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TODAY'S
NEWS & VIEWS
"Today's
News & Views"
is an exciting daily feature, a welcome addition to the wealth of material found
on the National Right to Life's web page. "Today's
News & Views" is written in a style that appeals not only to
committed pro-lifers but to anyone with an open mind on the greatest social
justice issue of our day: abortion. "Today's News
& Views" will cover the waterfront. One day, the web surfer
will find a commentary on a recent prime-time television program, the next day a
book review, the day after that notice of a new pro-life video, the day after
that added details that go beyond that found in stories written for the National
Right to Life News--"the right to life newspaper of record." The goal is
to make the contents of "Today's News & Views"
so interesting that visitors will bookmark the page [www.nrlc.org]
and make visits a regular part of their day.
--Dave Andrusko
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Today's News & Views
May 13, 2008 |
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The Federal Courts and the Presidency
Editor's note. Wishing my son a happy
24th birthday. David, you are a blessing to mom and me.
"The whole name of the game is who
will be the next president."
Eleanor Acheson, an
assistant attorney general for Clinton who oversaw judicial selections,
quoted in Monday's USA Today.
"In U.S. appeals courts, Reagan's
influence endures: Conservative appointees now a dominant force in the law,"
reads the headline for a piece written for yesterday's USA
Today by Joan Biskupic. You wouldn't need to know that she'd
written a syrupy, sympathetic biography of pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor to know the drift of this article before you read it. You'd just
need to have read most any of her pieces about the Court.
The conclusions found in Monday's
article are self-evident in parts, over-stated in other parts, but certainly
correct when she quotes from Acheson, who helped vet court appointments for
pro-abortion President Bill Clinton: "The whole name of the game is who will
be the next president."
The self-evident part is that
President Reagan was more systemic than previous Republicans in making
nominations to the federal courts. That, of course, did not prevent stealth
candidates, such as O'Connor, from slipping through. But, by and large, the
Gipper did a fine job.
Biskupic's article is largely about
that intellectually stellar group and how its influence has only grown. "[N]early
20 years after Reagan left office, many of them are at the height of their
power," she write. Assuming they were as bright as even she concedes they
were, and had not left the bench that was inevitable.
She goes through a number of
flashpoint issues, including abortion, about which some of these
appointments have written, and draws the commonsensical conclusion that
"Reagan's enduring legacy shows the power a president has in shaping the law
-- not just at the Supreme Court, which gets so much attention, but also in
the midlevel appeals courts."
Where she misses the boat is to
acceptance patently false assurances that Bill Clinton "did not wish to
expend major political capital with his court appointments," as University
of Massachusetts Amherst political science professor Sheldon Goldman told
Biskupic. This is to spin the truth to conform to an enduring and
self-serving myth about Clinton's judicial selections.
Almost lost in the shuffle is the
imprint President George W. Bush will leave by the time his two terms in
office are complete. "President Bush has tried to reinforce Reagan's legacy
and tapped young conservative thinkers," Biskupic writes near the very end.
"Goldman says that has turned into 'a major
success story for Bush.'"
Even when he first began campaigning,
President Bush made it clear he was interested only in candidates for the
federal bench to whom restraint was a virtue, not a vice. I was reminded of
what the President repeatedly said when I read pro-life Senator John
McCain's speech last week to students at Wake Forest University.
In one key section, McCain contrasted
judicial activism from real activism. Real activists "seek to make their
case democratically -- to win hearts, minds, and majorities to their cause,"
McCain said. "Such people throughout our history have often shown great
idealism and done great good. By contrast, activist lawyers and activist
judges follow a different method. They want to be spared the inconvenience
of campaigns, elections, legislative votes, and all of that.
"They don't seek to win debates on the
merits of their argument; they seek to shut down debates by order of the
court," McCain continued. "And even in courtrooms, they apply a double
standard. Some federal judges operate by fiat, shrugging off generations of
legal wisdom and precedent while expecting their own opinions to go
unquestioned. Only their favorite precedents are to be considered 'settled
law,' and everything else is fair game."
The Reagan/Bush/McCain philosophy of
judicial restrain, I would suggest, merits praise and congratulations.
Please send your thoughts to
daveandrusko@hotmail.com.
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ARCHIVES
May 2008
The Federal Courts and
the Presidency -- May 13, 2008
PPFA, Nurse
Practitioners, and a Fatter Bottom Line
-- May 12,
2008
Congress Passes Bill to
Ban Genetic Discriminationafter Adding Pro-Life Language
-- May 9, 2008
Defending the Weakest
Against the Misuse of "Science" -- May 8, 2008
The Day After North
Carolina and Indiana -- May 7, 2008
Sen. McCain Explains His
Judicial Philosophy -- May 6, 2008
Obama "Brought Back to
Earth"? Hardly
-- May 5, 2008
An Update on Haleigh Poutre: She Continues to
Improve -- May 2, 2008
A Radio Program You Should Listen To -- May
1, 2008
April 2008
A Two-Sided Truth
-- April 30, 2008
India's Prime Minister
Denounces Sex-Selection Abortion -- April 29,
2008
Obama Continues to
Deny Militant Pro-Abortion Record -- April 28, 2008
The Critical
Importance of Registering to Vote -- April 25,
2008
Cloning Proponents
Rethinking Support -- April 24, 2008
Pro-Abortion Democrats Continue to Spar With No End in Sight
-- April 23, 2008
"He
Is Supposed to be Here With Us" -- April 22,
2008
Some Reflections on Pope Benedict XVI's
Visit -- April 21, 2008
Peeking Behind the
Curtain: A Look at the Real Barack Obama --
April 18, 2008
Oklahomans Override Governor's Veto
-- April 17, 2008
Select Quotations on
Life Issues from His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI &
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
-- April 16, 2008
Obama's Teflon Wearing Thin -- April 15,
2008
"Winning the Hearts
and Minds of United Methodists" -- April 14,
2008
Abortion: The Price of
Illiteracy -- April 11, 2008
As Embryonic Stem Cell
Research Continues to be Fruitless, Alternatives to ESC Proliferate
-- April 10, 2008
"At All Times, This
Won't be Pleasant" -- April 9, 2008
Doctors' Conscientious
Objection to Abortion Threatened -- April 8, 2008
Charlton Heston, RIP
-- April 7, 2008
Vietnam Man Provides
Crisis Pregnancy Help -- April 4, 2008
Pro-Life Perspective
and Apple's iTunes
-- April 3, 2007
"A Window
Into His Soul"
-- April 2, 2008
Teflon Candidate
Continues to Test Public's Tolerance for Ghastly Remarks
-- April 1, 2008
March 2008
"Everything
Old is New Again"
-- March 31, 2008
A Great Way to End the Week
-- March 28, 2008
Watching Pro-Life
Young People Make the Case for Life -- March
27, 2008
Pro-Abortionists Blog
to Protect Obama -- March 26, 2008
Kevorkian,
Ultrasounds, and Inmate Abortions -- March 25, 2008
"Not a Saint, Just a
Parent" -- March 24, 2008
California Boy with
Cerebral Palsy Improves after Cord Blood Stem Cell Transplant
-- March 21,2008
South Dakota Governor
Signs Ultrasound Bill
-- March 20, 2008
Canadian Study Treats
Multiple Sclerosis with Adult Stem Cells --
March 19, 2008
More About the
Connection Between Abortion and Depression --
March 18, 2008
The Siren Call of
Barack Obama (Part 2)
-- March 17, 2008
The Siren Call of
Barack Obama (Part 1) -- March 14, 2008
Free Speech for
Canadian Pro-Lifers -- March 13, 2008
Spitzer and Abortion
-- March 12, 2008
Frenzy-Bordering-on-Hysteria
-- March 11, 2008
Moving Beyond the
Prevailing Idea -- March 10, 2008
Wisconsin
Right to Life's Teen Leaders Testify for Life
-- March 7, 2008
The "Best" People
-- March 6, 2008
After Last Night
-- March 5, 2008
"Friday Night Lights"
And the Two Most Important Things -- March 4,
2008
Will We See a New Narrative After Tuesday's Results?
-- March 3, 2008
February 2008
Virginia
Senate Votes to Cut Off Funding to Planned
Parenthood -- February 29, 2008
20th
Debate Offers Another Revealing Glimpse
Of Senator Obama -- February 28, 2008
William
F. Buckley, Jr., R.I.P. -- February 27, 2008
Corrupting Everything
It Touches
-- February 26, 2008
Out of the Mouths of
Babes -- February 25, 2008
Wisconsin Pro-Aborts
Take Aim at State Abortion Law -- February
22, 2008
"The Most Persuasive
Anti-Abortion Argument" Ever? -- February 21,
2008
Another Patient
"Awakens" -- February 20, 2008
Some Reflections on
Presidents' Day -- February 19, 2008
Narcissism on Steroids
-- February 18, 2008
An
Understandable Reaction, A Tragic Response
-- February 15, 2008
"Dandy Kids" Embrace
Life Despite Challenges -- February 14, 2008
A "No-Brainer" Indeed
-- February 13, 2008
Abortion,
Euthanasia, and the New Research on Pain & Consciousness
-- February 12, 2008
The Charmed Circle &
The First
Ache -- February 11, 2008
A Season
of Questions and Answers -- February 8, 2008
Romney Withdraws
-- February 7, 2008
Presidential Contests
Still Unclear After Super Tuesday -- February
6, 2008
66 babies in a year left
to die after abortions "go wrong" in Great Britain
-- February 5, 2008
A Look Ahead to Tuesday
and Much More -- February 4, 2008
Improving
Survival Rates for Premature Infants in Great Britain
-- February 1, 2008
January 2008
An Update on Politics, RU486,
and the Powerfully Pro-Life Observations of Pope Benedict XVI
-- January 31, 2008
What Last
Night's Results Tell Us -- January 30, 2008
A Closer Look At Sen.
Obama's Position On Abortion -- January 29,
2008
Pro-Abortionists
Struggle to "Regain the Moral High Ground"
-- January 28, 2008
Answering to a Higher
Authority -- January 25, 2008
The Real Lessons of
"Juno" -- January 24, 2008
"A Cause Rooted in Human
Dignity and Appealing to the Best Instincts of
the American People Cannot Fail" -- January
23, 2008
Stirring a New
Generation of Pro-Life Activists
-- January 22, 2008
"Only when it's dark
enough can you see the stars" -- January
21, 2008
Pity the Pro-abortionist
--
January 18, 2008
Wonderfully Encouraging News:
Number of Abortions at Lowest Level Since 1976
-- January 17, 2007
Who Could
Argue With That? -- January 16, 2008
Raising the Ante
-- January 15, 2008
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" --
January 14, 2008
A Friday Potpourri
-- January 11, 2008
Shameless
and Oblivious as Ever -- January 10, 2008
Elections 2008: Can It Get Any More Unpredictable?
-- January 9, 2008
Looking Ahead to Tonight
-- January 8, 2008
"I Can't
Wait to Meet You" -- January 7, 2008
About
Thursday Night…. -- January 4, 2008
Imminent Threat Needs
Grassroots Response -- January 3, 2008
DECISION 2008
-- January 2, 2008
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