Now, does this mean that the two nominees — Bruce Harris, an openly-gay black Republican, and Korean-born Phillip H. Kwon — aren’t legal conservatives and originalists? No, not necessarily. But the point is, from the Governor’s statement you’re left with no idea what their legal philosophies are — instead, knowing only what an historic accomplishment it is that Christie has appointed an openly gay Republican and a Korean born US citizen.
— Which, hey: maybe the point is that two taken together are a “wise, openly gay Republican” and a “wise Korean-born American” who will bring the unique perspectives of their identity politics groups to the cause of affecting “social justice” from the bench. Or as Christie put it, “their different backgrounds and career paths bring distinctive and important perspectives to the court [and] also capture the state’s diversity.”
And really, what can be more compassionate and inclusive than that? Diversity of thought and experience — not to mention historicity and the appearance of social progress — is what we look for in a justice, what with the Constitution being alive and breathing and such; and on occasion, this living and breathing thing is in need of a number of unique opinions brought about by the unique historical circumstances not of the document’s originators and the intent with which the document was been imbued, but rather of it’s various interpreters, who we’re to celebrate for the “distinctive and important perspectives” their diversity (who they fuck, whether or not they dig the kimchi) will bring to the process of “interpretation.” And for their role model-icity.
So very conservative, this. As I’m sure Ann Coulter will rush to explain to the ingrate Hobbits working to re-elect Barack Obama by refusing to jump on the Romney Bullet Train to WIN!
Haven’t we reached our quota of quotas?
What an insult to the judges.
You could talk up my professional history that represents my life’s labor or you could talk up something I had nothing to do with. You chose the latter. Go fuck yourself, Gov. Christie.
And, if they didn’t feel that way, why? Have some doubts about the comparable merit of those professional histories?
Mitt did the same thing to the nation at the tailend of the “debate” last night bh: depostied a straight up insult to our faces, while bowing to Brian Williams in cowardly fear. Why would anyone want a cocksucker as president?
deposited, is intended
state supreme court justices are role models sorta the way morbidly obese people are
Work kept me from seeing the debate, sdferr. Luckily, I assume.
I’ve been looking for a transcript, without success so far.
But, Jeff, civilization and technology have so out-paced that old parchment. Basic, core, founding principles can’t be immutable in the face of such progress. And it binds our hands when we have all these shiny, new experiments to try. Originalism is so, so … outre. Sexual preference and race are hip.
Now now, we’re supposed to go easy on Christie, because he knows how to stick it to the media. Why he even knows how to suggest to an Occupier-type skank that she fellate him without using the words!
An openly gay black Republican? Does he ride to work on a unicorn?
More likely he’s hauled there on a two-wheeled card pulled by a donkey
what with him being a traitor to both his race and his orientation.
card cart / cart card
Ernst, that would be neat party trick. You think that if I support him he’ll teach me?
9, that is. Not into 12 with its donkeys.
Would you believe 10.
Here’s the video, with transcript on screen. The segment I’m concerned with is at the end, beginning at 1:24:35 with William’s question, continuing through Romney’s impossibly weak answer:
So the correct answer isn’t 1981-1989?
In my view, the correct answer doesn’t reduce to a date. That’s an even worse insult, isn’t it? The truth would do better. But Romney, while he may have read somewhere words someone else gave him about “restoring America’s greatness”, wouldn’t seem, by his own cowering answer to Williams, to recognize what it is that made America great. He’s not even in the same universe as America’s greatness. And he says precisely nothing about it, while backpedaling as fast as he can. He’s a loathsome worm.
I don’t think it is sdferr, given that Reagan connected with America and what made America great so deeply and intuitively, he personified it in a way no President since has been able to do.
I’ve no particular beef with Reagan, but would still resist the personification of a political philosophy gone missing. None of the greatness is pendant on a particular man, I think, nor the loss even. Ideas just don’t have that sort of character for me.
But to the point, Romney, whether he knew it or not, had right to say we have need to restore America’s greatness. That greatness is absent. He ought not to lie and say instead “America is still great”. That’s terrible. Say the fucking truth like a man, even if it’s momentarily painful. Explain what the greatness is, or was, say why it has gone away. Say it loud. Say it everyday.
And for my part I’m leary of associating America too closely with an idea or set of ideas. A philosophy of politics made it possible for Americans to be great, but it’s not the greatness of America itself.
What?
I think what Ernst is getting at is that the greatness of America lies in it’s people, not in it’s government.
The answer to the question I think is, America is great when her people are at liberty to pursue their individual happiness. America loses greatness when the government tries to provide the happiness instead of the liberty. Restoring greatness lies in restoring individual liberty, through constitutionally limited government.
Admittedly, that’s a hard argument to advance when you’re on record as mandating the purchase of insurance.
Reagan held and espoused a political philosopy, but millions of others also held and espoused that same political philosophy, and still do.
Sometimes who’s talking does matter.
What Lee said.
Also I think I read something Hegelian, i.e. “An Idea” being what makes America great, into what sdferr wrote that wasn’t there.
First, I’m aiming at the discussion of current American political problems in the context of the rhetoric in a “debate” amongst candidates for office. This, it seems to me, necessarily involves ideas. Positing American greatness, I believe, is a reasonable proposition, defensible across a wide range of phenomena and events, but surely defensible as attached to a particular idea or related collection of ideas (and those ideas, I’d argue, are a revolutionary — radical even — political philosophical position, and implemented by consent in this form precisely once in the known history of the world).
But, for contrast, there is also another idea on the scene, an idea which is not radical, which is not revolutionary, and which is not confined to the political organization of any one state: namely, authoritarianism.
I only expected that Mitt Romney might evince some knowledge of this contrast, and make a decent defense before the advocacy of authoritarianism Brian Williams represents.
“I only expected that Mitt Romney might evince some knowledge of this contrast”
Again, this is the guy that was the first ever to mandate that American citizens buy a product. Where oh were did you gain such expectations?
This “h” fits up there…
Ok. Whatever.
He ought not to lie and say instead “America is still great”.
Except that it’s a fact that the candidate who projects the most positive message wins the election. The candidate who says “the country sux; elect me so it won’t suck more” won’t win, even if it’s demonstrably true. “It’s Morning in America” beat Carter’s “malaise” hands down, even though when Reagan took office, the country was a veritable mess.
Identifying the loss of our unique heritage doesn’t have to be made a negative message, so long as the emphasis is properly laid on what it is that makes that heritage uniquely good and worth reinstating. There is near no end of goodness to be made of our founding. But if you prefer to see it lost, so be it.
Morning in America was 1984’s theme; 1980s theme was “Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his [job]!”
Reagan had the ability to make righteous indignation sound positive.
Also, arguably the election wasn’t decided until the debate. Amy Carter talking
smackMutually Assured Destruction to her dad, followed by (or preceded, I don’t remember the order) “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” decided the election.