H/T for the Hillary quote, OpinionJournal.
Senator Clinton on why she’ll vote against confirming Judge Samuel Alito as Supreme Court Justice:
Judge Alito also holds a harshly limited view of what the government can or should do to help ordinary Americans. Judge Alito said it all in 1986, when he was a young lawyer in the Reagan administration. He wrote that in his estimation, it is not the role of the federal government to protect the health, safety and welfare of the American people. Well, I guess that explains the inept, slow and dangerous response to Hurricane Katrina.
Um… no, what that explains is the term non sequitur.
It also explains that Alito has read the Constitution and Hillary hasn’t. James Madison, an authority on the matter, said it all in 1792:
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.
It never even occurred to Madison that the Supreme Court would “subvert the very foundations” by aiding and abetting elected looters in a quest to destroy federalism.
Hillary sees SCOTUS’ role as enabling unchecked expansion of the nanny state: “It takes a Village – and a Majority of Nine Judges.”
This sensitivity to, and preference for, judge-made law is a common Democrat theme. So, not to be outdone in vying for statist sympathy in advance of the 2008 presidential campaign, Senator Kerry is trying to organize a filibuster opposing Alito’s confirmation vote. I thought this would have been Harry Reid’s job.
Whoever. I’m OK with it; whether writing for the Daily Kos (be sure to check out the site thoroughly to see the company Kerry’s keeping), obstructing yet another judicial nomination for the sake of it, or calling our soldiers terrorists, Kerry’s doing whatever it takes to wade ever further into the political nether regions quagmire. And when he’s not dragging Hillary with him, she’s dragging him with her. Teddy Kennedy is pushing them both with George Soros leading the cheers.
I hope Kerry is successful in initiating a filibuster. Then Senator Clinton will have to decide whether to join in useless Kos-appeasing obstructionism, and Senator Frist may finally be forced to employ the Constitutional Option.
“Democrat strategy” is truly an oxymoron.
Update: 28-Jan, 11:19AM – Over at Scrappleface Scott Ott notes that Filibuster Part of Secret Kerry Plan for 2008
Update: 28-Jan, 12:36PM – Captain’s Quarters’ Ed Morrisey with John Kerry, Blog Boy Of The Left
Update: 28-Jan, 4:28PM – Powerline – There’s Something Happening Here… Woo Hoo! maybe we’ll see the Constitutional Option yet.
Update: 28-Jan, 5:29PM – New York Daily News – Hil’s for filibuster. Told you!