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Politics : Should Clinton resign? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MikeyB who wrote (520)	9/22/1998 6:04:00 PM
From: James A. Shankland	Respond to of 567

Re: "Our republic has a few people in positions of enormous and relatively unchecked power: actually, the Supreme Court is the only example that comes to mind right away" Actually the power of the Supreme Court is checked by the ability of Congress to pass new laws and (with the States) to amend the Constitution. It is also constrained by the fact that the Judicial Branch has no method of enforcing its decisions. It must rely on the Executive Branch to do that. Sure. I said "relatively unchecked." These are nine people who are not elected, who are almost impossible to remove once appointed, and who have unparalleled power to interpret -- and invalidate -- laws. It's a republican (small "r") rather than democratic (small "d") institution. We rely on them to be our best, brightest, and wisest; to take the long view when our politicians can't; to save us from our own foolishness from time to time; and to help us be our better selves, politically. For Presidents, a Supreme Court appointment is a chance to show real leadership, to rise briefly above the political fray and appoint the best possible person for the long-term well-being of the nation as a whole (who is generally not the same person the hard-core partisans in the President's own party would choose). Some Presidents have seized this chance; others have not. And some have had it thrust upon them, as the appointees they thought would be politically pliable rose to the challenge of the high office. The independent counsel was supposed to be somebody like that: above the fray, non-partisan, respected by both parties and by the public at large as a wise, judicious leader without a personal axe to grind. What we got instead hardly needs mentioning. It is a tragedy far greater than that of a President with reckless sexual habits and a tendency toward self-serving excuses, truth-shading, and implausible misremembering when being interrogated under oath about his personal life by his self-avowed political enemies.