Hypocrisy on the Courts: The Exxon Decision

Today's Exxon decision at the Supreme Court - with Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy joining Souter's majority opinion - gives liberals a chance to show that the Right doesn’t believe their own propaganda about the Courts. All that matters for them is who wins and who loses: Gays lose. Women wanting abortions lose. Religious minorities lose. But Big Oil wins.

When the people, through the legislature, take away women’s reproductive rights or the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, the Right wants courts to stay out of it. “Let the people decide!" they demand. "We don’t want activist judges legislating from the bench! These are questions left to the legislature!”

But when the people, through a jury, punish large corporations for their outrageous and dangerous conduct, wise judges must step in and impose limits on these out-of-control juries. Let the judges decide! If the legislature declines to rein in punitive damages awards, then it is up to the courts to do it.

And, although there are many ways the Court could do this -- by fixed dollar amount, by percentage of the defendant’s net worth, by any number of ratios to the compensatory damages -- it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide what approach to take: a ratio. And it’s apparently also up to the Court to determine the exact limit to impose: a 1 : 1 ratio.

Assuming John McCain does not express disagreement with today’s opinion, I’d love to ask him to define “legislating from the bench” and why this case isn’t the perfect example of what he routinely and vociferously condemns. Why does he want courts to step in to protect the mightiest of corporate behemoths, but to stay out when individual rights are at stake?

John Roberts Apologizes

I wrote to CNN reporter John Roberts a few minutes after he made his comment about people with AIDS on the network's morning news show on December 12. He replied very quickly:

Thanks very much for your email this morning. First, let me assure you that I certainly did not intend to convey what you suggest I did in that ‘tease’ to commercial. It was a hastily written script, and I readily admit the choice of words could have been better.

I have nothing but the utmost compassion for victims of this horrible disease, and personally, I see no demarcation of pre/post Ryan White. As the medical correspondent for CBS in the 90s, I did innumerable reports on the fight against HIV/AIDS, a period during which, thankfully, enormous strides were made in treatment.

Please accept my assurance that nothing pejorative was meant in our tease to commercial – one of the hazards of live television – but your note is a sharp reminder to me to be more vigilant in the future.

Thanks again for writing,

John Roberts

American Morning

CNN

Although the words "I'm sorry" or "I apologize" don't appear here, I still count this as an apology.

I've never worked in live television, and I imagine it's not easy. Cliches like "putting a human face on ..." come easily to the tongue, and people say them without necessarily thinking through the implications of what they're actually saying.

As far as I know, John Roberts does not have a history of either insensitivity or animus toward gay people or toward people with AIDS. So I take him at his word that this was a careless slip that betrays no hostility.

Now if only the subject of Roberts' news story - Mike Huckabee - could show a little humanity himself. His reaction to the revelation of his '92 quarantine comments is to express a willingness to meet with Ryan White's mother.

A critical component of the desire to quarantine AIDS patients back in the '80s and early '90s was animus toward gay people. Toss in the fear of disease, and you had a volatile mix.

Unlike John Roberts, Mike Huckabee has a long history of hostility toward recognizing the basic human rights of gay and lesbian Americans. This history extends to the present day.

Huckabee's attitude toward gay people does not seem to have advanced much since the dark days of the 1980s.

CNN Anchor Dehumanizes Gays

Leading in to commercial at 7:10 am on Dec 12, 2007, John Roberts said that Mike Huckabee was willing to meet the mother of Ryan White, the boy "who put a human face on the [AIDS] crisis."

Roberts's characterization of those who died before Ryan White is breathtaking in its callousness. Because most who died before White were gay men, they were not human? Did they deserve what they got?

Ryan White didn't put a "human face" on the crisis; he put a *non-gay* face on the crisis. In the America of that era, that's what was needed to get most people to pay attention to this horrible disease and its victims. Because most with AIDS were gay, Ronald Reagan would not even say the word "AIDS" and he refused to see the AIDS Quilt when it was on the National Mall.

Most of the country has moved on since then. I guess John Roberts has not.

Has CNN? We shall see by how it responds.

Fiction from Ron Brownstein & David Broder

Ron Brownstein has been peddling an interesting piece of nonsense lately: He claims that just as the Republican Party has shifted substantially to the right over the past two decades, so, too, has the Democratic Party shifted substantially to the left.

Brownstein’s latest book is entitled The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America. He got a plug on the NewsHour on November 21 and in David Broder’s column the next day. Broder summarizes Brownstein’s thesis:

Where each party used to have an ideological mixture, each is now more clearly defined in opposition to the other. The result is a Republican Party that is far more universally (and stridently) conservative; and a Democratic Party whose center of gravity has moved equally far to the left.

No one doubts that the GOP has moved far rightward over the past two to three decades.

But the idea that the Democratic Party has moved equally far to the left is ludicrous.

A generation ago, the Democratic Party vigorously opposed President Reagan’s across-the-board tax cuts. At the time, the top federal income tax rate was 70%. Today, it’s half that, and Democrats are sqeamish about raising the rates to the upper 30s.

A generation ago, the Democratic Party promoted the idea of comparable worth. Because jobs traditionally done by women generally paid less than jobs traditionally done by men, simply outlawing sex discrimination in the workplace was not sufficient. The solution was pay equity based on factors such as how much education, training, and experience particular jobs need. When was the last time you heard Democrats arguing for such a repudiation of the free market?

A generation ago, the Democratic Party was committed to enactment of the Equal Rights Amendment. Today, the ERA is something that shows up on a party platform but is not high on the list of Democratic priorities.

A generation ago, Democrats defended a system of broadcast regulation where the FCC pored over station program logs and carefully analyzed local news coverage to determine whether it served (what the FCC felt was) the public interest. Under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, this extensive regulatory structure was jettisoned. Nowhere do you hear the Democratic Party calling for a return to those days.

And little more than a decade ago, the liberals in the Democratic Party unsuccessfully fought against the “welfare reform” plan promoted by President Clinton and Congressional Republicans. When was the last time you heard the Democratic Party call for a repeal of that mid-1990s law?

Would the Democratic Party of the 1970s-1980s have confirmed the nomination of an attorney general who refuses to state whether waterboarding is torture, or whether the president is bound by law? Would the Democratic Party that demanded impeachment hearings for Richard Nixon even recognize the party that refuses to even consider impeachment of President Bush for far worse offenses against the United States Constitution?

And the new rising stars in the Democratic Party - the ones whose victories in 2006 allowed the party to recapture both houses of Congress - are conservatives like Jim Webb, Bob Casey, and Heath Shuler.

Yes, the Democratic Party has moved a great deal over the past couple of decades, but it has been a move substantially to the right.

Not surprisngly, Republicans and their supporters are taking Brownstein’s thesis and running with it. It gives a patina of scholarship to their frequent accusation that Democrats are extremists.

It is the obligation of honest people to counter this nonsense forcefully whenever and wherever we hear it being spread.

Nonsense from MoCo Republican Adol Owen-Williams

Please see my November 23 post on Maryland Politics Watch, which focuses on one of the more ridiculous reasons Montgomery County Republicans have given for opposing legal protections for transgender Marylanders.

Check Out "Maryland Politics Watch"

In addition to launching the more nationally oriented Nation in Crisis, I also became a contributor to David Lublin’s Maryland Politics Watch at the end of October (on Halloween - make of that what you will). If you’re interested, my posts there so far are:

Slots and the Art of Compromise (Nov. 12, 2007)

Transgender Bill: The “Religious Liberty” Feint (Nov. 11, 2007)

Bathrooms, Always Bathrooms (Nov. 11, 2007)

Too Close For Mike Miller’s Comfort? (Nov. 10, 2007)

The Monsters Among Us

Although I disagree with their beliefs about abortion completely, I’ve generally respected the “abortion is murder, no exceptions” group far more than the right-wingers who would make exceptions for rape or incest. After all, if you don’t distinguish between the supposed murder of a “pre-born baby” and a newborn, then how could you possibly allow abortion exceptions for rape or incest? Would you not have to allow the murder of a newborn, or a six week-old, or anyone whose conception was brought about by either incest or rape?

Under the principles they espouse to justify eliminating abortion rights, what’s the difference? Whatever difference they come up with certainly devastates the premise of the “pro-life” position.

But what if they can’t articulate a difference between an abortion in the case of rape or incest (which they would allow) and a mother’s murdering her three year-old son because he was the product of rape or incest?

Then what kind of monsters are they?

I’ve been asking myself this question for quite awhile now. For instance, way back in 2001, when John Ashcroft was nominated to be attorney general, his “pro-life” supporters lauded him for his integrity. Why? Because he said that even though he personally opposed abortion, he would enforce federal laws protecting abortion rights.

But would a man of integrity really be willing to enforce laws that allow what he considers to be mass murder on an unspeakable scale, just so that he could have the job of attorney general? And if he really weren't willing to enforce such laws, then would a man of integrity lie about it during his confirmation hearing?

That’s some set of values these people are showing.

And now the question has come to the fore again, this time via the candidacy of purportedly pro-choice Rudy Giuliani. He’s not only still standing, but he’s the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.

Although the Christian Right is divided, some are supporting Giuliani, and significantly more are seriously considering it. Polls consistently show that many anti-abortion Republicans who know Giuliani’s pro-choice record nonetheless support him.

And that terrifies me. Not because of what it says about Giuliani’s viability, but because of what it says about the Christian Right.

These are people who argue that abortion is murder, and that Roe v. Wade has allowed the wholesale slaughter of innocent babies. When it comes to the right to life, they tell us, a clump of cells and even a fertilized egg are indistinguishable from a newborn baby – or from a full-grown adult, for that matter.

So it’s not at all surprising that they sometimes use the term “holocaust” to describe abortion in America. If you really believe that abortion is murder, then what term would be more appropriate?

What kind of monster would support a candidate who advocates what they consider to be the right to slaughter innocent people?

Well, Pat Robertson, for one. And, according to the polls, a sizeable number of “pro-life” Republican voters.

The moral surrender these people are willing to make is breathtaking - and monstrous.

This is perhaps the most important moment in the history of the Christian Right. That they would even consider supporting Giuliani either in the primaries or in the general election demonstrates quite starkly just how utterly devoid of genuine morals the movement is.

And they have the audacity to wear the mantle of “values.”

It’s time to stop ceding the moral high ground to these people. We truly have monsters walking among us. We need to expose them for what they are.