Kavanaugh, testifying, told the Senators, "You have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with search and destroy." He said "advice," even at the cost of losing parallelism. "Search and destroy" are verbs. If nouns and not verbs are called for, he should have said "You have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with searching and destruction."
A big reason to say "advice and consent" is that the Constitutional text — Article II, Section 2 s— ays:
[The President] with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint... Judges of the supreme Court....So maybe text should trump grammar, but if the text should so dominate how we speak, let's start saying "Judges of the Supreme Court." None of this "Justices" foolery.
Anyway, lest you think I'm a stickler for grammar, that's not why I've been preferring "advise and consent." I figured out the grammar after the fact, and I'm ready to hear anyone's explanation that I'm wrong about the grammar. I'm saying "Advise and Consent" because I read the 1959 best-seller "Advise and Consent" and I know the 1962 Otto Preminger movie!
Here's Wikipedia's plot summary of the book, which I'm setting out because there's some resonance with the recent activity in the Senate (boldface added):
A U.S. President decides to replace his Secretary of State to promote rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Nominee Robert Leffingwell, a darling of liberals, is viewed by many conservative senators as an appeaser. Others, including the pivotal character of Senator Seabright (Seab) Cooley of South Carolina, have serious doubts about Leffingwell's character. The book tells the story of an up-and-down nomination process that most people fully expect to result in a quick approval of the controversial nominee.You can add this book to your Kindle for $10. I think I read it because it was assigned reading in my high school history class in the late 1960s. I believe it's considered to be one of the best novels about the workings of American politics.
But Cooley is not so easily defeated. He uncovers a minor bureaucrat named Gelman who testifies that twenty years earlier then-University of Chicago instructor Leffingwell invited Gelman to join a small Communist cell that included a fellow traveler who went by the pseudonym James Morton. After outright lies under oath by the nominee and vigorous cross examination by Leffingwell, Gelman is thoroughly discredited and deemed an unfit witness by the subcommittee and its charismatic chairman Utah Senator Brig Anderson. The subcommittee is ready to approve the nominee.
At this crucial moment in the story, the tenacious Senator Cooley dissects Gelman's testimony and discovers a way to identify James Morton. Cooley maneuvers Morton into confessing the truth of Gelman's assertions to Senator Anderson who subsequently re-opens the subcommittee's hearings, thus enraging the President. When the President's attempts to buy Anderson's cooperation fail he places enormous pressure on Majority Leader Robert Munson to entice Anderson into compliance. In a moment of great weakness that Munson will regret the rest of his life, Munson provides the President a photograph, acquired quite innocently by Munson, that betrays Anderson's brief wartime homosexual liaison.
Armed with the blackmail instrument he needs, the President ignores Anderson's proof of Leffingwell's treachery and plots to use the photo to gain Anderson's silence.The President plants the photo with leftist Senator Fred Van Ackerman, thinking he will never need to use it. But the President has underestimated Van Ackerman's treachery and misjudged Anderson's reaction should the truth come out. After a series of circumstances involving Anderson's secret being revealed to his wife, the Washington press corps, and several senators, Anderson kills himself. Anderson's death turns the majority of the Senate against the President and the Majority Leader. Anderson's suicide and the exposure of the truth about Leffingwell's lies regarding his communist past set in motion a chain reaction that ends several careers and ultimately rejects Leffingwell as a nominee to become Secretary of State.
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117 comments:
I don't know what the advice part would be in any case. Consent just means they have to confirm it.
Interesting that the role is to "consent" — considering that we're also talking about sex.
Advising and consenting of the Senate.
Gerunds, present participles or deverbal nouns?
If you like that novel, you should read his nonfiction, "A Senate Journal," which sets the plot going. Roosevelt is obviously the president of the novel.
Thanks! "Advice" kept sounding wrong - because of the movie - and I may have even read the book.
I read the novel last year. Pretty good.
I don't think I've ever seen the
John Henry
"Kavanaugh, testifying, told the Senators, 'You have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with "search and destroy'."
I think that was directed at the DEMOCRAT Senators.
Advise is legalization. Consent is normalization. The context is sex without borders, which comes with trimesters, decades after regrets.
Never read the book, but saw the movie, which is terrific.
I probably watched the movie in context of the last appalling judicial hearings.
That quasi-hunch-backed looking guy is up to something.
Democrats jumped the Ass. The People will advise and consent on their viability.
It's sex, violence, and comedy at the Twilight fringe.
A lot of Allen Drury applies in the time of Trump.
Drury turned what seemed staid and routine in his day into something more dramatic, paranoid, and even lurid, but reality has caught up with him.
Senators "advise and consent". The president receives "advice and consent".
"You still want to show me your cucumber?"
The Senate can give its advice, as an institution. But that part hardly matters.
The Senate can withhold its consent, as an institution, and that part does matter.
There is no advice or consent necessary from individual senators.
Sorry Judge 'not Justice' Merrick Garland.
That is a great movie. Highly recommend it.
I loved Advise and Consent back in my teens. It was something my mother had bought in paperback, and I read parts of it over and over. My sense at the time was that "the President" in the novel was essentially Roosevelt, and the vice-president -- lovable impotent Harley Hudson, I think -- was based on Truman, who suddenly grew a spine after the President died.
Senator Brigham Anderson was from Utah and thus likely a Mormon. Even today a "brief homosexual liaison" might be a serious matter for a serious Mormon, although it's not the issue it used to be, thank goodness. Seab Cooley, the crusty South Carolina senator, was portrayed in a pretty good light considering the general animus of many toward southerners in the growing civil rights movement. The entire story was an apt period piece from the Cold War era. Very different country and global environment today.
Its not such a period piece anymore, given the "Russia" business over the last few years.
Saw the movie recently. There’s a certain feel to Preminger movies (and many of the movies of the ‘50’s and early to mid 60’s)
-Ernest,serious,honest etc.
I guess that was a reaction to movies like Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies.
Still,it feels so dated, out of step.
To be honest I prefer the ‘70’s movie.
Ann Althouse said, "Interesting that the role is to "consent" — considering that we're also talking about sex."
Interesting catch. New Federal sex guideline:
"A man shall have sex with the advice and consent of his chosen partner."
"Honey, let me 'splain to you how to make me happy. Put the cucumber away until I'm ready."
Ah ... “Advise and Consent”. A mature Gene Tierney in the Pearl Mesta role. Snort.
“Advise and Consent” was an incredibly tedious and boring movie.
In American usage, "justice" simply means "judge". However, I don't like the use myself because of the connotation that the word implies- that the judge is a giver of "justice". Oftentimes enough, the "right" judgment has nothing to do with the concept of justice, and that is even granting that the judge is capable of discerning either one.
This works fine as long as the advisors and consentors are Americans. It breaks down when many are paid by and owned by Soros and other foreign wealth streams.
"He said "advice," even at the cost of losing parallelism. "
That's enough to impeach him now.
October 3, 1849. Mr. Poe, what happened that day? We need to know. R.I.P.
The novel is great. Preminger was leftist, so he changed the plot to make the liberals look better
Wikipedia write up is the usual left wing crap. On one hand, its author is conservative (boo) but it portrays Gays well (hurray!) - so it may be politically correct for the comrades to read it.
Laughton is the best thing in the movie. Having Fonda as the Liberal/Commie is a nice touch.
On the state of the novel, or popular literature in general - its quite an extreme change from even two-three decades ago. A modern Allen Drury would find endless material today. A modern Irwin Shaw likewise. The whole Iraq-Afghanistan-ISIS war business should have created a Kipling or three.
Althouse wrote: “Interesting that the role is to "consent" — considering that we're also talking about sex.”
The Senate’s advice was consensual. Etymology suggests that they had to feel him.
"I think that was directed at the DEMOCRAT Senators."
The Republicans had the majority power. Why did they let Ford tell her 30-year-old, completely uncorroborated story to the world and force him to attempt to prove his innocence? He could have been confirmed after the initial hearing, but they were cowed and played.
Otto Preminger was way ahead of his time. He also directed a Chicago-based political thriller called “In Rahm’s way.”
"In American usage, "justice" simply means "judge". However, I don't like the use myself because of the connotation that the word implies- that the judge is a giver of "justice"..."
I think "justice" makes the person seem to be the embodiment of the value. It's like calling someone "your excellency" or "your holiness." It feels unAmerican to me. I think "judge" is better because that is what the power is and there's a danger of abuse that's clear. If the person is "justice," it seems as though he's inherently right.
It also feels silly to have a different name for the judges on the highest court. There work is the same, but it has special status because there isn't a higher court that can reverse. As Justice Jackson famously said: "We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final."
Talk about picking nits, Professor!
Looking at the senators on the Democrat side, l am struck by how stupid they are. Well, Feinstein was apparently needing to burnish her lefty lunatic cress, as she is being challenged for reelection from the extreme left. But I think the trap closed on her — had she tacked to the center she might have picked up enough Republican voters to prevail. Right now ...
But people like Sheldon Whitehouse and Cory Booker — do either of them have two or more digits in their IQs? Doesn’t seem so.
if you remember back in the summer of 2016 (which, I Know, was before midnight this morning; and thus has been Long Forgotten); the Dems back then were saying that the Constitution said that the Senate HAD TO consent: that they Had No Other Option
Of Course, in the famous words of S. E. Hinton.... That Was Then, This is Now
Old Otto also did Anatomy of a Murder. That is a perfect trial lawyer’s film complete with a jimmy named Stewart.
I think "justice" makes the person seem to be the embodiment of the value. It's like calling someone "your excellency" or "your holiness."
Or calling someone "your honor". Which happens every day in every courtroom in the United States.
We live in ”trumpestuous” times.
How’s that for coinage? As an adverb, it has the connotations of “strong and turbulent or conflicting emotion” as well as stormy tumult,
Althouse,
The Republicans were neither cowed nor played.
They have no political instincts because they live in DC and the MSM amplifies the Leftism. They were scared to act until Trump showed leadership. The problem is the lack of a feedback mechanism to reach Republican politicians who have limited principles beyond their own perpetuation in office. The Republicans waited for polling, phone calls from constituents, and conservatism activism to reach their ears.
They were frozen by their odd sense of self-preservation. The best self-preservation policy is routing the Leftist Collectivists.
BTW, how is Dowd taking all this? Asking the NYT subscribers here.
@Althouse, your comment at 10:24 tells me that you still don’t get it. Once the Ford letter was public, if the Republicans had not investigated it then they would have been accused of a cover-up. Thanks to the hearings and the FBI investigation every intelligent and unbiased person in the United States knows that Ford was lying, that the entire Democrat Party consists of fools and screeching harridans, and no decent person would ever want to vote for them.
The Republicans had the majority power. Why did they let Ford tell her 30-year-old, completely uncorroborated story to the world and force him to attempt to prove his innocence?
Because if they had not have, today you would be savaging them for not doing so.
He could have been confirmed after the initial hearing, but they were cowed and played.
Again, if they had, you'd be melting down about it today.
I read the book more than 36 years ago. I recall I liked it. I forget most of it.
chickenlittle:
The style book says "Stormy" must be capitalized these days.
Gahrie 10:44
Correct, but that’s just part of how they got played. #HardinRightAboutAlthouse
Ken B,
Do you remember the house in which you read the book?
Or who else was in the house at the time?
Or whether it was spring, summer, fall, or winter?
Do you remember how you got to the bookstore or how you got home?
:-)
The point isn't justice but the law, in any case.
Not the mot juste.
Arthouse as a stickler for grammar is a given. Almost seems at times as if it were a vital biochemichemical process for her (you.) As it should be. Law is at its heart the use and manipulation of language. Decades of hammering round, sloppily-formed undergraduate minds into somewhat orderly cubical (cubist?) rational thinkers leaves a mark, to be sure. That mark lives somewhere in the (unlinkable) OED. As an aside, do you have a keyboard macro for that phrase,or do you type it the long way each time?
@Birkel: You are right, sir. When I write “stormy” on my iPad, I have to overrule autocorrect “Stormy”.
"The Republicans were neither cowed nor played..... They were scared to act..."
Not seeing the distinction.
The verb "cow" means "‘To depress with fear’ (Johnson); to dispirit, overawe, intimidate."
"Cow," the verb, doesn't share an etymology with "coward" or even "cow," the word for the animal. It's from "Old Norse kúga ‘to cow, force, tyrannize over’, Norwegian kue , Swedish kufva to subdue."
That is a perfect trial lawyer’s film complete with a jimmy named Stewart.
He changed the ending to make it visual but otherwise it was well done.
It was inspired to have Jospeh N Welch play the judge. He was terrific. He and Travers, the author of the novel, became friends and traveled to Europe together after the movie was made.
He insisted his wife be in the movie, too, and she was juror.
"@Althouse, your comment at 10:24 tells me that you still don’t get it. Once the Ford letter was public, if the Republicans had not investigated it then they would have been accused of a cover-up."
No, you don't get it.
"they would have been accused" ... oh, poor babies. I repeat that they were cowed and played and they deserved the criticism too.
Sometimes parallelism must give way to common sense.
Alger Hiss?
Big Mike: You team won, why the butt-hurt?
Cowed is an active process.
Possessing no information from conservative constituents is a passive process.
The fear caused by cowing is a failure of courage.
The indecision caused by a lack of information is overcome by gaining information.
Many centrist Republicans are indifferent to conservative causes.
That is not fear; it does lead to indecision.
The president's political instincts are better than that of the centrist Republicans.
"they would have been accused" ... oh, poor babies. I repeat that they were cowed and played and they deserved the criticism too.
In other words: Man up dudes...grow a pair!
You have to understand Althouse, they're just splooge stooges and don't know any better.
"I know...let's put the Republican Senators in a no-win situation, that way we can give them shit no matter what they do."
"they would have been accused" ... oh, poor babies. I repeat that they were cowed and played and they deserved the criticism too.
Indeed they do deserve the criticism, but in the end they followed Trump's lead and grew a pair. They got bigger as time went on. Let's hope they continue to grow and realize the only way to defeat the dems is TO DEFEAT the dems. Compromise isn't working and almost never worked for them. Maybe they are starting to really and truly figure that out.
But I'm not overly optimistic.
Novels were often topical, about current or recent events, or set in such a milieu.
This is not just an English thing, there are Cervantes and Rabelais, but also consider THE novel of the Thirty Years War, to a degree by an eyewitness, "Simplicius Simplicissimus" (Grimmelshausen, 1669). There is a new translation on Kindle (Mitchell, 2006) btw, $11.99. The old English translation (Goodrick, 1912) is free on the internet and excellent, IMHO, but some people prefer modernized language I guess.
Anyway, the original nature of English novels was that they were closely tied to contemporary or at least recent matters - Jonathan Swift, or Smollett (even Tristam Shandy is extremely contemporary), etc. Thackeray and Dickens are precise about their settings, as contemporary conditions go, or those of the recent past.
These days that seems to have gone away, or it seems so at least for serious fiction intended for a male audience, I can't answer for things intended for female tastes.
The GOP senators didn't know Ford's testimony wouldn't hold up when they agreed to let her testify. They didn't know she wouldn't release the therapy notes and the names she gave would turn out to be dead ends. Maybe they should have held out?
Althouse herself wanted to hear what she had to say. Why act now like that didn't happen?
I agree the screeching reeeeeeeeeeeee from the lefties is the same either way, so why not do the right thing? I think Kav taking the hit instead of the Senate is unfair, but being one of the 10 most powerful people in the country, for life, is a prize worth some hits.
Now that we have resolved the pesky matter of whether BK should be confirmed over vile accusations of sexual assault, we can move on to the important matter of grammar and honorifics!
There was Tom Wolfe to carry the tradition on, but he's gone now.
Is there a new Swift, Thackeray, Wolfe, or even Drury?
I think Birkel puts his/her finger on it- the Senate Republicans were waiting for someone to lead. Were the cowed? I am not convinced that was the right word. I thought the leadership came from Kavanaugh himself- he defended himself in private with the White House and the Judiciary Committee, and I think this is why Trump stuck with him, and, in retrospect, why Grassley carefully negotiated Ford's appearance. I criticized Grassley for extending it, but it is likely the nomination would have failed if the vote had been taken as originally scheduled. By acting as he did, Grassley forced Ford to either capitulate or make an appearance.
Once the hearing took place, the other even more ridiculous accusations had hit, and this forced Kavanaugh into a more aggressive and passionate defense, and that defense led to Lindsey Graham, of all people, to come to Kavanaugh's side with one of the most effective statements from a Senator that I have ever seen. Finally, one of the things that is being overlooked by a lot of people on both sides, though, is the attack that Trump launched on Ford's story at the Mississippi rally last week- that attack resonated with Trump's supporters and the Never-Trumpers in the Republican Party. That was leadership plainly and simply understood- Trump took all of that concern trolling about how you have to believe and coddle the accusers, and threw it out the proverbial window, and I think it probably tilted the decision decisively with a couple of the Senators.
I tried reading his novel about the Pentagon, but it was so clunky, I quit after a few pages.
I have vague memories from the early 80's of another Washington movie of that era whose plot was the inverse: The President secretly wanted an appeasing bill to be defeated to strengthen his hand before a negotiation.
Sterne, not Smollett, sorry, but throw in Smollett!
"Roderick Random" includes such matters as the failure against the Spanish at Cartagena. My Basque grandmother came from the hometown of Blas de Lezo, the Spanish commander at Cartagena.
I think lots of people got played here. I think the GOP--McConnell, Grassley, Graham, Collins, and Trump--played the Dems, too. The Republicans went along, and went along, and went along, and then they turned on the Dems. Graham unloaded on DiFi, Flake and Collins were yeses, Collins made one of the great Senate speeches of the modern era (the tenor and quality of the speech shows she was a yes for a long time while she kept her own counsel), Manchin flipped to have any chance of reelection, and Heitcamp, Donelley, Nelson, and McCaskill put themselves behind the eightball.
Whatever happens in November happens, but the GOP outsmarted the Dems on this one. Good to see.
A justice is not the same as a judge. The justices can work as judges, but it has been a long time since they were required to do so. There is not even a requirement that they have to be law school graduates as far as I know. Perhaps it is that, like justices of the peace, they are seen, or are expected to be, tribunes of the people rather than functionaries in the judicial system.
As I have said, I also think Althouse got played by Ford.
I mentioned last week that there were dogs not barking, regarding all the delays and accomodations the Republicans were, it seemed, happy to make, with little argument.
This sort of thing, that of acts or speech which one would assume should be happening, but are not, the blank spots, are as worthy of consideration as anything actually done or said.
Blogger Amadeus 48 said...”As I have said, I also think Althouse got played by Ford.”
That was clear in her 3-option scenario from a while back. The option of Ford being a player wasn’t considered by her.
But this is all settled history now.
Althouse didn't get played by Ford, rather, Republicans love to suck fratboy dick. That's why for then first time Lindsay Graham was sporting blue vein steel.
Howard--doesn't your homophobia shame you? I am embarrassed for you.
The way things are going in DC, I fear we will all be going back to the early 1960's, to Fletcher Knebel's "Seven Days in May". A a best-selling novel, then a "major motion picture" with Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster and Frederic March, the premise was that the then-current president was soft on communism and needed to be replaced, pronto.
The modern twist would be that a future US military establishment would step in to oust the evil House and Senate Republicans, and give their full support to a "progressive" POTUS.
With Hollywood gone "full Social Justice" and rabidly anti-Trump, I suspect someone is already shopping around a screenplay.
Big Mike: You team won, why the butt-hurt?
@Howard, we should never have had to fight. If Feinstein is so gullible, or so disgustingly low, that she didn't immediately toss Ford's letter into the trash can, then she should have turned it over to the FBI for investigation when she received it and accepted their analysis that it could not be corroborated.
We need to see to it that we never have to fight like this again. We need to knock Democrats down and stomp in their faces. Because, regardless of Cory Booker's latest collection of lies, it's clearly what they want to do to us.
Howard splooged: “Althouse didn't get played by Ford, rather, Republicans love to suck fratboy dick. That's why for then first time Lindsay Graham was sporting blue vein steel.”
I despised Langdon St. in college and I don’t recall being mean to Sen. Graham. I guess that makes me a Dem.
@Althouse, if you're going to comment on politics you first need to learn about politics. You chose to believe Ford, apparently based on the fact that neither of you has a Y chromosome. You should have applied your "cruel neutrality" to her.
Ann Althouse said...
"@Althouse, your comment at 10:24 tells me that you still don’t get it. Once the Ford letter was public, if the Republicans had not investigated it then they would have been accused of a cover-up."
No, you don't get it.
"they would have been accused" ... oh, poor babies. I repeat that they were cowed and played and they deserved the criticism too.
***********
It's dismaying to see a former law prof simply double-down when offered a counter to her argument, AND add an utterly gratuitously snotty "poor babies" to deride the GOP for not ignoring the Ford letter.
As it is, Feinstein claimed that the SEVENTH FBI investigation was *itself* a cover-up.
What the hell you think she and the Dems would have said if the GOP just rammed the nomination through w/o listening to the woman? You and the other "believe the woman" types would have screamed bloody murder. Did you not SEE the hundred of women doing exactly that throughout the confirmation process?
Do you think the GOP would have got the votes of the fence sitters if they had done so? Not a chance.
"Poor baby"; you are utterly tone-deaf on this topic. I suspect you're just pissed that the GOP was NOT cowed and played. After all, they WON---and the Dems are circling the bowl in the national polls.
Howard:
Blogger Howard said...
Althouse didn't get played by Ford, rather, Republicans love to suck fratboy dick. That's why for then first time Lindsay Graham was sporting blue vein steel.
"Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?
Conan: To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.
Mongol General: That is good! That is good."
Howard is lamenting.
Althouse didn't get played by Ford, rather, Republicans love to suck fratboy dick. That's why for then first time Lindsay Graham was sporting blue vein steel.
Howard outs himself as a 13 year-old homophobe.
Another face of The Resistance.
John Lynch said...
The GOP senators didn't know Ford's testimony wouldn't hold up when they agreed to let her testify.
I thought it was 95% she wouldn't show up. They thought they had it wired and allowed her to appear in her little girl voice.
We will learn more about her as the weeks go by. A lot more.
"These days that seems to have gone away, or it seems so at least for serious fiction intended for a male audience, I can't answer for things intended for female tastes."
All these novels have gone away, because we have 24/7 cable news, tell all books, and the internet.
We don't need a novel to tell us what's going on in Congress or the White House. We're seeing/hearing about it, every day. And the mystery/romance of foreign lands has gone too. With Jet travel, and the internet, we all know what tahiti looks like or pyramids or wherever. Even average people can go anywhere on globe, almost, and have done so.
""they would have been accused" ... oh, poor babies. I repeat that they were cowed and played and they deserved the criticism too."
A little defensive are we, Althouse?
The GOP had to improvise after DiFi dropped the Ford letter on them (after receiving it six weeks earlier and her staff referring Ford to Deb Katz and doing God knows what else to prep for the event). I don't think Althouse would have been defending the GOP if they had dismissed Ford's complaint as an obvious attempt to stall the proceedings. Remember, this was right out of the Clarence Thomas playbook--drop a surprise allegation after the hearings were over. We are in the Age of #MeToo. Women must be heard!
Althouse was cowed and played and she deserves criticism, too. Oh, poor baby!
“We will learn more about her as the weeks go by. A lot more.”
I’m still curious about the total blackout of her internet footprint. That is unprecedented, is it not? I’m curious as to who helped her.
I thought it was 95% she wouldn't show up. They thought they had it wired and allowed her to appear in her little girl voice.
It was stage managed from the day she decided to right the letter with her ex-FBI friend.
They delayed her testimony so that she could memorize the script. Notice how the read (rather than recited) the worst of it?
"He could have been confirmed after the initial hearing, but they were cowed and played."
Exactly. The hearing added NOTHING to Ford's in-credible story. The charge itself was so vague and unsupported it should have been ignored. Of course, it all gets back to Collins and murkowski - because the Senate R's basically handed Sessions seat to the Democrats, they had a one vote margin. So whatever, the swing voters wanted, they got.
Of course, you have to wonder why McConnell, seems unable to discipline his fellow R Senators and keep them in line, while Schumer gets his D's to literally commit hari-kari rather than cross him.
Is it true Grassley will keep pursuing the therapists notes or launch an investigation to see why Ford's lawyers did not relay the offer for a visit from the committee or a skype session? We should get to the bottom of this to make it as painful as possible next time the democrats want to sandbag a nominee. Otherwise this game theory will keep repeating itself. There is no downside of the democratic operatives to keep doing this.
Manchin and the lady from ND could have significantly helped their reelection by coming out strong for Kavanaugh. Instead, all the Red State D's voted with Schumer, except for Manchin who tried to fool everyone by voting "Yes" after the nomination had been decided.
Thanks, Howard. Well put!
All these hearings, and bending over backwards to the Senate D's accomplished nothing. We got ONE Democrat vote. And he only voted "Yes" AFTER it'd been decided.
Next time, ignore the D's. Make sure you have enough R votes and push it through.
There's one for Howard,
Howard said...
Big Mike: You team won, why the butt-hurt?
10/7/18, 11:02 AM
Win or lose, "you" team cheated. Cheaters need to get stomped.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
Thanks, Howard. Well put!
10/7/18, 12:23 PM
Note to self: fag-baiting is OK when Howard does it.
Bottom line: Althouse and Howard are part of the mob.
"Thanks, Howard. Well put!"--Althouse
Althouse, are you drunk?
It's a little early but it is football Sunday in Wisconsin. Most of my cousins have started imbibing. Some are on their fourth beer or brandy old fashioned.
If I had to guess, I would say Althouse was being sarcastic.
I'm ready to hear anyone's explanation that I'm wrong about the grammar.
"Advise" vs. "advice" in this phrase is generally a matter of usage, not grammar. But in Kavanaugh's case it's a matter of rhetoric. He demonstrated his reliance on the plain text of the Constitution by using "advice and consent," and he rejected a mindless devotion to "parallelism" by using the common and clear phrase "search and destroy."
"Searching and destroying" would've sounded incredibly clunky to anyone but crabby schoolmarms.
Lack of parallelism in the spoken word is something up with which Althouse will not put!
rcocean said...
"He could have been confirmed after the initial hearing, but they were cowed and played."
Exactly. The hearing added NOTHING to Ford's in-credible story. The charge itself was so vague and unsupported it should have been ignored. Of course, it all gets back to Collins and murkowski - because the Senate R's basically handed Sessions seat to the Democrats, they had a one vote margin. So whatever, the swing voters wanted, they got.
Of course, you have to wonder why McConnell, seems unable to discipline his fellow R Senators and keep them in line, while Schumer gets his D's to literally commit hari-kari rather than cross him.
************************************
Earth to rcocean: there's more than a nuance in saying someone "got played", as opposed to "they tried to play someone but lost the gamble". IOW the Dems tried to play the GOP with their last-second revelations, but the GOP called their bluff--and WON.
As for McConnell's inability to discipline his fellow GOP Senators, in the end 49 of 51 supported the nomination, with one voting "present", while on the Dem side 48 out of 49 opposed it. A 50-48 WIN for the GOP.
Yeah, the GOP won, but that Mitch sure can't control his troops.
Snort.
(and I'd like to see the guts on the Senate floor from all that "literal" hara-kiri going on. I missed that.)
Lefties would like the film Advise and Consent for the scene near the end where the POTUS drops dead. I can easily imagine some of the commenters here rewinding that and watching it over and over and over and over...
Which is it? I'm hearing "advice and consent" — the nouns — but I write "advise and consent" — the verbs.
Don't ask RGB. It will only embarrass her.
The Senate has given advice and has consented to the nomination.
The idea this can now be unconsented by the next Legislature does not have a basis in Constitutional Law.
Yet that's exactly what we're hearing Dems prattle on about - subverting the US Constitution.
Of course, it all gets back to Collins and murkowski - because the Senate R's basically handed Sessions seat to the Democrats, they had a one vote margin. So whatever, the swing voters wanted, they got.
Sure, That is what is was about. A larger Senate majority should be there for Amy Barrett, unless she fears for her children, which might be a reasonable fear.
The Democrats have certainly tried very hard to prevent anyone of good will joining the administration.
Thuggocracy.
"I think "justice" makes the person seem to be the embodiment of the value. It's like calling someone "your excellency" or "your holiness." It feels unAmerican to me."
Judiciary Act of 1789
Signed into law by the original GW. He was an American fellow if I recall.
What is different about consent vs. agree or approve?
In Lincoln's formulation as of, by and for ...
Where does it fit in ?
"they would have been accused" ... oh, poor babies. I repeat that they were cowed and played and they deserved the criticism too.
The play for the R's was that it was known for months, but DiFi didn't submit it and the deliberations were over.
Had they the guts, they would have pinned it on her and held the vote. Feinstein would have come out and said the woman didn't want to go public, and the Senate would have been acting in accordance with her wishes to uphold her right to privacy.
Further attempts by the media to put her story into the public discussion would have been seen as attempting to circumvent the process, as would the women who made allegations afterward.
I thought of "Advise and Consent" by Drury several times during these proceedings. I do think it's one of the best political novels ever; when I most recently re-read it (2 or 3 years ago), I was amazed how well it still holds up some 60 years after it was written. There are some things about Washington DC and US politics that are just timeless.
Do you really think Ford didn't want it publicized? I think she did.
I think this all played out the way the Dems (including Ford) intended--right up until Kavanaugh blew his top. The playbook got blown up after that, so they started parsing his high school yearbook, trolling for opposing Yale classmates (Ramirez--the one who couldn't find anyone to back her up? Spare me. Roche? I got it. He didn't like Kavanaugh--or anyone else.) Ice-throwing at 20 years of age! Boofers--who smelled it, dealt it! Wicked drinking games! Help! Help! Then Avenatti lurched onto the scene with a former client of Deb Katz. Gang rapes!! Drugs! How the hell did Kavanaugh get through Yale towing all that baggage. His grades must have been terrible...oh, wait.
And then, through the grace of God, Kavanaugh somehow magically became the smart and effective bureaucrat in the Bush administration, and later, the widely admired and respected federal judge.
This whole fiasco was a variation on the Clarence Thomas hearings. They (including Ford) intended to get him to withdraw or to muddy him up--just like they did with Thomas.
They'll do it to the next one, too. Barrett will be accused of having a poster of Torquemada on her wall in college. DiFi has already accused her of embracing Catholic doctrine too closely. The Dems will go back to "No Irish need apply."
I just checked it out about an hour ago, before coming here. My Blog tag is "Advice and Consent" but some publication has Judge Kavanaugh saying "advise and consent", which apparently he didn't. But, it spurred me to check.
Since I am a "strict constructionist" layperson, I go with advice.
Regards — Cliff
I want to know about Ford. Who is she? What is she like normally? Who is this friend McLaren? What happened to her internet presence? What about those teacher ratings? Why and how did they disappear? Does she always talk like that? Who paid for the lie detector test? What did she do between her grandma's funeral and sending that letter to Eshoo (Gesundheit!)?
So bagoh20 said…,
"'He said "advice," even at the cost of losing parallelism. '
"That's enough to impeach him now."
When I read in one account that Judge (now Justice) Kavanaugh said "Advise" I immediately wanted a "revote". I am glad Professor Althouse set me right.
Regards — Cliff
You team won, why the butt-hurt?
If displeasure isn't shown at the polls in November, it's going to be open season on every Republican with every kind of made up smear. If you took a step back and honestly thought about this from the Republican point of view, something that psychological experiments have shown is very very difficult for liberals, but easy for conservatives to do with liberal points of view, you would see why the "butt hurt" (A rape joke, BTW) Instead you simple "Reject first, ask rhetorical questions later!" True to form for a liberal.
Althouse didn't get played by Ford, rather, Republicans love to suck fratboy dick. That's why for then first time Lindsay Graham was sporting blue vein steel. . - Howard
Thanks, Howard. Well put! - Althouse
Did I miss something?
I wonder if it ever occurred (No I don't, it's a rhetorical device) to Howard that the unfairness and viciousness of the whole process (Guilty because he belonged to a frat!, for example) has driven even moderate Republicans like Graham and Collins into a solidarity with the Republican Party as a whole?
To say ***Senate Republicans were waiting for someone to lead*** is the Crux ... Lead them where? Don't they have *compass and map*!!!
The book was great. The movie much less so. For one thing, the movie left out one of the genuine good guys, the Robert Taft-like Orrin Knox. Author Drury was certainly prescient about the bad guy, Fred Van Ackerman, a left wing version of Joe McCarthy.
Search is also a noun. And if Kavanaugh had recognized that, he might have said You have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with 'search and destruction'; which, let's face it, doesn't have nearly the punch of You have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with 'search and destroy'.
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