OpinionJournal's Political Diary
April 15, 2005
Best of the Web is off today. In its place, we offer Political Diary, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page's subscription newsletter of commentary and analysis on American politics (go to www.politicaldiary.com to subscribe). James Taranto will return on Monday.
In today's Political Diary:
* Filibuster of Convenience
* You May Pay Your Taxes Today, But You'll Still Be Paying on Sunday
* For His Next Trick, Orrin Hatch Will Solve the Palestinian Problem
* Intelligence Czar Enjoys a View of the White House
* Office Wife (Quote of the Day I)
* Magnanimous in Victory (Quote of the Day II)
* Bloggers Bring Freedom to a Benighted Northern Neighbor
Flip-Floppy Democrats and the Judicial Filibuster
With a Supreme Court vacancy likely to open up in June with the expected retirement of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Republicans are dithering on whether or not to end filibusters of judicial nominations. They should know that if they fail to use parliamentary procedure to restrict future filibusters only to actual legislation, they are inviting months of Senate gridlock this summer over any Bush Supreme Court nominee.
"There's nothing in the Constitution that says that there has to be 51 votes for that judge," claims New York Senator Chuck Schumer, the mastermind behind the Democratic filibuster strategy that has so far blocked 10 of Mr. Bush's appellate court nominees. He sang a different tune back in 2000, when he wanted to dislodge some Clinton nominees from the Judiciary Committee before the November election. "I also plead with my colleagues to move judges with alacrity -- vote them up or down," Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor. "But this delay makes a mockery of the Constitution, makes a mockery of the fact that we are here working, and makes a mockery of the lives of very sincere people who have put themselves forward to be judges and then they hang out there in limbo."
Mr. Schumer had a legitimate point back then about Republican obstructionism, which makes his current turnaround on the issue shamelessly opportunistic. He should know that the Constitution's Advice and Consent clause clearly states that a simple majority of Senators can confirm nominees, and a Supreme Court decision in 1892 upheld that interpretation. That standard is well known and is the only logical answer to why Democrats did not filibuster Justice Clarence Thomas' nomination in 1991.
Back then, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, now the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, flatly rejected calls by outside liberal groups for a filibuster of the Thomas nomination. "The president and the nominee and all Americans deserve an up or down vote" on the nomination, Leahy said. "I am totally opposed to a filibuster."
Mr. Leahy was joined in his opposition by Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen, who had been the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1988. In decrying a possible filibuster of Mr. Thomas, he wrote: "As a matter of high priority, the Senate should change its rules so that we can act responsibly, more rapidly and with more certainty on the major issues our nation faces."
Today, rather than face down the more extreme interest groups urging filibusters of judicial nominations, Senate Democrats seem to have abdicated their responsibilities to them. On the Hugh Hewitt radio program both Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, and Ralph Neas, executive director of People for the American Way, pledged this week to filibuster any conservative Bush nominee to the high court. When asked if he would oppose Mike McConnell, a widely respected judge on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals who has criticized the Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, Mr. Neas noted: "Mike was a colleague of mine at the University of Chicago Law School. Lovely individual, but truly extreme on a wide range of issues."
Former Democratic Senator Zell Miller of Georgia told me last year that his former colleagues are incapable of saying no to the liberal groups that want to block any Bush court nominee. But he also said that Republicans are foolish if they believe Democrats will shut down the Senate if filibusters on judicial nominations are ruled out of order. "Senators need to get business done and folks back home will demand they do," he said. "A work stoppage wouldn't last long."
-- John Fund
Are We Having Fun Yet?
As many Americans rush to meet today's deadline to pay their taxes, the Tax Foundation reports that the average taxpayer will have to work two days longer than last year to support the government. Tax Freedom Day -- when the average American has finished earning enough to pay off his or her state and federal obligations -- will fall on April 17. That comes to 70 days each of us will spend working for Uncle Sam this year, and another 37 days working to support state and local government.
"Despite all the tax cuts that the federal government has passed recently, Americans will still spend more on taxes than they spend on food, clothing and medical care combined," says the Tax Foundation's Scott Hodge, who notes that as economic growth pushes people into higher tax brackets, tax collections grow faster than incomes.
That helps explain why a poll that Mr. Hodges' group took this month in conjunction with Harris Interactive shows great dissatisfaction with the existing tax system. Eight out of ten Americans say the federal income tax system is too complex, which may explain why 37% would favor replacing it with a flat tax, 19% would switch to a national sales tax and only 19% support keeping the status quo. While divided on tax reform, survey respondents did agree on one thing: A full 68% want complete elimination of the federal estate tax. That may explain why the House voted overwhelmingly this week for its permanent repeal after it is phased out in 2010. The bill now goes to the Senate, where the tax's few remaining fans are threatening to launch a filibuster to keep it.
-- John Fund
Give Him This: The Senator Knows How to Clear a Room
Congrats to Sen. Orrin hatch. PD knows a world-class quote when we see one. That's why we brought you Wednesday's keeper from the New York Times. Here, in all its glory, is Mr. Hatch weighing in on the internal strife at Morgan Stanley, which allegedly pits his earthy Utah friend CEO Phil Purcell against the traditional white-shoe bankers: "I think it is time that the Skull-and-Bones Society types to stop controlling Wall Street. I know Phil. He is a tough guy compared to these limp-wristed Ivy Leaguers who want to keep their clubby status. I'm mad, really mad and I will be doggone upset if the gang of eight wins and wrecks this great institution."
The day this story appeared, the firm's legendary deal maestro, Joseph Perella, and his deputy unexpected walked out. Until that moment, Mr. Purcell had all but declared victory: Mr. Perella had two weeks earlier given a stirring speech to Morgan Stanley colleagues on the theme of loyalty and told the press in no uncertain terms that he was sticking around. What changed his mind? In light of whatever commitments Mr. Purcell made to keep him on-board, it's hard to believe the Times story and the Hatch quote didn't come as a slap in the face. One version is that Mr. Purcell had offered Mr. Perella the vice chairmanship and promised him influence over the firm's future direction if he'd stay on the team.
It's worth pointing out, by the way, that Mr. Hatch's stereotype is pitifully out of date. Morgan Stanley may attract its share of applicants from the privileged classes, but this isn't the 1940s anymore: Just like most worthwhile things in America, the firm's current powerhouse status is the product of hardworking people from state schools and small liberal arts colleges. Mr. Perella is certainly no toff: The son of Italian immigrants from Newark (NJ), he was an accounting major at Lehigh University.
For that matter, painting Mr. Purcell as some kind of working-class hero is also absurd. He was schooled at the London School of Economics and came up as a McKinsey consultant.
-- Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Position of Power
One concern that held up intelligence reform in Congress last year was the seemingly parochial issue of where the offices of the new intelligence czar would be located. Dropping the new director inside the CIA would've made the whole process an exercise in futility since the CIA bureaucracy would have simply absorbed and overpowered the very office meant to rule over the spook shop and 14 other federal intelligence agencies.
It seems this concern was heard inside the White House. The Senate Intelligence Committee approved President Bush's pick for the first national intelligence director, John Negroponte, yesterday and once he's confirmed by the full Senate, the new czar will be moving into office space inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. While it's not inside the coveted West Wing, in Washington proximity to the president equals power, and Mr. Negroponte's office will be inside the White House complex and a short walk from the Oval Office -- convenient for those early morning briefings with Mr. Bush. In contrast, CIA Chief Porter Goss will have to fight the morning traffic all the way from McLean, Va.
Mr. Negroponte was spotted inside the Eisenhower building recently, perhaps scoping out his new digs. But he won't be there for long: He's expected to hire between 500 and 1,000 people, and the White House simply doesn't have room for that many new chairs. Congress has already given preliminary approval for the new intelligence director to spend $250 million to ramp up and secure a permanent home. Wherever that ends up being, it seems clear now it's not going to be inside the CIA building.
-- Brendan Miniter
Quote of the Day I
"I'm totally committed to her. Five times a day I see her and she asks me, 'What can I do for you?' And 'Is there anything else?' She sits here in pretty much every meeting we have, and she absorbs it and takes it in. And when she goes out, she has to turn this -- what we do in here, what we talk about -- into reality" -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, quoted in today's Los Angeles Times talking about his chief of staff, Patricia Clarey.
Quote of the Day II
"[John] Bolton has gone to the UN not just because Dr Rice wanted him out of the State Department building. His job will be not to pour scorn on multilateralist approaches to international problems, but, however improbable it may seem, to use his rather special skills to make them work. The second Bush term will place a much higher premium on the value of international support, and work much harder to get it. Two big developments lie behind this change of approach. The first is the remarkable ascendancy of Dr Rice... But there is an even bigger reason why change is now in the air in Washington. There is a growing confidence across the Bush Administration that the hard and unpopular choices made in the first term have begun to bear fruit. Iraq is rapidly becoming the success the Left has feared. There is talk at the Pentagon that the first withdrawal of US troops could take place next year. There is evident excitement and optimism about the broader Middle East; democratic change from a free and peaceful Palestine to Afghanistan is no longer a neocon fantasy" -- Times of London Columnist Gerard Baker.
Bloggers Liberate Canada
Canada's ruling Liberal Party has held power for 54 of the last 70 years, but it is now besieged by Internet bloggers. U.S. blogs have violated a court ban on the reporting of court testimony on "Adscam," a scandal in which some $80 million in public money was siphoned off to Liberal Party operatives. The Liberals are plummeting in the polls, and since they hold only a minority of seats in Parliament, it looks like the party could lose a vote of confidence and be forced into early elections in June.
Canada's free-speech laws are more restrictive than those in the U.S. and permit publication bans of evidence or motions introduced in a trial in an effort to avoid tainting the jury pool. Last month, Justice John Gomery, who was appointed to oversee an inquiry into Adscam, imposed a publication ban on the testimony of three witnesses who gave details about how advertising agencies were hired by the previous Liberal government to fight secession attempts by the province of Quebec. Much of the money was squandered and a large part of it wound up lining the pockets of party apparatchiks.
But American bloggers, led by Ed Morrissey at his Captain's Quarters blog, got a hold of some of the testimony and posted it on their sites. A Canadian web site, NealeNews, linked to Mr. Morrissey's blog and soon all of Canada was talking about what newspaper and television reporters could only hint at. One Canadian blogger who linked to the testimony in violation of the court ban said he did so because he does not want his children growing up in a country "where public testimony can be known by government officials and by the media, but by no one else." Indeed, Canadian voters faced the ridiculous prospect of going to the polls in June without having access to the Gomery court testimony that would be the basis for their having an election in the first place.
Justice Gomery finally cried uncle and lifted most of the unenforceable ban last week because he belatedly recognized "it is in the public interest that this evidence with few exceptions be made available to the public." Score one for the blogging community, which has just proven that when it comes to the Internet, there truly are no borders.
-- John Fund |
