It’s Ok to Get Angry
Posted on January 8, 2008 by David
The luxury of living in a deeply blue state whose primaries are held on Super Tuesday is that I can easily moderate the intake of political news and am left blissfully unaware of the product of Mitt’s obscene spending. The downside is that, where the inundated masses in New Hampshire can be forced into cynicism, it can be too easy for us to simply drift off into obliviousness if we moderate too stringently.
This is not a good idea. These are, as always, important times. The Republicans wish to ignore Bush’s legacy–posturing instead to be the next Reagan–on virtually all fronts. Except when it comes to his proudest achievement: further entrenching the folks who got him elected in the first place with their 5-4 vote. The Republican hopefuls all scream for more strict constructionist appointments on that point.
In case you needed any further reminder that there is actually a difference between the corporate-gluttons on either side of the aisle, consider that this week the Court, in all likelihood, is going to approve of insitutionalized racism in the voting process just in time for the presidential election possibly involving our first black candidate.
“Let’s not beat around the bush,†Terence T. Evans, the dissenting Court of Appeals judge in the Indiana case, slyly wrote. “The Indiana voter photo ID law is a not-too-thinly-veiled attempt to discourage election-day turnout by certain folks believed to skew Democratic.†He’s not the only one to notice: the three federal judges who approved the Indiana law were appointed by a Republican President; the lone dissenter was appointed by a Democrat. It was also Republican-dominated legislatures that produced the Indiana and Georgia laws, both of which were signed by Republican governors.
UPDATE: It’s even worse than feared. All signs point to the law being in place for the election. But Scalia–who isn’t always the best at corraling a majority–is sternly pushing a procedural idea that the Bush administration advocated when it joined in the case. The gist is that because the plaintiffs have not shown any actual harm–and cannot show any actual harm until they’ve actually been prevented from voting come election day–that there is no tangible dispute yet and the Court should not decide anything in the abstract. The use of facial challenges to the consitutionality of statutes–a bellwether of the Warren Court whose legacy has been the target of conservatives these last 35 years–may themselves be further cut back as a result. Which is exactly what they want.
