A name I have actually heard kicked around a bit in SCOTUS replacement talks is that of Ben Stein. Certainly his law background is exemplary, but God I hope not. The man is a GOP buttboy from wayyyyyyyyyy back and is fanatically opposed to abortion (siding with the GOP rather than his own religion).
When I thought of Ashcroft I tried to think of anybody worse, and failed. You succeeded.
So what if she was 11, 12, or 13. She was arrested as per D.C. law, and the arrest was rightfully upheld. The fact that the law (requiring juveniles to be taken into custody) is stupid does not affect that fact that it was the law.
Gaah, I’m starting to sound like Bricker.
I could easily see a lawyer defending a criminal trying to find a legal loophole to get his client off…
Ben “Win My Money and Buy Clear Eyes” Stein? That Ben Stein?
Every day, my mission here comes closer to success.
Seems to me that finding a loophole to get a client off is one thing.
Finding a before-the-fact loophole to allow your client to violate the law is another.
YMMV, I suppose.
-Joe
Wow, you’re just going out of your way to be an ass, aren’t you?
I seriously doubt there are a lot of lawyers advancing the argument that child molestation is OK because the laws against it are out of date and “quaint.”
True. But I don’t think either means they support what the client is doing, in the “I endorse this and want to see more of it” sense of the word torture.
(And if UncleBeer wanders by, I still think he supports torture in the “enables it to happen by providing material goods” sense of “support,” just like all other citizens. :p)
I wasn’t aware that Gonzolez had taken the position that torture was OK and the laws against it were out of date and “quaint.” It was always my understanding that he was merely providing a justification at his employers behest. Can you provide a cite to proving that he thinks torture is OK and that the laws against it are out of date and “quaint”?
You should think about that. I mean, if you’re comfortable sounding like Bricker, that’s OK, but if you’re not, maybe you should examine Bricker’s ideas more carefully.
He’d be a reliable conservative, all right, but keep in mind that this is the moment that the Christian right nutjobs have been waiting for, the primary reason why they’ve spent so much time and effort and money backing Bush. They’re going to be pissed off if the nominee turns out to be Jewish, GOP buttboy or not.
I’ve heard that the radical clerics (Dobson, Fallwell, Robertson, Perkins, etc.) don’t consider Gonzalez to be conservative enough. As such, he’s probably about the best we can hope for, torture memos aside; a good compromise often leaves everybody unhappy. I also think, for the same reason, that he won’t get the nod this time, especially since the chair in the Attorney General’s office is just now adjusting to his ass.
To paraphrase: I’m not very happy about being on the side of the assholes, but I am."
Jeebus, Metacom, the memo where Gonzalez said the Geneva Convention laws against torture were "quaint’ was a huge red flag that was waved for MONTHS. Do some Googlin,’ oh, here you go.
Amen, and god bless 'im.
(Although with O’Connor gone, Justice Breyer remains all alone at the top of my “fave Justices” list.)
I’m not seeing the word you quoted on that page. Can you point me to somewhere more specific?
That’s not what he said. He said that some of the provisions were quaint, which is a far cry from the broader statement that “the Geneva Convention laws against torture were ‘quaint’”.
I hate Gitmo, and I don’t like the administration’s legallistic attempts to allow some of the bad shit that’s happening there, but I think pinning Gonzalez down as an advocate of torture goes to far, and is akin to shooting the messenger.
Especially that, as far as Bush judge picks go, Gonzalez is considered pretty moderate.
Yes, that Ben Stein. Bueller, Bueller? Who wrote speeches for former President Nixon? Bueller?
Figures the day I wake up before noon and I’m hit with a bomb like this. Oh well, maybe Bush will appoint a moderate to salvage his future image.
Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my ass.
Yep. “Bueller… Bueller… abortion is… anyone? anyone? a sin against… anyone? anyone? yes… God and nature…”
Long before he was a character actor he was valedictorian of the Yale Law class of 1970. His father Herb was a big-shot in the Nixon Administration and permanent D.C. fixture. Stein made his Republican bones as a FTC lawyer and writing speeches and doing research for Nixon (whom he still rabidly defends) and Ford. He’s worked in both the private and public law sectors, he’s taught at Pepperdine, Stanford, UC-Santa Cruz, American University, he’s authored a gazillion articles for law reviews and newspapers, he’s the author or co-author of several textbooks, etc.- he’s more than qualified for a judicial post.
He’s also extremely right wing, recently denounced Mark Felt as a traitor against as great American (Nixon), he’s majorly active in Anti-Abortion circles, accused the makers of Everclear of endangering the health and well-being of teenagers, etc… He’s a brilliant man (and a very funny performer) but a total right-wingnut.
It’s there. Hear’s the relevant quote:
Gonzales said “the war against terrorism is a new kind of war” and “this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”
The Geneva conventions say alot more about the questioning of enemy prisoners then simply “don’t torture them,” IIRC, so it’s hard to know exactly what he was referring to.