The first one uses, nearly verbatim, the text written back here by the commenter known as David:
The second one was written by me, on a lark, as a response to David and in the spirit of lighthearted fun.
But that may make you want to weigh in on this:
October 25, 2008
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40 comments:
think you are much too sensitive about race.
Obama is not a victim of racial bias in this election, he benefits from it at every turn.
From the fact that no white male regardless of his charisma could get the nomination with a resume as thin and an alignment so leftist, to the fact that so many things about Obama are off the table because to raise them allows folks to scream RACIST!!!
Why would "a couple staunch new liberals on the Supreme Court" make life "as a lawprof more exciting"? Are the most interesting teaching cases not the ones that have a clear, honestly-expressed rationale on either side? If you wanted a more exciting life as a lawprof, shouldn't you prefer the outcome that Justice Kennedy will become completely irrelevant, his mushy, foggy prose consigned to tax cases where they'll do the least harm, leaving a crisp, clear majority opinion unburdened by the need to appease Kennedy (or worse yet, being written by him) and a crisp, clear dissent or two?
I could understand you wanting a couple of staunch new liberals on the court (although I don't read your recent post noting that one can like Roberts and still want a liberal to appoint the next justice to amount to an admission of this) because you'd like the results better. But making life as a lawprof more interesting?
Besides, couldn't a wag say that if you give the liberals another net vote, you'll be obsolete, because federal jurisdiction law will collapse from a complex, densely-interconnected web of endlessly fascinating doctrine, down to "hard up? you're in."
I could not vote on any of this. I can not play.
If you vote for Obama, and by your own stated figure there's still a 5.33% chance you won't, it will be because you're Democrat pure and simple. Everything else is either fluff or goo.
Ann has this "Hope" that Obama will "Change" and take most of the positions held by McCain, because Obama is "pragmatic".
Many of us think that exactly the opposite will happen on Jan 20th.
amazing logic IMHO.
The two most likely retirees are already progressives, so the face of the court won't change much until a conservative or moderate retires during a progressive presidency.
There is talk of the O! pushing a constitutional amendment to change the number on the court to 11. If he can do that and nominate the two, then there is a profound change.
Now, not so much.
I think things might get really interesting so I choose an identity.
And you teach religion clause law, too, so maybe we should check off the cases in and appurtenant to that area that are going to fall with a net gain in liberal votes on the court. Zelman. Agostini. Smith. And appurtenant to them: Salerno. Lujan. Valley Forge and Hein. You surely cannot think that the johnny-come-lately devotion to stare decisis on the left side of the court displayed two terms ago will outlast gaining the votes to overrule cases, and the list above are just the ones that spring immediately to mind. (Look for the sovereign immunity cases to join them on the ashpile too, by the way.)
Now, maybe you'd think that was a better result, although I'd hope not - but more interesting teaching if they did?
Stephanie said...
"The two most likely retirees are already progressives, so the face of the court won't change much until a conservative or moderate retires during a progressive presidency."
Two responses. First, how confident are you that Scalia or Kennedy won't retire or die? Before you answer, consider that Bills Douglas and Rehnquist didn't want to retire, either. Sometimes infirmity of mind, body or both overtakes your wishes. (To be clear, there's no doubt in my mind that in Rehnquist's cases, the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.)
Second, for reasons I explained in more detail here, while Obama replacing a liberal justice would not change the immediate balance of power, it's mistaken and short-term thinking to conclude that the change is a zero sum. I won't reiterate what I already said at that link, so incorporate it into this comment by reference.
"There is talk of the O! pushing a constitutional amendment to change the number on the court to 11."
I hadn't heard that, and I doubt it, but it's obviously his for the asking. Congress would give it to him and his supporters would rationalize and defend it.
Vanity, thy name is Althouse.
"I hadn't heard that, and I doubt it, but it's obviously his for the asking. Congress would give it to him and his supporters would rationalize and defend it."
Wow, even Bushitler didn't have the audacity to try that. Would the passage of such a thing be the appropriate incitement to rebellion?
Palladian, I don't know. It's hard to imagine that an action that's plainly within the sweep of powers granted by the Constitution would be instigation to insurrection, or even to a scorched-earth defense. But I might feel different about it if it was not an academic question. After all, the number of justices, and the range of legitimate reasons for varying the number thereof, is very, very deeply-embedded. I have written previously about the idea of an exoconstitutional structure - the idea that [some of] the understandings, traditions and practices that have accreted and calcified around the Constitution's text should be given great weight and deference, almost (but not quite) to the point of being treated as commands of the Constitution itself." There are, to cast the above into an adapted slogan (one I have used in comparable contexts), some things that Congress has the power to do, but not the right.
Well if he actually proposes it and gets away with it, in the words of Frank Booth from "Blue Velvet": We're fucked forever.
If Althouse does vote for BHO, it's a good example of a higher-end, low-information, low-wattage voter. She believes what others feed her, and in this case those others are people like Insty. She has little interest in doing research and thinking for herself. And, she's so gullible that she's fallen for the image that BHO and the MSM have pushed. Those who've been around a bit can tell at a glance that BHO is a complete fake, but people like Althouse are completely unable to figure that out. And, Althouse is unable to look ahead and realize what's going to happen if BHO wins.
If BHO wins, he's going to have Dem Congress and an MSM that will continue lying for him. He'll be the furthest left president in history, and there is little to prevent him from governing completely to the left. We will be living in something approaching a one party state, and BHO will attempt to further that. He's shown little regard for the FirstAmendment, and expect him to continue using his surrogates to silence his critics.
And, if he wins it will be like giving the ChicagoMachine a one-way ticket straight to DC. BHO will almost certainly appoint loyalists from the Machine to low-level positions just as Bush has done with his loyalists. The Machine - including their links to criminal figures - will become embedded in our permanent government.
The above should be worrisome to a law professor, but apparently Althouse is unable to figure any of it out.
If anyone wants to help prevent what would later be seen as a disaster, write Instapundit and other major bloggers and ask them why they aren't pushing this highly effective plan to defeat BHO.
Another point:
One reason why some (many?) might vote for BHO is because they don't want racists to thereby win. If he does lose, a lot of racists will cheer. However, there are very few racists with any actual power; it's not like the Klan writes legislation (generally speaking). After a BHO loss, racists will continue to have little or no real power.
On the other hand, if BHO loses, those racists will also lose.
However, another set of people will win: BHO's supporters. While most are no doubt nice people, many are not and are willing to do things like look through someone's private records (JTP case). And, many have fascistic tendencies. No, really. Who knew that East Germany-style thinking would find such purchase at DailyKos?
And, of course, BHO has a growing personality cult which would only get more pathological if he wins.
And, those people above - the cultists and those with fascistic tendencies - would have actual power after a BHO win.
But, wait, there's more. A BHO win would also completely validate every lie and smear the MSM has told on his behalf. Extraordinarily undemocratic press behavior would be rewarded instead of punished.
That said, I fully expect Althouse to support BHO, because she's simply unable to figure any of this out.
Why bother to vote, if not to be self-serving?
Althouse supports BHO because for the same primary reason any innercity slum resident does:
He will put more money in her pocket.
Welfare blogger!
Althouse wants change. Obama represents change.
Nobody said it had to be for the better!
LoneWacko said...
"A BHO win would also completely validate every lie and smear the MSM has told on his behalf. Extraordinarily undemocratic press behavior would be rewarded instead of punished."
Very much so. After 8/29, the media's behavior resembled nothing so much as a lynch mob riding around Palin County in an urgent hunt for a rope and a conveniently perpendicular limb, and if they are allowed to get away with that, if this systematic campaign of mockery, slander and personal destruction they have waged against Sarah is allowed to be seen as having paid off, I worry that it will have the net result of serving as a warning to female conservatives thinking of running for office. It would put them on notice that they too will be destroyed, caricatured by the mainstream media, hung out to dry by the feminists who would have been first in line to decry your treatment were you not a conservative, and will have no resourse.
Sorry, recourse. Typo.
Guesst said...
"Althouse wants change. Obama represents change."
Seems more like regression to me - discredited but warmed-over LBJ FDR cant. She's "from the 60s"; perhaps she's pining for the world of her youth. ;) (Just kidding.)
3 polls about the way I'm voting on November 4th.
---
What are you, a high school girl?
Regarding lies:
A while back, she ended up acknowledging that she had lied about many of the specific items she had claimed to eat/drink for dinner when she had added these specifics to one of her posts.
Can we ever trust someone that can so easily pepper her blog with pointless deception?
Well, I would never say "please blog about something else", but I've been resisting commenting on this, even though I've been checking out the comments.
I guess I'm just feeling "let's get it over with already". Nobody is going to change their minds.
So we are voting ourselves the treasury. Let us all have cake, I say. Can I choose the flavor? No?
Ok. *sigh*
1jpb, it's not commonly known, but the maxim of evidence law that falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus is actually a truncation of the full maxim, which is falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, salvifico Althouse.
I'm feeling kinda scratchy. Did Althouse forget to use the dustless black pepper when she peppered the blog?
Come to think of it, why pepper? why not salt? Does Althouse just not like salt? Idiomatically one can "salt" an essay with something just as one can "pepper" it with something.
Oh, just have your cake and like it, Simon. :)
Prof. Althouse is voting for Senator Obama because:
0 - She agrees with him on the substantive issues more than she agrees with McCain.
0 - I want America to have cool new young image.
0 - The complaints and criticisms if he loses will dog us for 100 years.
Did Althouse actually reveal her top 5 motivations to vote for Obama?
The results of that question so far ahead with "all lies" are not fair.
Matt Drayton: You're two wonderful people who happened to fall in love and happen to have a pigmentation problem.
(Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, 1967)
If Mort were awake she would say that was a racist comment.
Whatever became of Mort, anyway?
God, this comment was EVAR TEH FUNNAY1!!1!!
Mort has been busy moving to different states and casting votes for Obama in each in every one of them. It's part of his Mort across America tour.
Althouse is voting for Obama because she loves how the guy from Kansas/Hawaii who went to Ivy League schools he puts on a Southern preacher accent when making a speech to his acolytes to accentuate his points. "tax poli-say! defense poli-say! I am talkin' 'bout ed-u-cay-tion poli-say!" Althouse loves his stupid Howard-Dean Rolled-Up-Sleeves that let you know he MEANS BUSINESS BUSTER! He's workin hard for the middle class man! So hard, he has rolled up his sleeves! Look out buster!
I don't really don't think that's why Althouse is voiting for him, but I can not understand why she is either other than the need to shake things up in bring in a revolutionary Republican in 2012.
Con Law professors always stick together.
She'd vote for Glenn 'Instapundit' Reynolds.
And if Obama loses, he'll do a blog, and be linking to her all the time.
The fix is in.
CarmelaMotto said...
""tax poli-say! defense poli-say! I am talkin' 'bout ed-u-cay-tion poli-say!"
As I understand it, his and his allies' defense poli-say is to cut defense spending by twen-tay five percent.
George, if Obama loses, I hope we're all stocked up, locked and loaded. It'll be a long few weeks.
You know... I was never at all excited about McCain. I trust him far far more on foreign policy, but domestically he's nothing much to get excited about... do we remember McCain/Feingold and what not?
Will Obama be a disaster?
I once voted for Perot on the theory that our system was designed to operate on inertia and that there wasn't that much the President can really do and, most of all, D.C. *deserved* Perot.
So am I going to lose sleep over the possibility of an Obama win?
Not really. I'd rather McCain won, true enough, but if Obama wins we get what we got with Clinton, which was that conservatives don't for a moment think that they don't need to be vigilant. An Obama win will activate the opposition.
Obama's socialism can be countered by vigilant people... people who *might* feel that they should be supportive of McCain.
The appointment of judges is the really big thing making we favor McCain over Obama, because McCain just isn't that conservative... never has been.
And really... letting the kids have their win will do a lot to "bring us together" after 8 years of "not my president." Give all the children that little cleansing breath and maybe we can be back to being grown-ups again.
It's pretty dang repulsive to think that the thugs have us thinking that an Obama win would be better than a loss, just for the higher purpose of saving the Truthers and others that can be saved from the years of being encouraged in mental instability... see, look! The Theocracy is not setting up concentration camps. King Bush is not actually King. The voting system is (obviously) not totally controlled by evil Rethuglicans! Just, in the end, because we don't want to put up with the tantrum if he loses.
But there it is.
Thanks, Synova. I'll take the tantrum.
I just realized--just now, scanning this post--that I don't read this blog anymore. I've been coming here daily for a couple years, but I realized just now that lately I've only been scanning the posts, not really reading any of them. Something's changed here, but I can't put my finger on it. This is a great blog, mind. Prof. Althouse puts a lot of time into making this blog a real class act. But it's just not for me anymore. Farewell.
Those voting for Obama fall into one of three categories. There are the diehard Democrats and leftists who cannot conceive of not voting for one of their own, the gullible ones who think "hope" and "change" actually mean something other than cheap rhetorical devices to delude the gullible, and the evil ones, the anti-American extremists like Ayers, Khaladi, and their ilk.
McCain sucks, of course, and no one should harbor any real hope he would be a good President given his political record and complete lack of executive experience. Like Hillary, though, he never looked more like a potential President than when set against Obama.
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