To Steal Or Not To Steal: Ask The
Professor
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 7,
2002
Democrats regularly insult the intelligence of half the public in
order to win the votes of the terminally stupid. As long as their
lies bamboozle enough clods to give them a political edge, they will
say absolutely anything. The Easily Demagogued are a key Democratic
constituency, right after Steely-Eyed Zealots.
Thus for example, even after Bill Clinton was exposed as a
slightly tackier version of Jimmy Swaggart, the Democrats could not
stop insulting our intelligence, sonorously intoning that it is not
perjury if it's "just about sex" or -- contradictorily -- it is also
not perjury if the witness personally believed it wasn't sex.
Further, during the Clintonized presidential election fiasco, the
party's law professor adjuncts fanned out across the airwaves to
earnestly explain that the Florida Supreme Court was engaging in a
perfectly ordinary act of judicial interpretation when it
interpreted "seven days" in the statute to mean "17 days, or as long
as it takes for Gore to steal the election."
And most recently, Democrats have taken the position that the
heroic performance of policemen, firemen and the military after 9-11
supports the Democrats' love of big government. Inasmuch as liberals
have spent 20 years relentlessly suing fire departments, police
departments and the military, this is a very aggressive position to
take. Indeed, every hero of Sept. 11
has been a favorite target
of liberal lawsuits. There's no better way to say "thank you" than
to sue for sexual discrimination!
Watching Democrats in action often feels like being the target of
a "Candid Camera" set-up. You constantly find yourself wanting to
scream, <"Is anyone else watching this?"> As a class, one
group that is not keeping tabs on Democratic shenanigans is the
media. Thus, when Bill Clinton unleashed his signature weeping
routine during a black church service in 1993, the Chicago Tribune
factually reported that Clinton "appeared to feel every word and
emotion deeply."
Naturally, it always comes as a great relief when the left's
demagogic hokum is finally exposed despite the best efforts of the
press. If the Alan Funt of the Bill Clinton spectacle was Monica
Lewinsky, the Alan Funt of the election spectacle is at the opposite
end of the IQ spectrum: It is Judge Richard Posner, author of
"Breaking the Deadlock."
Posner, a federal judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, goes
through the Democrats' every legal argument, every sneaky stratagem,
every disingenuous claim, like William Tecumseh Sherman marching to
Savannah. Point by point, by his relentless logic, he has them
trapped whichever way they turn.
The election fracas is the perfect topic for Judge Posner's
analytical, computer-like brain. He is the most frequently cited
federal judge. He was a founder of the Chicago Law and Economics
movement. The late Supreme Court Justice William Brennan called him
one of only two geniuses he had ever met.
So you can pretty well imagine his reaction to the deep
cogitations of SCOFLA -- the Supreme Court of Florida. Though Posner
is not the sort to come out and call SCOFLA a bunch of
ambulance-chasers, his precise, unemotional style is far more
devastating. Taking a clinical interest in his subject, Posner
writes at one point simply that "(o)ne is mystified" by the SCOFLA's
reasoning.
In its first abrogation of clear statutory law, SCOFLA
interpreted "seven days" to mean "17 days" and thus unlawfully
extended the period before the election could be certified. That
decision, Posner says, was "the catalyst for the legal and political
broil that ensued." And it was based on "an unreasonable and not
merely unsound interpretation of the statute."
SCOFLA had concluded that it was entitled to disregard Florida
election law on the basis of a general provision in the Florida
Constitution that states simply: "All political power is inherent in
the people." Posner treats as an odd curiosity the fact that the
court "seems to have regarded" this "people power" clause as
superior to the written law. Yet this was the "key"
to its
decision. Jane Goodall could not have described the SCOFLA's
rationale with greater dispassion.
The SCOFLA's ludicrous power grab occasionally tries the patience
of even this most circumspect academic: "The Constitution is not a
brooding omnipresence," Posner writes, nor do the courts function as
a "council of revision" to ensure that statutes "reflect the
'spirit' of the Constitution." Rather, he says: "The courts can
invalidate a statute, or interpret it reasonably, but they are not
to interpret it unreasonably merely because it does not embody the
aspirations that the courts find limned in vague constitutional
language."
And consider that SCOFLA gets off easy in Posner's account. As he
says: "The participants most deserving of criticism, though as yet
largely spared it, are the law professors who offered public
comments on the unfolding drama."
If you suspected that the Democrats and their legal and
journalistic handmaidens were trying to steal an election in broad
daylight, "Breaking the Deadlock" will not relieve your mind. There
is no argument, no riposte, no silly liberal sentiment that Posner
does not methodically deconstruct. This book is the complete
antidote to 36 days of a Clintonized transfer of power.
Ann Coulter
is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her latest book is
High
Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill
Clinton.
© Copyright 2001 Universal Press
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