Yet Another Schumer Bratty Meltdown

Chuck Schumer (shown here saying, "There's nothing up here!") has been working hard to become my least favorite Senator. He should have had the dishonor nailed down by now ... it's just that the competition's so tough.

Yesterday's crybaby pout by Chuckie just about sealed the deal. As reported by Politico:

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

Schumer presumes to re-read the Constitution because a slim and iffy one-vote conservative majority is "dangerously out of balance."

If his hissy-policy were to become the policy of the land, attrition would gradually lead us to a one-vote majority again -- the one vote of the last surviving Supreme Court Justice. Then, no Supreme Court at all.

The Constitution recognizes the president's right to nominate Supreme Court justices and the Senate's right to "confirm." Schumer, in the words of White House spokesperson Dana Perino, is showing "a tremendous disrespect for the Constitution" by suggesting that the Senate not confirm nominees. Politico continues the quote:

"This is the kind of blind obstruction that people have come to expect from Sen. Schumer. He has an alarming habit of attacking people whose character and position make them unwilling or unable to respond. That is the sign of a bully. If the past is any indication, I would bet that we would see a Democratic senatorial fundraising appeal in the next few days."

Naming Supreme Court justices is the juiciest fruit the president gets in return for being elected, juicier by far than Air Force One and bands playing Hail to the Chief at every turn. It's a hard-earned gift bestowed by the Constitution, and Schumer would do well to think twice before shooting off his big mouth.

The day will come, and unfortunately it may not be too far away, when there is a Dem president and a GOP Senate.

Two Mega-Quotes From Desgregation Case

Chief Justice Roberts has the best quote on the Supreme Courts' ruling today throwing out two race-based desegregation plans:

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. (hat-tip: Power Line)

That's the kind of lucid opinion-writing that earns a guy a gig as Chief Justice.

The quote that's as mega-bad as Roberts' is mega-good comes from a man who wants to earn the right to appoint Supreme Court justices: Barack Obama. Speaking at tonight's Dem Prez debate, he said:

"If it were not for [civil rights leaders who fought for Brown v. Board of Education and other precedents] I would not be standing here." (Breitbart)

Brown vs. Board of Education did nothing for Obama. Zero. Until he was 10, he was in school in Indonesia, where, the last time I checked, U.S. law has no reach. He spent the rest of his school life in Honolulu, probably the most diverse, racially mellow city in the nation.

Not only that, but he attended Punahou School all the way through high school. Punahou is noted for its financially and racially diverse student body. Its Web site brags:

Our 3,750 students, in kindergarten through grade 12, reflect Hawaii's ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic diversity.

Obama was never involved in a school desegregation program, so it matters not one bit to him whether people fought for Brown v. Board of Education or not. It was just a bit of shameless pandering by a black man at Howard University who was trying to be more black than he is.

Defiant Until Death (When The Scissors Cut Their Bodies Apart)

The power of a conservative Republican president hit home today when the Supreme Court, fortified with John Roberts and Samuel Alito, narrowly put an end to the brutal, needless and immoral partial-birth abortion procedure.

Those who would like to see abortion contained, constrained or eliminated best look at the GOP presidential horde in light of this decision and ask themselves who they can really, really trust to nominate conservative judges.

It was left to swing-voter Anthony Kennedy to write the decision that may well have no impact on other abortion procedures, but was death for this particularly nasty form of abortion:

"We conclude the act [the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban of 2003] should be sustained against the objections lodged by the broad, facial attack brought against it. Respondents have not demonstrated that the act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception." ...

The act is not invalid on its face where there is uncertainty over whether the barred procedure is ever necessary to preserve a women's health, given the availability of other abortion procedures."

It's not poetry, but it got the job done. Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who was placed on the court without a GOP challenge despite her well-known radical liberal views, wrote with near stroke-inducing fervor against the decision:

In a bitter dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the opinion "alarming" in that it allows a government ban on abortion procedures "found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists."

The dissent said the ruling amounts to an eroding of abortion rights under Roe v. Wade, the 1972 Supreme Court ruling that recognized a constitutional right to abortion. "The Partial-Birth Abortion Act and the court's defense of it cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this court," Justice Ginsburg said. (WSJ)

Would that it were so, but methinks the lady doth protest too much. Abortion is a battle that's fought on a legal razor's edge, with each decision virtually standing alone, contained within a wall of carefully laid bricks of legal language. There are no landscape-wide decisions. The bloody bunch have lost one; they'll survive to abort another day.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for the abortion queens at Planned Parenthood (or Planned non-Parenthood, which is more often the result of their intervention) said,

"This ruling flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women’s health and safety. Today the court took away an important option for doctors who seek to provide the best and safest care to their patients. This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them."

There is, despite the femi-rant, no purpose for partial birth abortion that other, less disgusting and homicidal forms of abortion cannot address.

And by the way, haven't the politicians, not the doctors, been in control of the abortion debate since it began? Were it not so, what would Emily's List and NARAL do with all the political funds they raise?

Did today's decision save any lives? Probably not many. Partial birth is an uncommon procedure and in its absence, there are other ways for abortionists to kill the nearly born. But there is a morality to this decision that is powerful and persuasive, and for that we have the American voters and President Bush to thank.