George Will: Gingrich a one-man wrecking crew {I don't think George likes Newt. :) }
By GEORGE WILL
Syndicated columnist
georgewill@washpost.com
When discussing his amazingness, Newt Gingrich sometimes exaggerates somewhat, as when, discussing Bosnia and Washington, D.C., street violence, he said, "People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz." (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Jan. 16, 1994). What primarily stands between us and misrule, however, is the Constitution, buttressed by an independent judiciary.
But Gingrich's hunger for distinction has surely been slaked by his full-throated attack on such a judiciary. He is the first presidential candidate to propose a thorough assault on the rule of law. That is the meaning of his vow to break courts to the saddle of politicians, particularly to members of Congress, who rarely even read the laws they pass.
Gingrich's most lurid evidence that courts are "grotesquely dictatorial" is a Texas judge's aggressive decision concerning religious observances at high school functions, a decision a higher court promptly (and dictatorially?) overturned. Gingrich's epiphany about judicial tyranny occurred in 2002, when a circuit court ruled unconstitutional the Pledge of Allegiance phrase declaring America a nation "under God." Gingrich likened this to the 1857 Dred Scott decision that led to 625,000 Civil War dead. The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the circuit court's "under God" nonsense. So, Gingrich is happy? Not exactly. He warns that calling the Supreme Court supreme amounts to embracing "oligarchy."
He says the Founders considered the judiciary the "weakest" branch. Not exactly. Alexander Hamilton called the judiciary the "least dangerous" branch (Federalist 78) because, wielding neither the sword nor the purse, its power resides solely in persuasive "judgment." That, however, is not weakness but strength based on the public's respect for public reasoning. Gingrich yearns to shatter that respect and trump such reasoning with raw political power, in the name of majoritarianism.
Judicial deference to majorities can, however, be a dereliction of the judicial duty to oppose actions irreconcilable with constitutional limits on what majorities may do. Gingrich's campaign against courts repudiates contemporary conservatism's core commitment to limited government.
***
more: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/gingrich-332659-court-majorities.html
Interesting read. Apparently Will sees Newt as a "conservative of convenience" who is whoring for the conservative vote because that is what it takes to win, not because he sincerely shares their beliefs. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and Will occasionally gets it right by the same principle, if somewhat less frequently.
= new reply since forum marked as read
