Jeb Bush comes out for Loretta Lynch
Going along to get along?
This could be added to the list of reasons some conservatives don’t want Jeb Bush as the Republican nominee in 2016.
But it’s a pretty big one, IMHO:
Jeb Bush says that the Senate should confirm the nomination of Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general. A number of Senate Republicans oppose her nomination.
“I think presidents have the right to pick their team,” Bush said, according to reports of his stop at the “Politics and Pie” forum in Concord, New Hampshire, on Thursday night.
The former Florida governor made sure to get in a few digs at current Attorney General Eric Holder, saying that Republicans should consider that the longer it takes to confirm Lynch, the longer Holder stays.
Now, what’s wrong with Bush’s statement?
Nothing much—that is, if it were the olden (pre-Bork) days.
The Bork nomination in 1987 is often considered the beginning of the current hyper-partisan attitude towards nominations, be they Supreme Court or otherwise:
Within 45 minutes of Bork’s nomination to the Court, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork in a nationally televised speech, declaring,
“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.”
A brief was prepared for Joe Biden, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the Biden Report. Bork later said in his best-selling book The Tempting of America that the report “so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility”. TV ads narrated by Gregory Peck attacked Bork as an extremist, and Kennedy’s speech successfully fueled widespread public skepticism of Bork’s nomination. The rapid response of Kennedy’s “Robert Bork’s America” speech stunned the Reagan White House; though conservatives considered Kennedy’s accusations slanderous, the attacks went unanswered for two and a half months.
Note the players, including Joe Biden. Note, also, how flatfooted the Reagan administration was. They had an excuse, though; the no-holds-barred virulence of the attack was relatively new—not to American politics, which had had periods (even in its earliest days) in which that sort of thing was almost commonplace, at least for political opponents. But it was relatively rare in the mid-20th century, which had more often been marked by a more civil tone.
Jeb Bush appears to be living in that world—which would be nice, if the left, liberals, and the Democratic Party were still living in it, too. They are not—and the left never was.
It may just be that the biggest difference between the moderate Republicans whom conservatives do not support and those they do is this: whether or not a candidate understands that the left is playing hardball. Bush isn’t bringing a knife to a gunfight; it’s worse than that. He’s bringing a peashooter to a gunfight.
[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]
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The Establishment Party (E)
A more important point is that the reason for opposing Lynch is that she claims that Obama’s amnesty is legal, when clearly it is not. Thus she is either dishonest or incompetent. (Or both).
The whole “a president has a right to pick their team” thing sounds nice but ignores the reality of the current administration. So Bush is either unaware of that situation or he doesn’t see why it’s a problem. Either way, he is no more qualified for the job he seeks than is Lynch.
JEB isn’t even bringing a peashooter to a gunfight. He is an unarmed man seeking peace. This is the Bush modus operandi. It is remarkably similar to his brother’s “New Tone”; you know, where you win elections and let Ted Kennedy and George Miller write major legislation.
As for Lynch, she shouldn’t be allowed to be AG. I guess JEB hasn’t read up on her dealings with one Felix Slater.
http://observer.com/2015/03/breaking-loretta-lynch-caught-in-deceptive-disclaimer/
JEB should only be in the White House by invitation. He represents the worst the GOP Establishment has to offer.
Any person who declares that low-intensity invaders have the same rights to work here as citizens is NOT qualified to be AG.
That’s all.
Son of a bitch is not qualified to be Dogcatcher.
My guess is that “son of a bitch” refers to Jeb Bush, and I would concur. His mother is horrible and Jeb would make a lousy dog catcher. Furthermore, The world would be a better place if Loretta Lynch was not even practicing law.
JEB is an acronym for “John Ellis Bush”, not a diminutive for “Jebediah”. As some refer to Hilary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein 0bama by their full names, I think John Ellis Bush deserves the same treatment.
Full disclosure: I have a son named “John”. As his face always grew flushed whenever we told toilet jokes, we never referred to lavatories as “johns”.
Ann Richard’s said Jeb’s father was born with a “silver foot in his mouth”. Jeb’s statement will do nothing but further damage him with what he refers to as the “Republican Right”.
Ann Richards was just about the funniest democrat ever. She was a master of the political stiletto shoved between the ribs.
With a peashooter, shot placement is critical. Jeb aims at their feet.
Along with amnesty, Common Core, and his Lynch endorsement, there are his comments on climate change yesterday in New Hampshire:
“The climate is changing, and I’m concerned about that… I am more worried about the hollowing out of our country, the hollowing out of our industrial core, the hollowing out of our ability to compete in an increasingly competitive world.”
Since any knucklehead knows the weather changes, Bush here is endorsing anthropogenic climate change – change caused by man. Worse yet:
“We need to restore our competitive posture, which I think our energy revolution will allow us to do, and then simultaneously be cognizant of the fact that we have this climate change issue and we need to work with the rest of the world to negotiate a way to reduce carbon emissions.”
He endorses AGW and he’s ready to negotiate what will undoubtedly be huge amounts of our taxes going into some UN coffer to ‘fix’ climate change.
Amnesty, Common Core, Lynch endorsement, global warming endorsement, $$$ for carbon emission reductions….. and the GOP leadership wants him badly for the White House? And they’re pitching Bush as conservative Republican?
The GOP leadership must go. They are about to triple down on yet another unelectable squish – McCain, Romney, and now Jeb Bush.
It is Freudian. These people suffer from Democrat Envy. In fact JFK was more conservative than Jeb.
Like Hillary, Jeb wants the glory of the position and not the accountability that comes with it.
In fact, besides gender is there a difference between Jeb and Hillary “It takes of village of illegals-common-cored” with regard to position?
This is becoming stuff of the illuminati.
The fact that Ted Cruz raised $31 million of super PAC money in a single week shows that even the idea that a unified Republican establishment is behind Jeb is a myth–it’s a only fraction of the establishment that’s pushing him.
What I don’t understand is how Jeb’s handlers have believed their own press enough to think Jeb will skate through the primaries and collect enough delegates to get nominated. I can’t imagine it, but if he does then we truly are doomed.
The heads of Jeb’s ‘people’ are up the same rectum as Hillary Clinton’s.
If you are in any way oppose the sickness the democRats and Obama have wreaked upon on our country, Jeb Bush is a sick choice to lead our way out of it.
I was around for the debate over the Bork nomination. What I saw were several newspaper publications making the allegation that Robert Bork lacked judicial temperament, with citations to opinions that he had written, that appeared to solidly support the allegation.
One of my friends was then working for the firm that represented Mr. Bork. He thought Mr. Bork was great. I told my friend that the allegations had to be answered.
I waited for the response which never came, and the nomination lost. Much later, I asked my friend why no answer had come forth. He said the firm wanted to answer, but Bork refused to authorize it.
I later read one of Bork’s economic texts. It had data-free graphs in it, without supporting cites to anything, merely assertions of their truth.
I have a STEM degree (chemistry). To me, the purpose of a graph is to present data, and use of a graph is an assertion that the data exists. Even a graph of a well-known phenomenon subject to innumerable perturbations, such as Boyle’s Law, actually has real data points that can be inserted, depending on the defined parameters of an experiment. And yet Bork admitted in the text that the data did not exist. He confused theory with experimental results.
The book annoyed me. I realized he made a LOT of assertions that had no support, as if expecting me to take his word that his pet theories were true.
Up to that time, I had read a lot of conservative commentary about how brilliant Bob Borks’ writing was, and I remained unimpressed. I mentioned my problem with this and the graphs, and I was told not to worry, it was just an illustration.
I concluded that conservatives liked Bork because he took their side, and were too inclined to forgive him for not doing it well. Perhaps they never read his books.
As for Jeb Bush’s position in this matter, his is the classic position, and exactly what I would expect from an honest person with primarily executive-branch background.
Golly gee, you have a STEM degree! And you read in some prog bird cage lining that Bork had a bad temperament? I guess the hundreds of citings of his works in case law are just mistakes then, huh?
The progressives started this game of trashing the character of Presidential nominees, and Bork was one of the first victims. But now President Stompy Foot wants to cry like a little bitch (that he is) because the Republicans won’t roll over on his latest law-breaker-hack nomination.
The only Bork book I can think of that had much to do with economics was on anti-trust law.
It was very well received by the legal scholars of the time. I don’t remember him making any pretense about knowing a lot about economics, and I can readily see him presenting economic theory on his subject derivative from economists.
You gotta link…???
I second Ragspierre’s request for evidence.
What book?
What graph?
“As for Jeb Bush’s position in this matter, his is the classic position, and exactly what I would expect from an honest person with primarily executive-branch background….”
— if they are a RINO, absolutely. So we see Jeb’s honestly in admitting he will run like Romney and govern (if he’s miraculously elected) like liberal.
Just the mention of his name (along with Obama and Clinton) brings on nausea.
George H.W. Bush was a milquetoast president and gave rise to Bill Clinton; George W. Bush was a lousy president, and gave rise to Barack Obama. Jeb Bush will be just as lousy a president, and will give rise to an ever greater monster than Barack Obama.
Was it one of these, Ms. Valerie?
Bork, Robert H. (1971). “Neutral Principles and Some First Amendment Problems”. Ind. L. J. 47: 1. This paper has been identified as one of the most cited legal articles of all time.
Bork, Robert H. (1978). The Antitrust Paradox. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-465-00369-9.
Bork, Robert H. (1990). The Tempting of America. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-84337-4.
Bork, Robert H. (1993). The Antitrust Paradox (second edition). New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-02-904456-1.
Bork, Robert H. (1996). Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline. New York: ReganBooks. ISBN 0-06-039163-4.
Bork, Robert H. (2003). Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press. ISBN 0-8447-4162-0.
Bork, Robert H. (Ed.) (2005). A Country I Do Not Recognize: The Legal Assault On American Values. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press. ISBN 0-8179-4602-0.
Bork, Robert H. (2008) A Time to Speak: Selected Writings and Arguments. Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books. ISBN 9781933859682
Wait. I thought Jeb was trying to win the GOP nomination. Adding onto Katie Pavlich’s idea, how about a Bush-Christie ticket for the Dems?
The alternate argument for Jeb’s position should be presented here:
Jeb is the only candidate who’s thinking about governing after winning the election.
He understands that there is a fair chance the Pubs will lose the Senate even if the Pubs (e.g., him) win the presidential election. While Harry Reid will be gone, the odious Chuckie Schumer then will be Majority Leader (doesn’t that make you want to spit).
And Jeb knows that he’ll need every precedent he can get to get his own nominations through a hostile Senate.
Personally I think he’s mistaken: Schumer and company will wreck the Pubs no matter the precedent. It’s what they do.
But I can see Jeb’s logic, even if I think he’s wrong.
So he’s already thinking of how to cope as a loser.
“Jeb is the only candidate who’s thinking about governing after winning the election.”
Can I borrow your magic ball for church bingo tomorrow?
Oh come on Henry, think big! If you get your hands on it, play the cattle futures. Rumor has it that’s where the big money can be had real quick!
Cattle futures -at the very least you can use them to hide bribe money.
Jeb thinks the president has the right to pick his own team, so I guess we can toss out that whole “advice and consent” thing, huh?
Those who “think presidents have the right to pick their team” don’t understand the federal system and why Senators have the prerogative of confirming the president’s picks for “his team.”
Simply put, it’s not “his team.” The president is elected to be the chief executive of a union of nominally sovereign States. The president’s picks for executive positions will be exercising authority in the name of the States (like the enforcement of national laws) that the States are not capable of doing for themselves (either as a practical matter or because they’re constitutionally prevented – such as over matters of immigration and interstate commerce, where they have surrendered their individual authority to the federal government in order that it be exercised more efficiently in the collective). Therefore the Senate (the body where the States’ interests as geo-political entities are supposed to be represented) has a say-so in the appointments to certain offices. The team being assembled works for the States, and is merely directed and supervised by the president (who assures that the laws are “faithfully executed”) in the name of the union-member States.
(As an aside, this is also why the Senate ratifies treaties – the executive bargains for the collective, and the collective has the authority, through the Senate, to ratify (or not) the work of the executive. To paraphrase Lysander Spooner, the authority to ratify treaties was not delegated to just any body of representatives that could be called a “senate.” It was delegated to a particular body in which the States had their own representation in the federal government. It might be argued that because the States no longer actually have a voice in the ratification of treaties that there now exists no body of representatives capable of fulfilling the purpose of the Senate, because today’s Senate is not the body to which the authority had been delegated – it is merely another body with the same name.)
Of course, the 17th Amendment short-circuited the purpose of the Senate, and it no longer acts as representatives of the States as nominally sovereign entities. The REASON for the delegation to the Senate of confirmation authority (and treaty ratification authority) no longer exists. But it still serves an important purpose – it prevents, merely by having its authority (as purposeless as it may be) the accumulation of too much power in the executive. That is to say, it prevents a president from assembling “his team” as he sees fit in order to execute his own agenda, rather than that of the union-member States.
Many of the problems we have today with the federal government can be traced back to the 17th Amendment and the popular election of Senators. Many individual States have taken, or have proposed to take, actions in recent years to protect themselves and their citizens from an overweening federal government, actions that would not be necessary if they were still represented in the Senate – the right and proper place for the States to protect their interests against the federal leviathan.
Excellent. May I add one point – your description about today’s Senate is accurate about how they behave BUT nothing in the 17th authorized or modified the purpose of the Senate. It ‘merely’ changed how Senators are chosen.
No, I’m not so naive that I think it wasn’t intended to go the way it has gone. It’s just that I think it’s important to keep in mind that each Senator takes an oath to support and defend the constitution. To the extent that they are failing to represent the proper interests of their states, they are violating their oaths.
The vast majority of longest serving senators have come after the 17th amendment. When state legislatures were picking them there was much higher turnover rate.
Part of the problem is judicial overreach has caused problems in every state. State legislatures were once with a house based on popular vote and senate based on geography, now both are based on population. In Illinois one need carry just Cook County to win the state. Carrying 6 counties can produce a near landslide. Getting rid the the 17th amendment without restoring state senates based on local will be an empty win.
The States need to call an Article V Convention, and the repeal of the 17th should be their highest priority.
Oh we understand it.
The point is, TRADITIONALLY presidents (in a bygone era) were given wide latitude to decide who indeed was on the team. It was presumed that since these key department secretaries, agency chiefs, etc had to work with the president on a near-daily basis that it was important for the president to be able to work with and trust them.
Further, it was assumed that the president understood that it was better to choose these leaders from the greater middle part of the country’s political spectrum. They’d then be vetted quietly by the Senate and get a vote that put them through. It was all part of the game — the Senate indeed had say-so in who was on the team that the president assembled, but chose for the most part to exercise it quietly, and trust the president.
Picking a rabble-rouser was an invitation for the Senate to display PUBLICLY its ‘advise and consent’ duties, with a ‘no’ vote a distinct possibility. Since a new president didn’t want to suffer such an embarrassment in the first months of his term, he avoided that.
So the problem isn’t that — the problem is our last few presidents have decided to put hardliners in charge of key departments. The Justice Department is key to that — if you have your own hard-line loyalist there you can be more assured that your other minions won’t be indicted. So Reagan had Meese, Clinton had Reno, Bush had Ashcroft, and Obama had Holder (Holder is by far the worst of them). Lynch continues the theme — we all know she’s there to stop things from happening to Champ and to advance the progressive agenda.
So that’s why Jeb is wrong to call for Lynch to be approved.
Again, Jeb sees the situation differently — in his mind, Lynch is a 18 month employee of DoJ. She’s then gone, and he, Jeb, names her replacement, since he plans to win. When he names that replacement, he wants his own fixer in charge of DoJ, and he doesn’t want any trouble getting that person through.
That’s why he’s saying what he’s saying.
“That’s why he’s saying what he’s saying.”
Maybe he’s just a leftwinger that thinks Lynch is perfect for the job. How would one no the difference?
If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, maybe it is just a duck.
Presidents pick their nominees and the Senate approves, within reason, of course. That Lynch is within reason is entirely debatable.
It was until her confirmation hearings. At this point it’s entirely clear that she intends to continue Holder’s tradition of running interference for the illegalities of the Obama administration. Therefore she is entirely unacceptable. Public officials have a moral and legal obligation to uphold the law and protect the Constitution. She danced around it a bit, but essentially admitted she would do neither.
It seems to me that he keeps uttering reasons to form a “STOP jeb” PAC