An open letter to the Democrats who didn't filibuster today.

[xiphias]

Did you miss the part where you were elected SPECIFICALLY to stop a right-wing Supreme Court Justice? Did you miss the fact that fuckng primary reason you got elected was to prevent what you let happen?

Did you miss that?

Fuck you all. Fuck you all. Fuck you all.

And, Kerry? Thank you for being the person I voted for for President -- why couldn't you have been this guy back during the campaign?

Comments

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Did you miss the memo? They were elected so their stock portfolios could outperform the best fund managers.

[cheshyre]

As a commenter in Kos wrote:

That's some mighty fine dry powder they've got there. Yup, never have I seen such dehumidified and gloriously dessicated powder. No sirree, I aint never seen a batch of supremely arid powder like that pile right there. It's drier than a summer solstice noon in the Sahara. Hmmm. Remind me of what it's for?

And then Kos had the nerve to say that we should use this energy to increase the number of Dems in the Senate.
Let's see: 45 Dems in the Senate; 40 needed to sustain a filibuster; seems sufficient numbers to me for that purpose...


BTW, I have heard some talk on the blogosphere about calling filibuster supporters tomorrow to thank them for what they've done. And I do appreciate Kerry's and Kennedy's actions, even if it didn't pan out.

[sethg]

And then Kos had the nerve to say that we should use this energy to increase the number of Dems in the Senate.

We should use this energy to increase the number of Dems with backbones in the Senate. If any of the Democratic Senators who voted for cloture end up facing a challenger in the next primary, I hope I will have room in my budget to send them a few bucks.

There are a lot of folks in the institutional Democratic Party who keep doing the same things they've been doing since 1980, or imagining that the problems the party faces now are the same problems it faced in 1980, and while the consequences are awful for the party and the country, the individuals stuck in this pathology keep their legislative seats and their consulting jobs. That has to change.

[griffen.livejournal.com]

Damn straight.

It's time for us to start at the bottom and take back our country.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Sorry, while I have significant and specific worries about this particular candidate (primarily a paper trail on significantly extending executive power and removing checks and balances), it's not the Democrats' job to stop a right-wing Supreme Court Justice. Unless you also consider it the Republicans' job to stop a left-wing Supreme Court Justice. If you've got a [pick one] right-wing/left-wing President, they're going to nominate Justices they think will be in accordance with their attitudes. It's Congress' role to prevent either incompetent selections (see Miers, H.) or ones they either consider too far from the center or who have significant and specific issues.

Say they should've opposed him on specifics, great. Say "he's right-wing, and thus must be opposed" and you show the same lack of respect for those who don't have your beliefs in a general sense as gets bewailed about from the other side as well. And just open it up for the next Justice nominated by a Democrat President to be opposed on the sole and general basis of "They're left wing!".

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

That's absolutely correct. The fact that a potential Supreme Court justice is right-wing or left-wing is enough reason, in itself, to prevent them from being confirmed.

Supreme Court justices should be people who have demonstrated a distinguished MAINSTREAM body of jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has to be a moderate, middle-of-the-road body, one in which extremists are not represented.

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

Supreme Court justices should be people who have demonstrated a distinguished MAINSTREAM body of jurisprudence. The Supreme Court has to be a moderate, middle-of-the-road body, one in which extremists are not represented.

I'm sorry, can you point to the bit in the Constitution that says that? Perhaps in the writings of the Founders? The US Code? While that may be your opinion, it isn't set in stone anywhere. The only qualification is that the President appoint the individual and the Senate either vote for or against. Tradition has been to vote on the candidate on his qualifications, not on his opinions. And by any reasonable measure, Alito has those qualifications.

And, based on your own criteria, Ruth Bader-Ginsburg should have been opposed She isn't middle-of-the-road.

[cheshyre]

Actually, she is. A majority of Americans are pro-choice. Also, unlike Alito, she openly answered the Senate's questions regarding abortion. And there was no outcry.

Meanwhile, polls have shown that a majority of Americans think the Senate should reject Alito if he won't uphold Roe v. Wade, a subject he very carefully danced around. [more from riba_rambles

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

It's not so much written in the Constitution so much as basic common sense -- if you've got a body of government whose primary function is to act as a brake on the other two branches, it makes a hell of a lot of sense to staff it with people who are going to, y'know, act as a brake on the other two branches. Too left or too right, and they'll be willing to let excesses of the left or the right slide.

I seem to remember Ruth Bader-Ginsberg being opposed, don't you?

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Just to clarify: you DO understand the difference between "right-wing" and "conservative", and "left-wing" and "liberal", right? You are aware that those aren't pairs of synonyms?

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Frankly, these days I can't keep track of the differences, and also think the terms in general have mutated both to things not in accordance with original meanings/intent and to odd sets of shiboleths and litmus tests. That's all four of those terms, as well as others.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

Right wing= Radio talk show hosts and TV preachers
Conservatives= Strom Thurmond, old money
Right wing= Starbucks looters and Ben and Jerrys workers
Liberal=Al Franken, new money

That about right?

[temima.livejournal.com]

"Right wing= Starbucks looters and Ben and Jerrys workers"

You mean 'left-wing', don't you? :)

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

oops. LJ ate my first attempt to post the comment and I didn't proof-read when I re-wrote. Yes. I meant left wing for that line.

[warren8472.livejournal.com]

Since you're delving into political-label semantics (I refer to myself as a "halfway-due-south-ist" [link within link may be broken]) and queridox has issued the "specifics" challenge, can you lay down exactly what you do find objectionable about Alito, particularly in the context of right-wing/left-wing? (I personally think he must be senile for "forgetting" that he was in what was essentially Racists Anonymous in college, so I'd disqualify him on grounds of mental incompetence. Oh yeah, and racism.)

[cheshyre]

First of all, not ideological, there's the fact that Alito has repeatedly shown a willingness to lie during job applications. Or to later dismiss statements/promises he made while applying for a job: source from riba_rambles. So, given that history, I don't trust anything he says in confirmation hearings and can't see why anybody else would.


According to an article in yesterday's NY Times, "Judge Alito's confirmation is also the culmination of a disciplined campaign begun by the Reagan administration to seed the lower federal judiciary with like-minded jurists who could reorient the federal courts." So, the right-wingers are already confident that Alito and Roberts are on their side.

Aside from abortion, the main issue for me is his expansive view of government powers, particularly over law enforcement. A Knight Ridder analysis of more than 300 written opinions by Alito, for example, reveals that he has almost never found a government search unconstitutional and that he has argued to relax warrant requirements and to broaden the kinds of searches that warrants permit. (riba_rambles again) He allows the executive branch and law-enforcement incredible leeway -- and given current issues with Bush administration overreach and lawbreaking (Valerie Plame, warrantless domestic eavesdropping) those are major issues.

Furthermore, Alito is one of the "brains" behind the notion of presidential signing statements. [The Constitution says: "Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections..." I see no notion of a third option allowing the president to reinterpret it.] More on this from Dahlia Lithwick. And that's not the original intent of the founders

In short, many legal experts and professional journalists have described him as a threat to our current balance-of-power and traditional checks and balances among the branches. Again, given that we're currently dealing with an executive branch trying to steamroller over Congress and the courts, that's a major problem. Dahlia Lithwick again.

Finally, as people have pointed out, Alito tends to apply the law purely as an intellectual exercise with no notion of the human component. No recognition that a real flesh-and-blood ten year old was strip-searched and what she went through. Same thing holds true for other victims of overzealous law enforcement or discrimination. He never *quite* reached the Dukakis death-penalty debate-question in his committee hearing, but some of his answers came close, such as the issue of possible innocents on death row. He's the Tin Man: entirely lacking a heart.

[cheshyre]

Damn, and just after I finish writing all that out, I see Robert Gordon's "Basic Case Against Alito" which puts it together much better: In two broad areas especially, Alito promises to be a dangerous servant of the agenda: Executive Power and Protections of the Vulnerable.

Oh, and here's an essay on why the policies being pushed by Bush's pet lawyers are not "strict constructionist" or "originalist" but in fact run against the Framers' and Founders' intent. [Further takedown of this argument in reviews of John Yoo's book by Cass Sunstein in The New Republic and David Cole in New York Review of Books

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

You DO understand that the difference is that a conservative (depending on how you use the word) is a subset of those who are right-wing. And the same holds true for liberal and left-wing, yes? If you're using some specialized definition, that's fine. But you should clarify it, and not expect it to be universal.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

No; left-wing means the EXTREME left of liberal, and right-wing means the EXTREME right. That's what "wing" means -- the tips of the bell curve, not the center.

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

That may be how you use the term. But when I obtained by Bachelor of Science in Political Science with a concentration in political development, the term right-wing, or more generically the right, was a catchall for those variety of philosophies that fall on the right side of the political spectrum. The same held true for the term left-wing or the left or leftist.

Never once in any class did any professor of Poli-Sci I had use the terms in the way you do, nor plot political positions on a bell curve. This includes a graduate level course in development of political thought in the U.S. When political scientists bother to plot they use either a single axis or occassionaly the Nolan chart. Neither of those graphs produce bell curves. The terms you are looking for are 'far right' and 'far left'.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Hunh. This is VERY interesting. For what it's worth, Wikipedia uses your definitions.

And yet, I'm under the impression that the definitions I was using were pretty much the standard on a lot of the blogs I read, as well as in a number of classes I took in college. Of course, since I hadn't realized that there were differing definitions, I can't be sure -- of COURSE I assumed that people were using the same definition as I was, which may mean that I was misreading their points, if they WERE using a different definition.

If it's just me who's got a different definition, well, then that's not really a problem -- if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and that's cool. What I'm worried about is that we actually have two distinct widespread definitions. And that could be worrisome.

If someone is making a case about "right-wingers" or "left-wingers", and is speaking ONLY about the extremists, as I was, and someone else reads it as meaning 50% of the population, as you did -- that's going to cause communication errors. And quite possibly significant ones.

If I had a paid account, I'd do a little poll to see if this IS a widespread distinction, or if it's just my error.

Oh, and in completely unrelated news, mazal tov!

[bimmer1200.livejournal.com]

Can I ask what your background is? If you're from a science background I can see how you'd get the definition you did. From my understanding of the etymology of the right/left thing the wing comes in from when the two major parties were less homogenous. You had a liberal and conservative wing of each party, the way you have a wing of a house. But I can understand someone use to thinking of bell curves and the wings of such getting the definition you're using.

I'd hazard to guess that what we have is a case of reinforcement. I can see how, esp. if the blogs you're reading are primarily left-leaning, how the term right-winger could be automatically equated to 'far right'. People tend to see themselves as being centrist, regardless of how far to one side or the other they are.

I'd put it this way: right/left winger is technically a broad term, and when having a discussion with a group where there's disparate opinion that's probably the definition to use. But when in a group that's almost exclusively one side or the other it probably does have the connotation you're describing. It's just that that connotation isn't the -only- one. If that makes sense.

Also, thank you. I'm immensely happy.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

My educational background is smorgasbord. Some science, some computer science, some English, some communications, especially rhetoric. . . actually, the rhetorical part is some of the most useful, since what we were ACTUALLY being taught was "how to argue HONESTLY." Yeah, not everyone who studies rhetoric USES that part of the training, but that's the concept, at least.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I had some sociology and polisci in college myself. Back then, right-wing meant right-of0center and left-wing meant left-of-center - nothing about extremes was in there. The terms have mutated over time, as what is considered to be right-wing and what is considered to be left-wing have changed.

Additionally, food for thought: people on the right use 'liberal' as a slur. They have succeeded in making it slur-like with the help of corporate media and various politicians. People on the left haven't yet been able to do anything similar except to 'right wing' - this could be the disparity you see between collegiate usages and modern colloquial.

[cheshyre]

BTW, here's one further datapoint in the "-winger" definition.

Dan Kennedy* writes:

I think that "liberal" and "progressive" are roughly synonymous, but that "left-wing" is a fair amount farther to the left of those. Just one person's definition.

*for anyone not Ian reading this, Kennedy is former media columnist of the Boston Phoenix, now a professor of journalism at Northeastern.

[dancing-kiralee.livejournal.com]

I consider right-wing supreme court justices to be a threat to my liberty.

It is the job of my elected officials to protect me against threats to my liberty... especially government threats to my liberty. That is what representative government is about.

I know that there are people who do not see right wing supreme court justices as a threat... and some of these people would see a left wing supreme court justice as a threat. Or someone with a history of sexually harrassing women. Or whatever... and government should give these people - should give all people - a way to protect themselves from such threats.

People need to be given legitmate ways to protect themselves - because when people are threatened and have no legitmate response they end up doing stupid, dangerous, violent things. Not every one, but some of them... and that just makes the world more dangerous for everybody.

Kirlaee

[sethg]

PS to Kerry: if you think this is going to make me vote for you in the 2008 Presidential primaries...sorry.

[sethg]

Digby points out the silver lining:

So we only got 25 Senators to vote for a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee who, if defeated, would be replaced by someone just as bad by a president in the pocket of his radical right wing. Well.

Do you know how many votes the Republicans managed to get when uber wingnut Antonin Scalia was confirmed? 98. And Democrats had a majority. We didn't have to even think about a filibuster. We couldn't defeat Clarence Thomas and we had a majority, a huge push from women's groups and a very dramatic set of hearings that went into the wee hours of the morning. It is very, very tough to do.

...

I didn't expect it to get more than 25 votes and I'm frankly stunned that we did as well as we did. Indeed, something very interesting happened that I haven't seen in more than a decade.

When it became clear that the vote was going against the filibuster, Diane Feinstein, a puddle of lukewarm water if there ever was one, decided to backtrack and play to the base instead of the right wing. That's new folks. Given an opportunity to make an easy vote, until now she and others like her (who are legion) would always default to the right to prove their "centrist" bonafides. That's the DLC model. When you have a free vote always use it to show that you aren't liberal. That's why she was against it originally --- a reflexive nod to being "reasonable."

Obama had to choke out his support for a filibuster, but he did it. A calculation was made that he needed to play to the base instead of the punditocrisy who believe that being "bold" is voting with the Republicans. Don't underestimate how much pressure there is to do that, especially for a guy like Obama who is running for King of the Purple. The whole presidential club, including Biden joined the chorus.

The last time we had a serious outpouring from the grassroots was the Iraq War resolution. My Senator DiFi commented at thetime that she had never seen anything like the depth of passion coming from her constituents. But she voted for the war anyway. So did Bayh, Biden, Clinton, Dodd, Kerry and Reid. The entire leadership of the party. Every one of them went the other way this time. I know that some of you are cynical about these people (and ,well, they are politicans, so don't get all Claud Rains about it) but that means something. Every one of those people were running in one way or another in 2002 and they went the other way. The tide is shifting. There is something to be gained by doing the right thing.