Dean lies about eminent domain
And it’s a pretty bad one too:
“The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is ‘okay’ to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is,” Dean said, not mentioning that until he nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court this week, Bush had not appointed anyone to the high court.
Dean’s reference to the “right-wing” court was also erroneous. The four justices who dissented in the Kelo vs. New London case included the three most conservative members of the court – Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was the fourth dissenter.
The court’s liberal coalition of Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer combined with Justice Anthony Kennedy to form the majority opinion, allowing the city of New London, Conn., to use eminent domain to seize private properties for commercial development.
July 28th, 2005 at 8:45 am
That’s a pretty opportunistic division of the court, calling a Ford appointee, a Reagan appointee, and a Bush 41 appointee “liberal”. The author must live in Dipshitland, where everyone is a conservative or a liberal, with nothing in between. Given that sort of no-shades-of-gray analysis, though, you’d have to call the Court “right-wing” since only two justices were appointed by a Democrat.
Stevens and Ginsburg are the only justices whose opinions could be really be considered “liberal”. The rest, and probably O’Connor too, are centrists, timid, fond of authority, and respectful of civil rights only as one is respectful of something fragile you don’t want to break.
July 28th, 2005 at 9:06 am
I don’t know that who appointed them necessarily denotes their liberalness of conservativeness. The big issue I have is that five of them always seem to be statists.
July 28th, 2005 at 9:31 am
It is a bit fun to watch Howard Dean take a flame thrower to the democrats…
06 is gonna be bloody for a certain political party….
July 28th, 2005 at 11:16 am
I am quite convinced that Dean is working for the republican party on the sly…
July 28th, 2005 at 2:52 pm
It should be noted that GWB was the beneficiary of this kind of abuse when he was the managing partner of the Rangers.
I think that its about time that someone reverses the ridiculous “liberal courts” meme thats started to circulate. Say it loud and clear…7 of 9 justices were appointed by Republicans. Its moving the goal posts to consider Souter, Kennedy, or Stevens as liberal. They might be more liberal than the author of the piece, but thats the extent of it.
July 28th, 2005 at 8:10 pm
Manish, you’re completely missing the point. It’s not a question of which party appointed whom, it’s what they do on the bench that counts. Three of the most liberal Justices ever to serve on the bench, Earl Warren, William Brennan and Harry Blackmun, were Republican appointees. Are you going to argue that they weren’t liberals, either? Or, conversely, that JFK appointee Byron White was? Please.
Depending on how you weight the issues, Justice Stevens is either the most liberal Justice on the SC right now, or a close second to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. He’s clearly to the left of the other Democrat, Stephen Breyer, and his fellow “Republican” David Souter probably is, as well. Pointing this fact out is not “moving the goalposts,” unless your personal goalposts started out in Chomsky-land.
July 29th, 2005 at 11:53 am
Actually, Xrlq, you’re the one missing the point. The SC is not “liberal” just because perhaps two justices, if that, might fairly be called “liberal”.
July 30th, 2005 at 2:19 am
Hellbent, I’m not sure you really have a point, except maybe the one on your head. In your first comment to this thread, you first mocked the notion that anyone appointed by that super conservative standard-bearer Gerald Ford could possibly be a liberal, and later argued that only two Justices on the court – Stevens and Ginsburg – were liberals. Do you even friggin’ know who appointed whom?!
Returning to the real point, which is the idiocy of Howard Dean’s statement that a “right-wing court” thinks it is OK for the government to take your house and have a hotel built in its place, it’s enough to note that of the three of the Justices who are either (1) Democrat appointees or (2) individuals so knee-jerk liberal that even you can recognize them as such, all three are in agreement that it’s perfectly fine for government to take your house if they want to have a drug factory built in its place, while all three of the Justices everyone can agree are right-wing believe the opposite.