The Same War

The New York Times offers an op-ed today expressing the observation of a visitor to Washington that Washingtonians view the war with Iraq as inevitable, and that they view it as part and parcel of the war on terror. This should not come as a suprise, given the revelation that Iraq may have supplied al Qaeda with nerve gas. The article is worth a read, if only for the following line: "With his 12,000-page report to the United Nations, Saddam Hussein has written perhaps the longest suicide note in history."
By Robert Alt

Bush Authorizes Use of Smallpox Vaccine

The President has authorized a program to provide smallpox vaccines to military and emergency personnel, and then to all Americans on a voluntary basis. The authorization suggests just how serious the potential threat is, given that the vaccine carries serious side effects. The Washington Post reports that "[h]istorical data show that between 15 and 50 of every 1 million people vaccinated will suffer life-threatening complications and that one or two of them will die." Given these statistics, the President must have been advised the potential risk was too high not to go forward with the program.
By Robert Alt

Iraq May Have Provided al Qaeda With Nerve Gas

The argument regarding the need to fight terror versus the need to oust Hussein may now officially be over. The U.S. has received credible reports that Iraq supplied al Qaeda with deadly VX nerve gas. If true, this provides solid evidence of cooperation between Iraq and the terror organization, and undermines Iraq’s claim that they do not have weapons of mass destruction.
By Robert Alt

North Korea Reactivates Nuclear Reactor

North Korea announced that it will be reactivating a nuclear reactor near Pyongyang which was thought to have been used to produce weapons grade plutonium in 1994. The announcement is predicated on the decision of Washington, Japan and South Korea to cut off heating oil subsidies that were offered in exchange for North Korea ceasing its nuclear program. The decision to cut off the supplies was triggered by North Korea’s recent revelation that they had continued their nuclear weapons program.
By Robert Alt

Law Without Values

Professor Albert Alschuler of the University of Chicago gave a speech in Columbus, Ohio yesterday on the life and work of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. I highly recommend his book, Law Without Values, which details the morbid relativism of Holmes, and explains how Holmes’s true legacy is his assault on the natural law tradition. Definitely worth a read.
By Robert Alt

NYT on the Cheney Case

The New York Times editorial page argued recently that the district court decision finding a lack of standing for the comptroller to bring an action to get documents from Cheney should be overturned on appeal. The argument would have been somewhat more effective if they made an argument that resembled a legal one, rather than huffing and puffing about the necessity for open government.

The closest that the Times gets to the legal question is asserting: "But his [Judge Bates’s] decision ignores the fact that the General Accounting Office was established by Congress for the express purpose of helping it to investigate and analyze matters like this." As the opinion makes clear, it is not that apparent how broad the investigative authority is meant to be. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that it is that broad, and if we recognize that Congress said that the Comptroller could sue to get documents, that still does not per force give rise to standing. Congress’s grant of statutory or prudential standing does not supercede the requirement for constitutional standing—that is, even when Congress says that someone may sue, they still have to have an interest or injury in the matter sufficient to meet the constitutional requirements of standing. This is an interesting question upon which the Cheney case turns, and it is one which the Times ignores.
By Robert Alt

Lott Must Go

I don’t care how good Lott is supposed to be at the backroom dealing of the Senate (which is his reputed strength); he has to go.

His blooper only makes evident what Chris Caldwell warned out about in a terrific article in 1998 in the Atlantic Monthly called "The Southern Captivity of the GOP."

The trouble here is that the Party of Lincoln can only deal with issues of race and identity politics by being the Party of Lincoln’s Principles. Lott (and many other Republican) are oblivious to this. Not only did Lott say this recent outrage, but in the 1980s, according to NY Post columnist Robert George, he said that the platform of Jefferson Davis was in the Republican Platform of 1984.

This is unacceptable. The time has come to have it out with the Lincoln’ bashers who find their convenient home in the GOP. It should be made less convenient for them.
By Steven Hayward

If They Pull a Knife, You Pull a Gun . . .

The New York Times reports that Bush Administration published a document stating that "[t]he United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force — including through resort to all our options — to the use of W.M.D. [weapons of mass destruction] against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies." The implication is clear, and clearly reminiscent of statements made by Baker prior to the Gulf War: if Saddam uses chemical weapons, we reserve the right to retaliate with a nuclear strike.
By Robert Alt

A Lott of Similarity

What at first appeared to be a ripple in the water is turning into a tsunami. the Washington Post reports this morning that Lott said of Strom Thurmond:

You know, if we had elected this man 30 years ago, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are today."

With this revelation, it is surely time for Lott to "step down" (with the able assistance of Mr. Rove) as Majority Leader. The difficulty will be making sure that the public understands that this is being done for the right reasons. It should not be an homage to those who play racial politics, but must be a clarification that the party of Lincoln still stands for the basic principle of human equality--and that those who pay honor to political systems which do not respect these principles should not and will not lead that party.
By Robert Alt

Let Lott Rot?

What Steven Hayward has pointed out about Trent Lott’s virtues—his ability to play the inside game—reflects the whole problem with Congress that John Marini, Tom West, and others have been pointing out for years: That Congress has suffered a constitutional transformation since the time of the Founding. This is not the Founders’ Congress.

While Lott’s skills are important, his recent stupid utterance not only reflects the pettiness that always pervades collective bodies. That pettiness becomes transformed under the aegis of the administrative state and hence arise petty fiefdoms, or should I say, in this case,a plantation. Lott’s low qualities were suppressed or brushed aside by the constitutional qualities the Founders required in a Senate designed to bring forth virtue. But when he speaks on his own, he is Lott the low. What would he be like if he were not restrained by his post? I would be interested in finding out.

The political problem is of course how to drop Lott without handing liberals a greater victory than they’ve already won. His going down has to be part of an assertion of constitutional principle and devotion to Republican party principles as properly understood—in brief, as defenses of natural rights and limited government, not as assertions of affirmative action, redistribution, and all the prequisites of the administrative state.
By Ken Masugi

Supreme Court Vacancies?

U.S. News reports in their Washington Whispers column that in addition to Rehnquist, "Bush aides also expect John Paul Stevens, 82, and Sandra Day O’Connor, 72, to quit soon." Stevens is probably the most difficult to believe. While it was previously fairly common-knowledge that Stevens, who was appointed by a Republican, wished to stay in office to be replaced by a Republican (despite his liberal voting practice), that presumption has recently switched, and many believe that the 82 year-old Justice is trying to wait it out until at least the ’04 elections.

Washington Whispers also suggests that the leading contenders to take the job of Chief Justice are Scalia and Thomas. While it is possible that Bush would tap one of these current Justices, I don’t think either would particularly like the job. Scalia relishes the role of bombthrower too much, which is a vital function he could not perform if he were in the conciliatory position of Chief. And Thomas rightly has no desire to sit before the unsavory jackals which make up the Senate Judiciary Committee again. No, I still think the smart money says that Bush will appoint someone from outside the Supreme Court to become Chief Justice.
By Robert Alt

Death Penalty Is Constitutional

In the "duh" category, the Second Circuit today overruled a district court judge who had previously ruled the death penalty unconstitutional and equal to "state-sponsored murder" of innocent people. The Second Circuit’s decision, which essentially reminded the lower court that district court judges cannot overrule Supreme Court decisions, must have come as quite a shock. You can read a story about the opinion here, or get the full decision here.
By Robert Alt

Governor Davis’s California

Governor Davis declared a fiscal crisis in California yesterday, with deficits spiraling toward $20 billion. Congratulations once again to the state of my youth for reelecting "rolling-blackouts" Davis--I’m sure that the Davis will demonstrate the same leadership in the next four years that he has in the past.
By Robert Alt

August or Trivial

Anne Applebaum offers her thoughts on why the New York Times and feminist obsession with allowing women into Augusta is misplaced, and why the feminists are out of touch with American women.
By Robert Alt

Segregation on College Campuses

Suzanne Fields has a good article about how colleges continue to allow (and encourage) segregation in housing, etc. I found this comment insightful; the student came to Amherst on his way toward becoming human, and was persuaded while there to be a Latino. This is called higher education. "A Latino student gives away the insidiousness of this approach, describing how he found his blood roots at Amherst: ’For me, there’s more consciousness of my background as a Latino male,’ he says. ’Before I came to Amherst, I wasn’t thinking about race or class or gender or sexual orientation, I was just thinking about people wanting to learn.’ "
By Peter Schramm

How to be Happy

The lead article in a recent edition of USA Today is on happiness. It claims that psychologists (Seligman, et al) are coming to the conclusion that human beings are happy when in a family, with friends, and are forgiving. This is a view that represents the burgeoning "positive psychology" movement, a view that emphasizes people’s strengths and talents instead of their weaknesses. Even though all this seems common sense-like, and in some ways unremarkable, it ought to be encouraged. Will it be possible to come to all the right conclusions through so-called modern scientific methods? We can only hope. There was one interesting sentence (not elaborated upon) in the article: "A person’s cheer level is about half genetic, scientists say." I also note, in passing that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's (who’s at Claremont now) concept of "flow" is mentioned favorably in this context of "positive psychology." My only comment on that is: wouldn’t it be ironic if a Hungarian understood happiness better than anyone? Have you ever read the Hungarian national anthem? Pretty depressing.
By Peter Schramm

I Was Wrong!

Somehow, sitting here in Los Angeles, looking at the barren hills and letting the sunshine permeate my little room, things don’t seem as bad as they could be. The Louisiana Senate race is history. I was wrong about the outcome. Hats off to the Landrieu campaign, they overcame all the big guns the GOP brought in, and possibly were even able to use it to their advantage. Certainly the canning of Treasury Secretary O’Neill could not have helped; bad timing. And, arguably, allowing her to vote in favor of Homeland Security took that issue off the table, to Landrieu’s advantage. It would appear that black voter turnout was a key. The only warning this victory brings to Democrats is that Landrieu won, in the end, by trying to be a moderate Demo, attaching herself as much as possible to the president. It’s a good thing I didn’t make any bets on this prediction!
By Peter Schramm

Fraud and Idiocy

I believe what happened in South Dakota was that, after election day, the national Senate Republicans lacked the stomach to make a big deal of the narrow margin and allegations of fraud - sort of a hangover from 2000. The state party probably felt otherwise, and has been gathering evidence. We haven’t heard much, perhaps because the state party hasn’t seen it in their interest to tell the world what was going on.
By Allison Hayward

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