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Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Court-packing, court-schmacking Leahy: "No president should be allowed to pack the courts . . . with nominees selected to enshrine presidential claims of government power. The Senate stood up to President Roosevelt when he proposed a court-packing scheme. And today, the Senate should not be a rubber stamp to this President's effort to move the law dramatically to the right and to give him unfettered leeway." The only problem with Leahy's comparison is that . . . there is no comparison. Roosevelt didn't merely appoint justices who were in ideological agreement with him. He came up with a scheme to pack the court with extra justices in addition to the existing ones. The problem he was facing at the time was that six of the nine justices were over 70 years of age and were finding much of Roosevelt's New Deal legislation unconstitutional. In Roosevelt's mind, they must have been senile old fools who just weren't hip to the new wave of social changes in the world that had been and were continuing to be inspired by events like the glorious communist revolution in Russia. Since the close-minded geezers couldn't be forced to retire, Roosevelt's plan was that a younger and more with-it justice could be appointed for each sitting justice over age 70 with at least ten years of experience. Naturally, he planned for those appointed to be in ideological agreement with him on "the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a Nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed." In other words, they would go along with all his socialistic New Deal legislation. The one thing Leahy got right was that the Senate didn't go along with Roosevelt's scheme. Otherwise, since President Bush is not attempting to pack the court with extra justices, Leahy's analogy is a load of hooey. Since Alito is a shoo-in, it doesn't really matter, except to illustrate Leahy's disingenuousness. Leahy may be out-to-lunch ideologically, but he's smart enough to know better than to believe his own court-packing analogy. And speaking of close-minded geezers who have a hard time adapting to the challenges of a changed world (one that is threatened by apocalyptic terrorists) . . . Greg Strange blogs at http://www.greg-strange.com Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Greg Strange at 8:09 AM |
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