links for 2009-07-29
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It's a tossup whether Rob Portman or his predecessor Mitch Daniels was the worst OMB Director in history...
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Justices have a great deal of discretion—in which cases they take, in the results they reach, in the opinions they write. When it comes to interpreting the Constitution... there is, frankly, no such thing as “law.”... Justices make choices, based largely, though not exclusively, on their political views... there is no other way to interpret the majestic vagueness of the Constitution. But the fact that Judge Sotomayor managed to avoid discussing any of this throughout four days of testimony is indicative of the way the confirmation process... misleads the public.... The process evolved this way as a response to a political, not a legal, problem. In 1987, Robert Bork engaged the Judiciary Committee in a substantive discussion of his judicial philosophy... the Senate, quite properly, voted him down because of his narrow conception of the... Bill of Rights. From this example, Supreme Court nominees took the lesson that the less said the better...
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D.C. reporters believe they can say anything... and not only never be... challenged about what they're saying, but not even quoted.... by virtue of something being posed as a question, it is an empirical fact that it includes no opinion.... As the Dow Jones Vice President wrote... it is simply "not accurate" for anyone to "interpret" Weisman's question as conveying any opinion.... This makes absolutely no sense.... [A] reporter could have asked... Bush, "Why do you love killing Iraqi children?"... Likewise, a reporter can ask the White House "Are you pushing a tax on the top 1 percent of Americans because those people have benefitted so disproportionately over the last three decades?"... [Q]uestions can quite obviously convey ideology - and the idea that they can't simply because they are questions "designed to elicit a response" is preposterous...
