According to David Brooks, the conservative movement is strong because of the constant bitching and attacks conservatives launch against their ideological brethren:
Conservatives have not triumphed because they have built a disciplined and efficient message machine. Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly. As these factions have multiplied, more people have come to call themselves conservatives because they’ve found one faction to agree with.
In the interest of building conservative power, let me point out that John Cornyn is a butt-monkey:
My point was, and is, simply this: We should all be concerned that the judiciary is losing the respect that it needs to serve the American people well. We should all want judges to interpret the law fairly – not impose their own personal views on the nation. We should all want to fix our broken judicial confirmation process. And we should all be disturbed by overheated rhetoric about the judiciary, from both sides of the aisle. I regret it that my remarks have been taken out of context to create a wrong impression about my position, and possibly be construed to contribute to the problem rather than to a solution.
The People are much more annoyed with the Congress’ attempts to judge individual cases than they are with the courts doing what they’re paid to do.
And despite that, it would be a shame if violent protesters attacked grand-standing members of Congress. Just defeat them at the polls, thank you very much.
I was amused that Brooks’s argument was basically “we’re divided like Democrats used to be.”
Look, there’s loony Dems, to be sure. Maxine Whatever…but Brooks is trying to put a good face on an ugly turn of events.
Most amusing of all is Tom DeLay. He’s going down big time. And all the attacks on judges and the Terri Schiavo show won’t change that outcome.
Hopefully, John K. is correct that Tom DeLay is going down, politically I hope. If this country supports the kind of thuggery he, and Cornyn, embody, it will be a real embarrassment.
Our judges may not be perfect, but they are constitutionally independent of the legislative and executive branches, and the kind of public bullying that has gone on in this disgraceful episode should be beneath even the lowest of the other two branches. Sadly, it has not been.
Richard, just a side note to suggest a fine essay I read last night by the brilliant Jacques Barzun (a first rate mind in these second rate times): “Is Democratic Theory for Export?”
Though it was written in back in 1986, I think it’s still thought provoking, & meant for readers both the left & the right.
I hope DeLay is going down, but it’s too soon to say for sure. He’s apparently been skimming money off his PAC, and that’s a no-no.
He’s certainly am embarassment to his state, his party, and his family, and I say that as a former Texan and former Republican.
Just heard that Sen Lautenberg has read and inserted into today’s Congressional Record a letter DeLay wrote inviting people for a Christian perspective tour of the Capital to be conducted by Dan Barton. In the letter DeLay says that ‘the separation of church and state is a myth’, also that the nation was meant to be Christian and ‘only voting Republican will save it’. Hopefully some of this will be picked up by press. Dangerous, more than embarassing.
And I was born and raised in Texas. There’s something in the water some places, it would seem.
A crook dove into the Houston Ship Channel once to get away from the cops, but after about two strokes he turned around and got out. The stuff in the water was burning him so bad he decided it would be better just to go to jail.
DeLay’s from Sugarland, same general area.
Super Fund, Houston has a problem. Seriously, you got it right.
I watched Rick Scarborough of Houston today, inviting his audience to get onto stopactivistjudges.com, and his words were very similar to DeLay’s as quoted above.
Maybe if we can isolate the element polluting the water there, we can find the cure.
Their beef with the judges in the Schiavo case was an excess of restraint, but they don’t seem to hear their own rhetoric.
Actually, there is a conference in VA right now by stopactivistjudges.org (got it wrong in the earlier post, used .com) where ‘their own rhetoric’ is all that’s being heard.
I watched a bit of it on C-Span and heard a great deal of ‘constitutional’ becoming a dirty word. Seems the theory here is that judges aren’t elected, the legislators are, therefore the legislators should be empowered over the judiciary.
After hearing that the democrats want to ‘take the bible out of the hands’ of your children and ‘replace it with Hustler’, I must admit I’d had quite enough.
God am I masochistic, I just had to listen to a speech by the new pres. of NRA, Somebody Forman, in Houston, who claims the 2nd amendment is being threatened by other countries who want our constitution not to provide protection of the constitution which the 2nd amendment provides and we need justices on the SC who won’t let those other countries who want us disarmed take away their weapons. Seriously.
And the NRA is there to make sure those justices that don’t listen to those other countries are put on our court, and praise Scalia, now there’s one of them NRA people for sure. Really.
There’s something definitely wrong with the water in Houston.