 years ago. Since winning the presidency, Bush has antagonized Democrats, pushed controversial tax cuts, promoted an unpopular war, withdrawn from international treaties, nominated conservative judges, expanded police powers, boosted military spending, and rolled back environmental protections.”
He used to be a good guy until he became a conservative. He was a good guy until he pushed some tax cuts. See, tax cuts are controversial. He antagonized Democrats? Do we even need to respond to this? He’s the last guy to antagonize Democrats. You know how you antagonize Democrats? Be a conservative. Be who you are. Implement what you believe. Put your ideology in motion and triumph! That’s all it takes to antagonize Democrats. Because Democrats are so arrogant and condescending they don’t believe that should ever happen. And then, of course, an unpopular war, promoted an unpopular war.
Does this not tell us that with Democrats, there’s no such thing as a just war? And then, withdrawn from international treaties. There are two treaties that are being discussed here. One is one of those strategic arms treaties that was made with the old Soviet Union, which doesn’t exist anymore, it never worked anyway, it was worthless. The other is Kyoto, I’m sure, which we never were part of, and never were going to sign. Bush is just being a conservative. He’s just implementing what he said he was going to campaign on. He’s just implementing the policies of those who elected him for the good of the country. But because this equals the near criminalization of American policy, why, people are not seeing the political grace of a guy that once made him a good guy in American politics.
What was that, he got along with Democrats? Name me a conservative who does get along with Democrats, who’s a real conservative. Name me one. Don’t give me a name of a conservative that every now and then will predictably go on television or write in the newspapers, “Well, Bush is wrong,” and then can thus be embraced by — give me a genuine conservative the Democrats love. You can’t. That person does not exist. Expanded police powers, boosted military spending, rolled back environmental protections. I guess, Mr. Sandalow forgets that part of all of this led to keeping us safe after 9/11. You see, what’s missing from all of this is 9/11. 9/11 didn’t happen, as far as they’re concerned, all the policies that descend from 9/11 happened in a vacuum, without any cause whatsoever. 9/11 wasn’t worth all this, we didn’t have to respond to it this way, we could have made a deal with these people, we could have appeased, we could have brought in the French, we could have gone to the United Nations.
There is no disagreement that Bush has failed on his promise to change the tone of Washington by being a uniter, not a divider. Here again the arrogance of the left. What’s he supposed to do, come in and act like he didn’t win the election and let you guys run the show? Is he supposed to do what Trent Lott did and let Tom Daschle share power in a Senate that the Republicans had the majority votes in? Is that what’s supposed to happen here, Mr. Sandalow? Change the tone of Washington? I’ll tell you what, if the tone of Washington’s gotten any worse, we all know why. It’s because of the hysterical cacophony that has come from kooks on the left that have now become the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s just more of the same here.
END TRANSCRIPT
Read the Article…
Headline: Could the Founders have imagined such judicial arrogance?
Source: National Review
By: Rick Santorum
Date: July 18, 2005
The village elders (a.k.a. left-wing members of Congress) introduce very few bills — almost none that attract more than one or two cosponsors. There are no hearings where Congress and the public can hear arguments about the merits to society of changing its moral fabric. Did Congress pass a law that said it was illegal to display a Christmas cr?che on public property, tell us we could not recite the pledge that we are “one nation under God” in schools, or legislate away displays of the Ten Commandments from public buildings? Did we pass a constitutional amendment that gave anyone a right to marry as many people of whatever gender they want? Did we pass an amendment that gave women the right to abort their children at any time, for any reason, during pregnancy? Did we pass a law that minors could undergo the surgical procedure of abortion without parental consent or notification? The answer to all of these questions is: No! Not in one state legislature, much less in the U.S. Congress, did the democratic branches of government, the people’s branches, pass such amendments or enact such laws. How could the moral fabric of America be so torn apart without so much as a single act of Congress duly signed by the president?
The answer is, of course, the courts — most particularly, the federal courts. A generation ago, liberals figured out something that most conservatives couldn’t have dreamed of in their worst nightmare. A few well-positioned autocrats can do what most Americans thought, and the Constitution says, takes two-thirds of the Congress and three-quarters of the state legislatures to do: namely, change the Constitution to mean whatever they want it to mean. The plan was simple. Put justices on the Supreme Court, backed up by lower court judges, to “modernize” our Constitution by fiat, with the claim that Supreme Court decisions, whether based on the words of the Constitution or not, have the same status as the Constitution itself.
How often do we hear that our founding compact needs to be a living, breathing document whose meaning changes with the times? Never mind what the words of our Constitution actually say; never mind the clear intent of the Constitution’s writers and signers; never mind two hundred years of judicial interpretation; never mind the centuries-old wisdom of the common law: We are much wiser today than our predecessors. Or so goes the liberal boast. In fact, it is said, we are now able to see just what they were “getting at” even better than they could — as if the U.S. Constitution were only a “nice try” at a plan of government.
I have been referring to the Left as the “village elders.” Well, when it comes to the Court and its activist decisions, we have come to the high oligarchy of the village elders: accountable to no one, deciding the most important and troubling issues of our time, issues that speak to our very identity as a people and even as human beings. And all of this has been done undemocratically — even anti-democratically.
With Congress, if the people decide its representatives have made a mistake, the people can throw them out and bring in different ones to correct with new laws any errors perpetrated by the old. But the Supreme Court almost never has second thoughts: It certainly has not had second thoughts about its fundamental project of the past generation, the project of moral revolution enshrined in law. In fact, in the infamous Casey decision in 1992, which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade and the abortion license, the Court’s majority opinion actually said that widespread popular opposition to Roe was an important reason for the Court to stick to its pro-abortion decision: To do otherwise would “subvert” the Court’s “legitimacy.” In other words, the village elders have spoken, and it is up to the American people to shut up and obey.
Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist papers called the courts the “least dangerous branch” of the new federal government. Could our founders, who had thrown off monarchic rule in the name of democracy, ever have imagined such judicial arrogance? Actually, some eventually did. Thomas Jefferson said in 1821:
The germ of destruction of our nation is in the power of the judiciary, an irresponsible body — working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall render powerless the checks of one branch over the other and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
We now see who was right. Sodomy and abortion are now not only legal; they are constitutional rights. What is more, our courts have been coming closer with every decision to proclaiming that there can be no difference, in law, between marriage and cohabitation. And of course we are also on the verge of court-mandated same-sex marriage.
I often use the extended metaphor of various kinds of “capital.” When it comes to what has happened to our moral capital in the past generation or two, I am stymied for a verb to use. It wasn’t “squandered” or “spent down”; it didn’t “trickle away.” The verbs that come to mind are destroyed and replaced. Traditional morality is being destroyed, and being replaced by something that claims to be morality, but ultimately has little social benefit or ability to sustain the democratic experiment. In China during the so-called Great Leap Forward at the end of the 1950s, Chairman Mao ordered every town and village to participate in smelting iron for steel production. The promise was that through the new techniques of Communism, China would quickly surpass Western capitalist nations in steel. Obedient to their orders, peasants melted down pots and pans and farm implements, with the promise that shiny new and better utensils of steel would be quickly returned. What in fact happened was that these villagers were left with large lumps of useless iron — and with no tools left to farm with. One of the world’s greatest famines soon followed. What we Americans did with our moral capital over the last generation is like what those Chinese peasants did with their capital tools for farming: On government orders — in our case, on Court orders — we melted it down, for nothing.
— Senator Rick Santorum is the junior United States senator from Pennsylvania. Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, he is the third-highest-ranking Republican in the U.S. Senate.