Pawns of History?
The question of Jewish liberalism
On the Newsstand:abortion
Compassionate Conservatism Confounded
Faith-based initiatives face tough political realities
Has Health Reform Failed?
The question is not intended substantively. The bill that is being debated by the Senate is an ugly mess from the perspective of any reasonable observer, left, right, or center. However, as inefficient and messy as it is, it will still do a much better job than the status quo of providing healthcare to the people in the country who ... Read More
Securing the Homeland
Tom Ridge on the creation and evolution of the Department of Homeland Security and the future of the Republican Party. Tom Ridge is the first Secretary of Homeland Security. He is a former Representative and Governor of Pennsylvania. He was very visible in the 2008 Presidential Race as an aide to Senator John McCain. Harvard Political Review: Can you describe ... Read More
Judges and Biography
Conservative pundits and their mainstream-media abettors are stunned, stunned I say, at the suggestion that a judge’s biography might have some sort of influence on his or her decisions. Somewhere under the Mojave Desert, a cabal of conservative engineers is working on the Adjudicator 9000, the amicus brief-processing automaton that will solve the problem of having, you know, humans on ... Read More
Thoughts on David Souter
One of the constant refrains in articles about David Souter’s retirement is that replacing him with another “liberal” will not change the “basic makeup of the Court.” There are quite a few things wrong with this analysis. As the media often do, they grossly oversimplify and mischaracterize a Supreme Court justice’s philosophy. David Souter is many things, but certainly one ... Read More
Re: Both Y’allz.
Actually, I’d guess Sam meant to say “reactive” rather than “reactionary”. In a narrow technical sense, however, I’d define the Republican Party as reactionary. While the term is often pejorative, it simply means a group or ideology that seeks a return to a previous state. The Republican Party is pretty open about its desire to roll back the machinery of the ... Read More
Human Rights in America Today
So apparently McCain’s strategist, Steve Schmidt, is recommending that Republicans drop their rabid opposition to gay marriage. I think the “rabid” part is right; it’s certainly not netting them any votes. Strategically, however, I think it’s wise for them to not just give in entirely; it’s hardly as though there’s a clear majority of Americans in favor of gay marriage, ... Read More
Not in Kansas Any More
New role, new tactics for Kathleen Sebelius In December 1999, Kansas Insurance Commissioner Kathleen Sebelius expressed concern that new privacy rules imposed by the federal department of Health and Human Services would undercut state jurisdiction over health information. Federal bureaucracy, she argued, could not handle enforcement as nimbly as the states. A decade later, Sebelius will have the opportunity to ... Read More
Comeback to the Future
A proposal for rejuvenating the Republican Party American conservatism is in disarray. Democrats won decisively in the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential elections. Once reliably conservative constituencies like married couples and regular churchgoers are shrinking in size, and young voters voted overwhelmingly Democratic. Conservatism is out of power and out of steam. With both the White House and Capitol Hill ... Read More
Abortion Rights at the Court
Crucial crossroad, or more of the same? Every election cycle, we are told that the future of the Supreme Court, and particularly the future of abortion jurisprudence, is at stake. This election-centric view infects the mainstream media, which routinely publish October headlines like “This time, Roe v. Wade really could hang in the balance,” as the Los Angeles Times declared ... Read More
A Detente in the Culture War
Social issues move off center stage At the 1992 Republican National Convention, conservative media personality Pat Buchanan fired the opening salvos of the ongoing national culture war, declaring, “There is a religious war going on in our country…it is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.” ... Read More
A Court by Any Other Name?
Roberts, Kennedy, and Collegiality on the Supreme Court During the summer of 2006, Chief Justice John Roberts spoke publicly about the need for greater unity on the nation’s highest court. In a commencement address at Georgetown Law School, he urged that “unanimity, or near-unanimity” would yield “clarity and guidance” for lawyers and lower courts trying to understand the Supreme Court’s ... Read More
Warming the Bench
Obama’s nominations will be liberal, but not in the conventional sense For better or for worse, people will view it as historically significant,” mused Harvard Law Professor Randall Kennedy on the election of the Harvard Law Review’s first black president in 1990. Less than two decades later, the student in question has once again been thrust into the spotlight of ... Read More
