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saturday, april 9, 2005
Fetus People on the March!
A little learning is a dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) - An Essay on Criticism.
Today Michelle Malkin is quivering with outrage over a Lancet report
on euthanasia of newborns in Belgium. She quotes an article not linked to, which I assume is the Lancet article:
In 40 cases, opiate pain killers were
used in doses with a potentially life-shortening affect. In 17 cases, a lethal dose or lethal drugs were administered. Overall,
the research yielded information on 253 out of the total of 298 infant deaths in the region over the period. The lethal doses
of painkillers, which broke Belgian law, were mainly administered to babies less than a week old.
Most were premature babies with severe
congenital malformations or handicaps and what was described as a poor quality of life, or very premature babies with severe
brain damage. Four fifths of the doctors who completed an "attitudinal survey" agreed that "the task of the physician sometimes
involves the prevention of unnecessary suffering by hastening death".
Without knowing any more than Lulu does
I cannot say if these physicians euthanized infants that other physicians might have tried to save. Although one can always
find exceptions, most of us believe that babies should not be euthanized just because of an imperfection, and we don’t want
to give the government or physicians or anyone else the authority to choose whether a life is worth continuing.
However, I suspect that if Lulu had even
half a clue of what the “malformations” entailed, she’d be a little less outraged.
I’m probably not the person who should
be writing this essay, as I have no personal experience with babies born with, as the medical texts say, conditions “incompatible
with life.” My two babies were born full term and healthy.
However, back in the 1950s, when most kids
learned about human anatomy from photos in National Geographic, my source was my
Ma’s obstetric nursing journals. The articles about compromised neonates usually featured photographs of dead newborns laid
out next to a ruler to provide scale. These were the babies born with conditions “incompatible with life,” meaning they lacked
the use of one or more vital organs necessary to keep them alive. They lived in utero because, as long as they were attached
to an umbilical cord, their mother’s body was doing the work of the missing parts. For such an infant, birth is a death sentence.
For example, a baby born without much in
the way of a head might have enough brain stem to maintain a heart and circulatory system in the womb, but, lacking a nose
and mouth, cannot take a first breath. Yes, this happens. I saw the photos.
In some cases, the infant’s body can sustain
its life for a few hours or even days, but there is absolutely no hope for improvement of the infant’s condition. For example,
little Sun Hudson, recently disconnected from a ventilator against the wishes of his mother, had a deformity
of the lungs that provided no hope of survival.
My understanding is that for generations,
the standard practice has been to keep the infant comfortable but provide no aggressive care until whatever little bit of
life it was capable of had run its course. It may be that in some cases the infant is in great pain, however, and that takes
us into another gray corner of medical practice.
For a great many years, doctors treating
terminal patients in great pain—adults and children—smacked into an ethical/moral conundrum. The drugs that most effectively
controlled pain had the side effect of suppressing the respiratory system, and sometimes the dosage required to make the patient
comfortable was also a big enough dose to kill him. Nobody called this euthanasia,
since the medication was given for the purpose of controlling pain. But the fact is that, through the years, a great many
people who officially died of, say, cancer, really died of an overdose of morphine.
And I repeat, this has been going on for
years. For example:
The following day he was so drowsy that
Douglas
thought he would die. But he did not die. Not malnutrition, massive bleeding, or pneumonia would rob the inexorable cancer
of its power to destroy. The doctors, consciously or subconsciously, were practicing euthanasia with their injections of brandy
and morphine and applications of cocaine, but Grant held on. The Reverend Dr. Newman hovered. The family gathered: Buck was
summoned from New York. At eleven-thirty, Grant whispered
to the doctor that he wanted them all, including the minister, to go to bed.
The next day, July 22, Dr. Shrady and
Buck arrived by special train. All of the general’s children were now with him, and three of his grandchildren. So too was
Julia. That evening a bed was brought down from the hotel, and Fred asked his father, who had not slept lying down in months,
if he would give up his chairs and go to bed. The general finally surrendered and whispered that he would. His body was gaunt
but his “beautiful hand,” small and strong, clutched the blanket. He lasted the night, and early in the morning the exhausted
family left his bedside, but the morphine was doing its work. It accumulated in Grant’s brain and finally disabled the respiration
and circulatory centers in the brain stem. At seven o’clock McQueeney, the nurse, ran for the doctor and for Tyrrell, who
went up and hastily knocked on the bedroom doors. The family came downstairs. Julia had already come in to be with her husband.
At 8 a.m. on July 23, 1885, Ulysses S. Grant died. [William S. McFeely, Grant: A Biography
(W.W. Norton, 1981), pp. 516-517]
I don’t keep up with advances in medicine,
so today there may be effective pain medications with no lethal side effects. I don’t know. But since pain itself causes great
stress to the body that can hasten death, it’s possible the morphine that eventually killed them also kept patients alive
a bit longer than they would have lived without it. Who knows?
My point is that I would not be surprised
if, in the case of a terminally malformed neonate who appears to be in pain, sometimes the physician administers a little
dose of something to dull the pain but which also hurries death along. I don’t know that this actually happens; I’m just saying
it wouldn’t surprise me.
And it’s possible that nothing goes on
in Belgium that doesn’t happen in the United
States; it’s just that the doctors of Belgium
are able to speak more frankly about it without being targeted for execution by the Fetus People.
Further, since the infant mortality rate
in Belgium is notably lower than that of the U.S. (4.4 per 1,000 infants in Belgium; 6.7 in the U.S., according to the Population Reference Bureau) I suggest that Lulu get outraged about all the American babies who die every year in
the U.S. but who would have survived in Belgium. But I digress.
According to an article posted on Medscape
(Tricia L. Romesberg, “Futile Care and the Newborn,” November 12, 2003; registration required):
With advances in medical technology,
the concept of futile care has become more prevalently disputed. There are now so many stages between health and death that
the medical profession and the legal system are forced to examine the boundaries in more detail. …
Three conceptual types of futility have
been identified: physiologic futility, imminent demise futility, and lethal condition futility. Futile care may also be defined
as quantitative: "When physicians conclude (either through personal experience, experiences shared with colleagues, or consideration
of reported empiric data) that in the last 100 cases, a medical treatment has been useless." Qualitative futility describes
treatment that "merely preserves permanent unconsciousness or cannot end dependence on intensive medical care."
The concept of futility is linked to
the use of massive resources in the final days of life, which has been likened to a medical avalanche. Some feel that futile
care is an appropriate place to start rationing health care dollars. Although this may seem unjust, care deemed as futile
may be a more acceptable alternative to limiting resource consumption than rationing on the basis of social worth or ability
to pay.
In other words, we have some hard choices
to make, and we need to make them without hysteria and hyperbole. The author continues,
The majority of neonatal conditions
requiring end-of-life care include extreme prematurity, lethal anomalies, and those that require continuing aggressive care
that is considered to be more burdensome than beneficial. Once the decision to discontinue life support is made, the next
objective is to guide the family through the withdrawal of support. Nurses strive to support the process of dying in a way
that encourages healthy grieving and minimizes regrets. This includes full disclosure of what to expect in regard to the actual
process of dying. Honest admission of the uncertain nature of a time estimate for death to occur is important. Perhaps most
importantly, all involved parties must have a mutually agreed-upon plan: to reduce the potential for the family to doubt their
decision.
As the plan of care shifts from curative
to palliative, families are driven by the task of helping their infant through death, instead of by the hope of survival.
Palliative care should add life to the infant's time, not add time to the infant's life.
Hysteria and ignorance cause politicians
to step in and regulate medical care through legislation like the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act. In Fetus People Land, aggressive care should be applied
even in futile cases, building up false hope and unrealistic expectations and thus more bitter heartbreak, rather than to
allow for realistic and compassionate acceptance of what must be.
And just as the Fetus People arrogantly
assume that women who seek abortions must be brainless and heartless twits, they also seem to assume that physicians don’t
care about life and death and suffering. Actually, I suspect most of ‘em do.
But I’m afraid the Fetus People have found
their new Cause. They will march forth in their self-indulgent ignorance, spreading suffering and inhumanity as they go.
Today a bunch of rightie bloggers are worked
up over the case of a Georgia woman who, they say, is neither terminal nor comatose but is being deprived of care by a granddaughter
who, naturally, will inherit a bunch of money when Granny dies. In other words, they’ve found their new Terri Schiavo.
Now, if the facts of the case are as the
bloggers describe them, poor Granny is indeed being callously and cruelly starved to death. However, if the facts of the case
are as the bloggers describe them, I will eat my sneakers.
For example, if Granny is lucid and wants
to be treated, as they say, then I’m sure Georgia
state law requires that she be treated. No court or next of kin could order otherwise. Further, if Granny’s condition isn’t terminal, then physicians are going to treat her, because to do otherwise would probably make them indictable
for murder.
Makes me long for the good old days when
the whackjobs were worked up about the government adding fluoride to drinking water. Well, folks, stay healthy, and keep your
head down.
Update: Some
rightie blogs are questioning the veracity of the Dying Granny story. Just One Minute discovered that Granny's nephew, who is giving radio interviews to draw attention to the story, is a long-time Democratic
Party operative of some sort, which J.O.M. finds significant. Perhaps it's OK to euthanize Democrats. This blogger published an email from an evangelical minister who lives in the same community as Granny, and the reverend says
The details are
many, but in short, the grandmother is not being denied anything, but refuses herself to eat (there never was a feeding tube).
POA arrangements were made while the court was on break by the family among themselves. The judge was not in the room when
the family agreed among themselves to give custody to the granddaughter.
However,
if you read the attached comments, it's clear the Fetus People aren't buying the minister's story. The judge must be lying. He's a judge, after all. I guess
the minister was either duped or is in on the scheme to kill Granny. You never know who's going to turn out to be a murdering
death cultist, or possibly even a (organ glissando, F minor) liberal.
Essentially,
the Fetus People have found a glorious cause that gives them a heady self-righteousness fix, and they ain't
gonna give it up, facts be damned.
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Democracy on the March!
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Tens of thousands of Shiites marked the anniversary of
the fall of Baghdad with a protest against American troops at the same square where jubilant crowds toppled a statue of Saddam
Hussein two years ago.
The protesters back radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army
militiamen led uprisings last year against U.S. troops before signing truces with U.S.-led forces.
Held in the shadow of the Sheraton and Palestine hotels - home to foreign
journalists and contractors - the protest reflected frustration both with the U.S. government, which is slowly handing security
responsibilities to Iraqi forces, and anger toward the Sunni Arab-led insurgency.
``This huge gathering shows that the Iraqi people have the strength and faith
to protect their country and liberate it from the occupiers,'' said protester Ahmed Abed, a 26-year-old who sells spare car
parts. ...
... The protesters filled Firdos Square and spilled onto nearby avenues, waving
Iraqi flags. Mimicking the famous images of U.S. soldiers and Iraqis pulling down a statue of Saddam as Baghdad fell, protesters
toppled effigies of President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Saddam - all dressed in red Iraqi prison jumpsuits
that signified they had been condemned to death.
Other effigies of Bush and Saddam were burned. ...
... Demonstrators carried a symbolic coffin, draped with an Iraqi flag, and
swung from a statue said to represent freedom and constructed on the pedestal where Saddam's statue once stood. Robed and
turbaned Shiite clerics were seen among the crowd.
I checked with some of the rightie bloggers
who were all over the anti-Syrian demonstrations in Lebanon a few days ago, but for some reason they're quiet about the Iraqi
demonstrations. Maybe they just haven't seen the news story yet.
Yeah, that must be it. Otherwise, by now
they'd have decided the demonstrations are fake and the demonstrators were all bused in from Iran. Give 'em time.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Via Avedon, we learn that back in 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign
officials secretly negotiated with Iranian leaders for release of American hostages behind President Carter's back. But the
report was kept hidden from the American people until discovered by reporter Robert Parry in a Capitol Hill storage room.
In other words, the October
surprise weren't no surprise. But I'm sure you're not surprised.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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friday, april 8, 2005
The Big Dog Rules
Ten minutes before the scheduled start of the funeral, the U.S. delegation
arrived, headed by President Bush, and including his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former President Bill
Clinton.
President Bush sat on the aisle in the second row, next to his wife, Laura.
Beside them were French President Jacques Chirac and his wife, Bernadette. The two presidents shook hands.
When Bush's face appeared on giant screen TVs showing
the ceremony, many in the crowds outside St. Peter's Square booed and whistled.
David E. Sanger writes in the New York Times: "While Romans were unlikely to catch a glimpse
of President Bush -- he moved only in motorcades and appeared only at a few official events -- Mr. Clinton was clearly
reveling in the fact that shoppers, tourists having lunch at outdoor cafes and Italian business people walking to meetings
all stopped to greet him.
" 'Isn't this a great city?' he said. Along the streets, people starting
yelling 'Bill, Bill, Bill,' and a few shouted 'U.S.A.!' One shopkeeper raced out with a photograph of Mr. Clinton on a past
visit. . . .
"He reminisced about his long walking tours of the backstreets of Hanoi and
Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, during the last long foreign trip of his presidency. 'You go around the world and you see
a lot of affection for Americans,' he said."
Apparently some Americans are more lovable than others.
See also:
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A Tale of Two Executives
Polls show striking erosion in support for the president
and in confidence about the nation's course. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey released Wednesday found that only 34 percent
of those polled felt the country was headed in the right direction, a decline of eight percentage points since the previous
survey in February. The president's job approval rating in the NBC/Journal poll had also fallen, to 48 percent from 50 percent
in February.
The Bush presidency seems to be sinking like a rock in a pond.
In the L.A.Times, George Skelton writes that something similar appears to be happening to Governor Ahnold.
Fewer than half of Californians now approve of the way the governor
is handling his job, a sharp decline since January.
Moreover, people think California has gotten off on the wrong track.
These
are the findings of a statewide poll to be released today by the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State. It
indicates that the Schwarzenegger luster is fading, especially among Democrats.
Other polls have found the governor
to be slipping in popularity and the electorate becoming polarized as he acts more partisan and combative.
And to think a few months ago Republicans were talking about amending the
Constitution so that a foreign-born person could be President.
According to Skelton, Californians are growing weary of Schwarzenegger's
endless grandstanding. The Governator's style of dealing with issues is to stage elaborate, gimmicky events to sell
his proposals and apply pressure to legislators, rather than just work with the legislators. He's still behaving like the
barnstorming political outsider, which is a tough act to pull off when you're the governor. Further, it appears Schwarzenegger
made a huge tactical error by taking on the unions for nurses, teachers, firefighters, and police. People need nurses,
teachers, firefighters, and police in their daily lives; it's media hog governors they can do without.
On the national stage, Ignatius and other pundits think that Bush's slump
can be traced to his handling of Social Security and his widely unpopular intervention in the Terri Schiavo flap. Out-of-control gas prices may also finally be taking a toll, Juan Cole suggests. But Ignatius points to deeper reasons:
A passive Bush is still waiting for Congress to take the lead on the
benefit cuts or tax increases that will be necessary. "If you've got a good idea, we expect you to be at the table. . . .
We want to listen to good ideas," the president said last week during a stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That hardly sounds like
bold leadership. ...
I asked one of Bush's political advisers recently why the president
hadn't worked more closely with congressional leaders to deal with America's serious financial problems. He answered that
this president has no interest in dickering with committee chairmen over the details of legislation. Bush is a man of large
ambition who wants big, bold victories -- who wants to hit home runs rather than singles and doubles.
To me that's the heart of Bush's problem. He's swinging for the fences,
on everything from Iraq to Social Security. But leadership isn't just about soaring rhetoric; it's about responsible stewardship.
And in the end, it's about solving problems. Perhaps that's the real reason the president has lost momentum since that remarkable
Inauguration Day speech. The country elected him to be a leader, not a barnstormer.
In other words, neither Bush nor Schwarzenegger are real leaders. They just
play the role on TV.
Voters, please note: Both of these guys are good at swagger, bluster, and
tough talk, but as candidates for office and as executives they were, and are, light in the accomplishment and
experience columns. Are we learning a lesson yet?
Juan Cole writes that Bush "has been teflon in
the US in the face of torture, intelligence failures, and gross mismanagement of the country he conquered, apparently because
a majority of Americans just doesn't care." Certainly right-wing ideologues don't care about those issues. But imagine if
we could, one on one, sit down with non-ideological Americans and talk to them about these issues, without having to scream
over the rightie noise machine. I imagine a whopping large number of non-ideological Americans would care about
these issues if they understood the facts. The problem is that, short of an armed takeover of "mainstream media" (which,
please note, I do not advocate) there's little chance of the unfiltered facts seeping through.
 But domestic issues are different. The Right may be able to sell swamp water in regard to matters happening on the other side
of the globe. But sooner or later most people do notice if the domestic talking points aren't matching up to what they're
experiencing in their own lives. Bush can get his picture taken in front of inspirational posters all day long. Sooner or
later, folks will realize that their lives are getting harder, not easier.
Over on BOP News, Stirling Newberry notes some of the Bush Administration's most recent accomplishments and proposals: Cuts in housing aid, the prescription drug plan
from hell, and billions of dollars in defense overruns. Plenty of money for pork; not a cent for the needs of the people.
In yesterday's WaPo, Dan Froomkin wrote that even House Republicans are getting nervous about the costs of the Bamboozlepalooza tour. The road show is costing taxpayers
millions of dollars in jet fuel and staff salaries. And the waste continues, even as everyone but Bush himself, it seems,
knows that the privatization scheme is toast.
Meanwhile, the Right's lunatic fundie fringe, which was willing to maintain
a (relatively) low profile to help get Bush elected, no longer has a reason to wait for payback. And as Mo Dowd says, "Before, Republicans just scared other people. Now, they're starting to scare themselves." I suspect the Republican Party
may soon have to face its own Sister Souljah moment and cut the Religious Right loose in order to reassure mainstream
Americans that the GOP isn't really a wholly owned subsidiary of Whackjob, Inc. But what will Karl Rove have
to say about that?
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thursday, april 7, 2005
Gotcha
By now you've heard that Memogate: The Sequel is a bust. The infamous
"let's exploit Terri Schiavo for political purposes" memo that the righties were oh, so certain was a forgery was written by the legal counsel of a Republican senator and widely distributed to Repubicans on the Hill.
I don't recall that I blogged about this memo before, as I never saw it as being
that big a deal, but not long ago some righties were blowing it up as a five-alarm scandal. For example, Captain Ed wrote on March 23,
This appears to be a coordinated effort to misrepresent the news by ABC,
using misleading poll questions and a memo of highly questionable authenticity to cast Republicans in the worst possible light
over the Schiavo issue. It smells of another Exempt Media ideologically-based attack, just as the Killian memos formed one
during the final weeks of a presidential campaign. However, in this case, a young woman's life is at stake -- apparently a
fact that ABC news missed in its zeal to discredit the GOP.
Translation: The righties needed an excuse for the fact that an overwhelming
majority of the American people thought the feds should butt out of the Schiavo-Schindler controversy, and this was the best
they could come up with.
Quite frankly, based on the poor presentation of this memo -- with its typographical
errors, mislabeled Senate bill number, and the inept political approach it took -- it's difficult to understand why Brian
Darling ever got a job in anyone's political office, let alone that of a US Senator. Darling didn't do Martinez or the GOP
any favors by staying silent about his role, either. Had he owned up to writing the memo the first day it became controversial,
it would have disappeared from the headlines as quickly as it rose. His resignation should really have been rejected; Martinez
should have insisted on firing him instead.
You can see the memo yourself here. Captain Ed says the bill number at the top is wrong--it should be S.539, not S.529--and I would have changed the punctuation
in spots, but I've never yet met a lawyer who could punctuate worth a darn. Other than that, it seems lucid enough to me.
And Michelle Malkin is just quivering with indignation that anyone could have imagined she claimed the memo was fake. But never fear;
MalkinWatch is here.
Update: OK, there's one other error in the memo -- the
late Mrs. Schiavo's name is "Teri" on first mention, instead of "Terri." Errors like this do not "prove" that something is
a forgery, however. They only prove something was cranked out in a rush and distributed without proofreading.
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wednesday, april 6, 2005
I Can't Take It Any More
I call your attention to the transcript of yesterday's Abrams Report
on MSNBC. You can read the entire thing here, or if you want to skip Michael Jackson and go to the really juicy stuff, go here.
Yesterday Dan Abrams interviewed a Republican congressman from Texas named John Culberson regarding the infamous quote from Sen. John Cronyn, Texas, about judges:
We seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence
recently that‘s been on the news, and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters
on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds
up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence.
Dan Abrams thought
this quote was outrageous, as it was. But I want to just review some of the excuses made by Congressman Culberson. For
example, this part:
CULBERSON: Judges are supposed to be
interpreters of the law. Their responsibility as Alexander Hamilton said, the president holds the sword, the Congress
holds the purse, and the judiciary in Hamilton‘s opinion essentially had no power whatsoever. He considered them the
weakest branch because all they could do is interpret the law. And over the years as a result of the not only the War
Between the States, but reconstruction, the new deal, all powers become concentrated...
Let's take a look at what Hamilton really said. This is from
Federalist # 78 (emphasis added):
According to the plan of the convention, all judges who may be appointed by
the United States are to hold their offices DURING GOOD BEHAVIOR; which is conformable to the most approved of the State constitutions
and among the rest, to that of this State. Its propriety having been drawn into question by the adversaries of that plan,
is no light symptom of the rage for objection, which disorders their imaginations and judgments. The standard of good behavior
for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy, is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements
in the practice of government. In a monarchy it is an excellent barrier to the despotism of the prince; in a republic
it is a no less excellent barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body. And it is the
best expedient which can be devised in any government, to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws.
Whoever attentively considers the different departments of power must perceive,
that, in a government in which they are separated from each other, the judiciary, from the nature of its functions,
will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to
annoy or injure them. The Executive not only dispenses the honors, but holds the sword of the community. The legislature
not only commands the purse, but prescribes the rules by which the duties and rights of every citizen are to be regulated.
The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or
of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL,
but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
This simple view of the matter suggests several important consequences. It
proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power1; that it can never attack with success either of the other two; and that all
possible care is requisite to enable it to defend itself against their attacks. It equally proves, that though individual
oppression may now and then proceed from the courts of justice, the general liberty of the people can never be endangered
from that quarter; I mean so long as the judiciary remains truly distinct from both the legislature and the Executive.
For I agree, that "there is no liberty, if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers."2 And it proves, in the last place, that as liberty can have nothing to fear from
the judiciary alone, but would have every thing to fear from its union with either of the other departments; that as all the
effects of such a union must ensue from a dependence of the former on the latter, notwithstanding a nominal and apparent separation;
that as, from the natural feebleness of the judiciary, it is in continual jeopardy of being overpowered, awed, or influenced
by its co-ordinate branches; and that as nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in
office, this quality may therefore be justly regarded as an indispensable ingredient in its constitution, and, in a great
measure, as the citadel of the public justice and the public security.
The complete independence of the courts of justice is peculiarly essential
in a limited Constitution. By a limited Constitution, I understand one which contains certain specified exceptions
to the legislative authority; such, for instance, as that it shall pass no bills of attainder, no ex-post-facto laws, and
the like. Limitations of this kind can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice,
whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without
this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing.
In other words, the congressman was utterly and totally misrepresenting what
Hamilton said. (But what else is new?) Hamilton is very clear that the judiciary must remain independent of the legislative
branch, and that any attempts by the legislators to control the courts must be resisted.
Also note the part about it being the duty of the medium courts of justice
to "declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void." Looks like an endorsement of judicial review
to me.
Back to the transcript:
CULBERSON: I think judges have an obligation
to respect the law passed by Congress, the people‘s representatives, debate, and then pass legislation that the judiciary
is obligated to honor and obey...
ABRAMS: So they should just...
CULBERSON: ... unless...
ABRAMS: ... they should approve it all? They should approve it
all?
CULBERSON: ... unless there‘s a specific violation of a very specific
provision of the Constitution and that power is left up to the Supreme Court alone. When it comes to district judges,
the appellate courts, all of those judges draw their existence, their power and authority from the United States Congress
period.
When I heard this quote yesterday, I thought that at least the
wingnuts should get their stories straight. The standard Freeper argument is that no branch of the judiciary
has the right of judicial review, and that the Marbury v. Madison decision of 1803 marked the beginning of the
judicial tyranny that oppresses all of us.
Of course, the Constitution doesn't say bleep about judges drawing
their "power and authority" from Congress. Congress has the authority to create federal courts as needed, and Congress can
make regulations about stuff like appellate jurisdictions and how judgments are executed, but I believe that's it. Article
III of the Constitution vests "the judicial power" in "one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may
from time to time ordain and establish." Congressman Culberson is just plain wrong.
I saved the best for last. Here's the ending of the interview:
CULBERSON: ... You
wonder why we haven‘t had any constitutional amendments in so many years, I think it‘s because the United States Supreme Court
and our judiciary have taken it upon themselves to just simply amend the Constitution by a majority opinion. And that
is wrong and the Congress and the people need to pass laws. We need I think all of us working with state legislators,
the Congress and the state legislators through the legal process passing statutes...
ABRAMS: Well...
CULBERSON: ... through litigation and finally through a constitutional
amendment such as the one I‘m proposing...
ABRAMS: Yes.
CULBERSON: ... to limit the power of judges and make them accountable...
ABRAMS: Look...
CULBERSON: ... and responsible.
ABRAMS: ... I say you want to appoint more conservative judges, go for
it...
CULBERSON: You bet.
ABRAMS: ... but the...
CULBERSON: ... the Democrats and Ted Kennedy...
ABRAMS: ... go for it, but the idea of the Congress getting involved
in trying to restrict any judge‘s power, I don‘t care what their belief is, et cetera, I think is so dangerous. But...
CULBERSON: Well the president...
ABRAMS: ... final 20 seconds...
CULBERSON: ... I‘d say President Bush, the Congress, the people have
spoken. They want our president to be able to point to judges who reflect his will,
and that is interpret and don‘t make law from the bench and the Senate needs to approve the president‘s judges and the judges
need to respect the laws we pass.
We don't need no steenking separation of powers ...
Dan Abrams is relatively innocuous compared to most of the other clowns on
MSNBC, but one does wish he would have interviewed an actual constitutional scholar instead of an idiot. I can't blame him
entirely, however, since scholars are so boooooring to most people. Idiots are better for ratings.
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Maybe They'll Like Us Better Now
Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate what we
see right here in this chamber -- a democratically elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They
hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each
other. [President George W. Bush, address to Congress, September 20, 2001]
The speech quoted above may have been Bush's finest moment
as President. It really was a good speech. And, looking at this speech and at the policies his Administration has
pursued since, I think I'm catching on to his greater purpose.
If it's true that terrorists attack us because they hate our freedoms --
that doesn't make sense to me, but then I'm not a terrorist -- then it stands to reason we'd be much safer if we weren't so
free! At least, that must be what Bush is thinking, right? Surely, whatever he does must be for our own good (wink,
nudge).
Kevin Hayden has a couple of examples of The Plan in action over on American
Street. For example, the Bushies (via flunkies in the National Archives and Records Administration) canceled a forum on Social Security to be held at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park. Organized by a coalition of women's groups (the National Council
of Women's Organizations) that claim a combined membership of 10 million, the forum was meant to be a nonpartisan discussion
of the effects of personal accounts on women. Two Republican members of Congress were invited to participate, but they declined.
NARA nixied the forum under provisions of the Hatch Act, which restricts
political activity by government employees. As near as I can tell, the "public employee" involved is NARA itself. NARA seems
to have decided that citizens and taxpayers cannot use government facilities for political purposes. Makes one wonder what
government facilities are supposed to be for, if not political purposes.
“In keeping with the Bush administration’s determination to quash anyone who
disagrees with them, federal agencies now consider it partisan to hold any opinion that is not identical to the president’s,”
National Organization for Women President Kim Gandy said in a prepared statement. The group is a member of the council.
Seems to me this provision should apply to the Bamboozlepalooza Tour, which
is paid for by taxpayer money.
I guess freedom of speech and assembly and disagreeing with each other is
only all right up to a point, but we have to be careful not to let it get out of hand, huh? And don't get me started
on the voting thing.
Kevin also notes here that the Bush administration has used the Patriot Act’s powers to listen to cell phone conversations and examine business
records 84 times in 3½ years. Notes Kevin,
He [Alberto Gonzales] has yet to explain how court oversight of warrants existing
before the Patriot Act hinders the war on terrorism, other than how the Act frees the government from having to demonstrate
probable cause that a crime’s been committed.
And since he now lumps murder and drug offense searches together with terrorism-related
searches, clearly the intent of the provisions has been exceeded by these practices.
Our rights are being stripped away without an accounting of any actual gains
versus uses that proved to be empty fishing expeditions. Should we trust the co-author of the torture memos with extra powers
at the cost of our rights? Should we trust an administration to use this law properly with its track record of flawed intelligence
gathering and manipulation?
That’s right, folks. If you put a boobie on TV or say the
f-word on radio you’re going to have the awesome might of the behemoth federal government criminally prosecuting you for doing
so. Some of you Republicans out there, please explain to me how this isn’t an oppressive use of government force to
threaten people into following a certain moral code (i.e. one dictated by conservative Republicans).
I don't remember exactly when I started running into self-described
"libertarians" and "conservatives" who believed conservatives supported freedom but liberals were all about censorship and
oppression. At first I assumed I had stumbled into the Twilight Zone. Later I came to realize that the wingers felt oppressed
by people who disapproved of their bigotries. As Ampersand pointed out recently, wingers as a whole can't distinguish between disapproval and censorship.
A lot of the argument there seems to come down to the mysterious conservative
belief that anyone has a right to a life free from criticism, and if they ever are criticized that’s the same as censorship.
It’s the ultimate in entitlement politics, I think.
If you are old enough to remember the late 1960s, you might remember
that all the attempts at censorship, like shutting down the touring company of the musical "Hair" or banning Catcher in
the Rye from public libararies, always came from conservatives. And this has been true throughout American history,
going back to the Alien and Sedition acts.
In the 1960s, liberals more often were the ones arguing for no
censorship at all, including of pornography, although I'm personally happy if displays of pornographic literature are kept
under the counter, thank you very much. But defense of freedom to publish is, I assume, what got us pegged
as perverts by fellows like the guy who wants to expel 12 states from the Union --
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