Will The Real Neanderthal Please Stand Up?
By Tom Barrett (11/20/03)
Senator "Teddy" Kennedy angered even members of his own party this week by calling some of the most respected jurists in the nation "Neanderthals." Many considered his remarks racist. I think they were simply stupid. With Kennedy's history of causing the death of a young woman while in a drunken stupor, I would think he would be the last one in Washington to be casting stones.
For those readers who might be too young to remember, in 1969 the married Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island with a young woman not his wife, for reasons he still refuses to explain. Mary Jo Kopechne died when a drunken Kennedy drove his car off a bridge. He swam ashore, saving his own skin, but left her to die. He did not summon help. Instead he attempted to arrange a cover-up. When that was unsuccessful, he reported the accident a day later.
Anyone else would have gone to prison for manslaughter. Instead, Kennedy's money and family connections got him a slap on the wrist. His driver's license was suspended for one year. That was not a problem, because he just had his chauffeur drive him around. (See Internet link below.)
I mention this because Americans have short memories. When Kennedy gets on his moral high horse, few remind him that he has no morality. Teddy's latest moral outrage is against several fine justices who have been nominated for the federal bench. He has referred to these respected members of the legal community as "morally bankrupt" because they don't share his enthusiasm for socialism and for killing unborn babies.
Kennedy's mouth often gets him into trouble. This week's example of his foot in mouth disease came when he referred to the justices whom the Democrats will not allow the Senate to vote upon as "Neanderthals."
He embarrassed his own party with this, because many took this to be a racial slur against the non-white nominees. As I said, I don't believe this to be the case. Kennedy is definitely not the sharpest stick in the woods, but I don't believe he would be so insensitive as to toss around racial insults.
No, I believe he had in mind another definition of Neanderthal: "Oafish, brutish, crude in actions or speech." Isn't it interesting that the insults people direct at others usually apply remarkably well to themselves? Kennedy is the very definition of "crude." Were it not for his Kennedy pedigree he would have been run out of the Senate long ago as an embarrassment to that body.
Let's take a look at some of the nominees Kennedy and his henchmen have been blocking from being voted upon for two and a half years. They are some of the most highly qualified jurists ever nominated to the federal bench. They include women, blacks, and Hispanics. The Democrats always claim to be the "party of diversity", but when the President nominates women and minorities to high posts, they refuse to even allow the Senate vote on them.
For those who have not been following the news on this subject, here is what has been happening. The Democrats have been using an archaic Senate rule known as the filibuster to block a vote of the full Senate on the nominees. Never in more than two and a quarter centuries has a filibuster been used in this way. The Constitution calls for a simple majority vote of the Senate to confirm nominations. The Democrats have twisted the rules by using a filibuster, which can only be broken by a 60% vote, to keep the justices from being allowed an "up or down" vote. (See Internet link below.)
In simple terms, the Constitution requires a 51% vote for confirmation. By using trickery and old-fashioned rules that should have been thrown out long ago, the Democrats have subverted the Constitution so that a 60% vote is needed before the Senate is allowed to vote on the nominees.
Why are they so afraid to allow the nominees to be voted upon by the full Senate? Because they know they will be confirmed in a floor vote. They have counted the votes. They know that even some Democrats will vote for the nominees.
This is what one prominent Democrat, who is embarrassed by his own party's crude behavior, had to say about the back-room politics being used by them. Raymond Flynn, Clinton's former Ambassador to the Vatican, said recently, "The process for placing qualified judges on the federal bench has descended into a quagmire that has gone beyond ideological differences. It has become focused on the nominees' personal values and beliefs, which has created a disturbing tone of antireligious and, in some cases, anti-Catholic bigotry. I believe I speak for many millions of Americans, and especially millions of good Catholics, when I say that we don't like the shabby way in which these nominees are being treated. They are all distinguished public servants."
It is truly amazing how politicians change their tone with the times. During the Clinton administration Democrats said the Senate should have fair and simple up or down votes for judicial nominees. In 1999 Democrat Senator Tom Daschle (now the Minority Leader) said he found it "baffling that a Senator would vote against even voting on a judicial nomination." Iowa Democrat Senator Tom Harkin said senators needed to "have the guts to come out and vote up or down. And once and for all, put behind us this filibuster procedure on nominations." I would agree wholeheartedly with these Senators. Unfortunately, aliens seem to have taken control of their bodies, because today both of them are saying exactly the opposite of what they said in 1999.
Judicial nominees deserve a fair up or down vote in the Senate. Our courts are much too important to be playing politics with them. Politicizing judicial nominees leads to Senate gridlock and empty federal benches. It is time for the Neanderthals who are leading this obstruction of the Constitution to stop their oafish, brutish, crude behavior and at least pretend that they care about what is best for the nation.
INTERNET LINKS:
http://www.who2.com/maryjokopechne.html
http://news.findlaw.com/politics/s/20031114/congressjudgesdc.html
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