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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mr. Palau who wrote (26324)	2/23/2008 12:03:23 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

" look to NRO, who said his signing of the bill was craven and showed lack of gumption. Kinda like lack of intestinal fortitude." I have noticed that people are less respectful when they are criticizing. It is certainly true that the Republican party tolerates diverse opinion much more than democrats seem to. Just as I defended your right to be offended over something that others perceived as no big deal, I have the right to find it offensive. That NRO would have been offended by President Bush not vetoing M-F is not a huge surprise. The president rationalized this dereliction with the modern public official’s all-purpose dodge: abdication to the federal judiciary. “I expect,” he explained, “that the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.” And what of his own responsibility to resolve these questions as the principal officer sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States? Nope. It was, he said, up to the judges to do what he lacked the gumption to do: reject infringement of the sovereign’s — the people’s — fundamental right to criticize their government." Thanks. I recalled him abdicating his authority to uphold the Constitution with what appeared at the time hope that the Supremes would do what he refused to do.

To: Mr. Palau who wrote (26324)	4/16/2008 9:32:24 AM
From: Peter Dierks	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Campaign-Finance Meltdown April 16, 2008; Page A18 Someone get Harry Reid a handkerchief. On Monday, the Senate Majority Leader sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten lamenting the news that a Democratic nominee to the Federal Election Commission, Robert Lenhard, has withdrawn his name from consideration since the process is taking so long. This is yet another nail in the coffin of the campaign-finance reform movement. One of its goals has been to reduce the role of "money" in elections, and thereby elevate the tenor of campaigns. Pretty much the opposite has resulted. Amid a campaign season, the FEC has been languishing without a quorum of commissioners to rule on election-law questions. Democrats created the FEC standoff last year by attacking the confirmation of Bush nominee Hans von Spakovsky. This has mainly increased campaign-finance partisanship, for example by elevating the clout of so-called 527 groups, which run "independent" advertising on behalf of candidates. If you're George Soros, that means spend now, ask questions later. Thanks to Mr. Lenhard's untimely withdrawal, it will probably take "several months" for the Democrats to find a new nominee, Mr. Reid noted soberly in his letter. This means that if there are any campaign-finance violations this year, someone will be fined for it in, oh, say, 2011. If Democrats really want the commission to get back to business, they should return to the protocol of confirming nominees in groups or in bipartisan pairs. Their behavior suggests what they really want is the politicized breakdown of the campaign-finance system. online.wsj.com