Timothy Carney argues persuasively over at NRO today that the farcical election protest conducted in Congress last Thursday was not aimed at President Bush, but rather targeted Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell. Carney notes that
A word count of the Congressional Record makes the case clearly: George Bush’s name was mentioned 109 times during the debate, while Ken Blackwell’s was mentioned 149. When you take into account that many of the Bush mentions were made by Republicans, and that every mention of Blackwell was in a statement by a Democrat, it is clear who the real target of Thursday’s proceedings was."
And, as Carney points out, for the Democrats, race matters:
Miguel Estrada knows how this works. Democrats, as their memos revealed, found Estrada "especially dangerous because. . . he is Latino." It’s not that Dick Durbin and Pat Leahy’s staff think Hispanics are inherently more "dangerous," it’s that they don’t want to be seen opposing one for the High Court, when all of America will be watching. He had to be stopped before then.The attack dogs of personal destruction succeeded with their preemptive strike on Estrada, and now they’ll try with Blackwell.
Back in September of 2003, I made the argument that Democrats opposed Estrada in part based upon the fact that he was Hispanic
here. I received numerous angry emails from those who reminded me that Democrats are incapable of such racist behavior--arguments which seemed a bit less credible when the smoking gun memos were released. (Of course, the left has never actually addressed the merits of the memos. They are far more concerned about the fact that they were released.) Now it seems that the left is up to their old tricks--trumping up charges to thwart the career of a politician because he has the audacity to be conservative and African-American.
Am I missing something?
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
I know the power-brokers inside the beltway don’t like to think about the 9th and 10th Amendments - if they did, most of government would disappear - but why does a right need to be enumerated in the constitution, when the 9th Amendment says that the rights enumerated are not all rights?
I presume that this comment was actually meant to be directed to my previous post responding to Professor Ford, in which I quoted Ford as follows: "Sensible federalism has its limits: It must not allow states to limit the enjoyment of important rights, and it must allow for federal regulation of activities with significant interstate effects." I responded as follows: You’ll also note Ford’s loose use of the term "important rights." This permits him to keep elements of culture wars within the federal ambit, by failing to recognize that rights which are not constitutional are in fact reserved to the people and to the states.
The commenter will note that I did not say that the only rights that exist are constitutional ones. But constitutional rights are the only rights for which the federal government has an enforcement role. Through the Ninth and the Tenth Amendments, other "extra"-constitutional rights are retained by the people and the states. And, indeed, this means that the people may choose to circumscribe or limit the exercise of these rights by delegating the matters to their state officials.
Back to this posting, it’s pretty clear that the Dems are just looking for another person to blame, rather than doing the deep introspection that they so clearly again. Not to beat a dead horse, but wake up Dems! You lost because of BAD IDEAS, BAD CANDIDATES, and the conspiracy-theory "Bush is a nazi" crowd. If you ever want to succeed on a national stage again, quit your incessant bellyaching, embrace the qualities that make America great instead of attacking them, and show a little dignity every now and then instead of constantly blaming someone else every time your left-wing platform doesn’t work.
Sorry, I meant to say "introspection that they so clearly need."
See Dems? It’s not that hard to admit your mistakes.