Give 'Em Surrender Harry's Treasonous Hypocrisy

Look in the Dictionary for HYPOCRISY and you will find:

Main Entry: hy·poc·ri·sy
Function: noun
Pronunciation: hi-'pä-kr&-se also hī-Inflected Form(s): plural -siesEtymology: Middle English ypocrisie, from Old French, from Late Latin hypocrisis, from Greek hypokrisis act of playing a part on the stage . . .
1 : a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not ; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion
2 : an act or instance of hypocrisy
3 : Harry Reid

Well, no, you won’t find 3, but you should. Give ‘Em Surrender Harry is certainly among the most hypocritical of politicians in Washington. His only motivation is achieving raw political power at any cost. And the cost to America will be heavy indeed if he succeeds.

One recent example of Give ‘Em Surrender Harry’s hypocrisy is his comment on the Supreme Court decision in Carhart upholding the federal ban on one specific type of partial birth abortion. In the wake of that decision, Give ‘Em Surrender Harry said "I would only say that this isn't the only decision that a lot of us wish that Alito weren't there and O'Connor were there." The hypocrisy – Give ‘Em Surrender Harry voted for the law that the Supreme Court upheld.

Another, albeit minor, example is Give ‘Em Surrender Harry’s quickly changing stance on whether Fox should host Democratic Presidential debates. You can find much more substantive and crystal clear examples of Give ‘Em Surrender Harry’s hypocrisy with but a little research, such as his changing stance on immigration and Social Security.

But all of these pale to meaninglessness in comparison to Give ‘Em Surrender Harry’s drive to insure that the U.S. loses the war in Iraq and that the surge does not succeed. He has been fighting against the surge from the moment it was proposed, though for at least a year prior he strongly proposed exactly such a change in U.S. strategy. That must take center stage because Give ‘Em Surrender Harry’s drive portends tremendous damage to this country by enabling radical Islamists, by enabling Iran, and by thoroughly undermining our ability to conduct foreign policy. Who will ally with the U.S. against any determined foe in the future if Give 'Em Surrender Harry has his way? And what nation opposed to the U.S. will be deterred by American military power or "resolve" if Give 'Em Surrender Harry gets his way?

It is no surprise that, only a few days before Give ‘Em Surrender Harry’s announcement that the war was lost – during which he suggested that the true hypocrites on this issue were the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense – Give ‘Em Surrender Harry and Chuck Schumer had this to say:

Mr. Reid said Mr. Schumer showed him poll numbers that he finds "compelling and astounding" that prove Republican senators who back Mr. Bush on Iraq are hurting. Democrats echo this sentiment, saying they will prevail in 2008, when one-third of the Senate is up for re-election.

. . . "We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war," predicted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, adding that Republican senators faced with constant votes on whether they support President Bush's Iraq policy will have a tough time convincing voters that they deserve re-election.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, says a handful of Republicans are going to "look extinction ... in the eye."

"Look at the poll numbers of Republican senators, and the war in Iraq is a lead weight attached to their ankle," said Mr. Schumer, who leads the campaign arm for Senate Democrats.

"They know that, and we've just been at this a couple of months and we're going to keep at it," he said. "It's not an accident that the ones who are squirming the most are the ones who are up in '08."

In the run up to his announcement that the war in Iraq was lost, Give 'Em Surrender Harry appeared with two retired generals who appeared to support his position that the surge could not work in Iraq. The hpocrisy here is explained in this from The Mudville Gazette:

Senator Reid was a busy man this week:

Flanked by two former Army retired generals Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) blasted President Bush for "clinging to a failed escalation strategy" in Iraq and "failing our troops and our country."

One general went so far as to say that active duty military officers were being used as "props" by the Bush Administration.

Reid is scheduled to meet with the White House this week to negotiate the Iraq supplemental spending bill Congress passed before Easter recess that contains a timetable for withdrawal.

President Bush has vowed to veto any bill that would cut funding for the troops or dictate a withdrawal date, but Reid said "the President is not going to get a bill that has nothing on it."

With a banner behind them that said "Support the Troops" and "Transition the Mission" Reid stood with Ret. Lt. Gen. Robert Gard and Ret. Brig. Gen. John Johns and said that the surge should be abandoned.

. . . Gen. Johns said active service military officers, like Gen. Petraeus, were being used as "props" by the administration. "The American people need to be told the truth. The only reason I speak out as a retired officer is the President, as all Presidents do, use the active duty military as props to make it appear that the military is united behind his policy."

The only things new about the Democrats using Generals are the specific names. Last year they had a different crew.

Batiste and two other retired officers spoke before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, a rump group with little legislative clout but access to a proper Senate hearing room. And Batiste made up for lost time.

"Donald Rumsfeld is not a competent wartime leader," said Batiste, wearing a pinstripe suit, calling himself a "lifelong Republican" and bearing a slight resemblance to Oliver North. "He surrounds himself with like-minded and compliant subordinates who do not grasp the importance of the principles of war, the complexities of Iraq or the human dimension of warfare.

. . . Bottom line: His plan allowed the insurgency to take root and metastasize to where it is today."

. . . Batiste and his colleagues offered their solution: more troops, more money and more time in Iraq.

"We must mobilize our country for a protracted challenge," Batiste warned.

"We better be planning for at least a minimum of a decade or longer," contributed retired Marine Col. Thomas Hammes.

"We are, conservatively, 60,000 soldiers short," added retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was in charge of building the Iraqi Security Forces.

That call for a surge was why they had to be replaced on the podium, of course.

You probably heard that last year's generals had called for Rumsfeld to be fired - but did you know they had called for a surge?

The hypocrisy of Give Em Surrender Harry far transcends the bounds of responsible politics. His drive to insure that the surge does not succeed and that America retreats from Iraq are not principled positions, nor acceptable politics. His hypocrisy is treasonous.

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The Constitution and the Red Herring of Abortion - Gonzalez v. Carhart

The recent Supreme Court decision in Gonzalez v. Carhart, upholding a federal law on partial birth abortion, is being played up as a huge assault on women's fundamental rights by pro abortion advocates. It's not. That does not of course stop the New York Times and others of their ilk who are already proclaiming it as such in order to generate money and votes for pro-abortion candidates in 2008. For the anti-abortion crowd, the decision is being played up as a huge victory. It's not that either. In all actuality, as Justices Thomas and Scalia suggested in their concurring opinion, this case might well have been decided differently if the proponents of abortion rights had simply argued in their case that the federal government did not have the power under the commerce clause to regulate partial birth abortion.

Does that latter surprise you, that the two most "conservative" Justices on the Court would suggest a willingness to strike down a federal law limiting abortion? I will get to their reasoning in a moment.

The federal law on partial birth abortion has no impact on 90% of all abortions conducted in the United States - that 90% occuring during the first trimester of pregnancy. And indeed, the federal law on partial birth abortions is itself only a partial ban on such abortions. It makes illegal just one gruesome method of conducting abortions during the second trimester of pregnancy. Specifically, the federal law makes it illegal to deliver the living fetus outside the vagina before killing it, something usually done by crushing its skull. In the decision to uphold this law against a facial challenge, the court found that the law was sufficiently clear that a doctor could know what method was made illegal by the law and, by banning only one method of abortion, the law did not unreasonably burden a woman's right to an abortion.

There is a much larger and more important issue at work here. You can be very much pro-abortion and still be against abortion as a "constitutitonal right" - at least without a specific amendment being passed to make it one. Indeed, one of the great proponents of abortion rights on the bench today is Justice Ginsburg, who herself criticized the Roe v. Wade decision ensconcing abortion as a constitutional right as a poorly reasoned decision.

The larger issue is whether the Constitution should be interpreted as written and, to the extent possible, in consideration of the intent of the people who drafted it, or whether it can be expanded beyond that to mean whatever a couple of sitting justices want it to mean on any particular day - in essence, imposing their own personal belief system on America as a matter of constitutional law. This latter approach is often referred to as the "living constitution." For a good look at this issue, see Justice Scalia's speech on the living constitution in 2005, and here is a transcript of the debate between Justices Scalia and Breyer on the issue of using foreign law to determine the meaning of the U.S. Constitution.

Looking outside the four corners of the written Constitution and the intent of the drafters makes of the Supreme Court a supra-legislature, taking over the position of Congress and the executive to create laws rather then to interpret them in light of the Constitution. That is not the function for which the Supreme Court is designed. Besides not being assigned any legislative role in the Constitution, the Supreme Court does not have the ability of Congress to hold hearings or subpoena witness - in essence, to make findings of fact beyond whatever record lies before it. Nor does allowing the Court such leeway comport with the concept of democracy. The Supreme Court justices are not subject to the will of the people, being an unelected body with tenure for life.

This is a much greater and more important issue then abortion because it has an effect on every case the Supreme Court hears. Unfortunately, it is also an issue that has, ever since the attack on Robert Bork led by Teddy Kennedy, been hidden by the rhetoric of the political left. They proclaim any attack upon Roe v. Wade as an attack on the "right of a woman to choose," irregardless of whether it is actually a well grounded criticism of the reasoning of Roe as bad law because the decision goes well outside of the framework of the Constitution. Roe created out of whole cloth a new constitutional right.

How dangerous is allowing the Supreme Court to treat the Constitution as a "living document" subject to the individual whim of Justices? Besides Roe v. Wade, which found a right to abortion in some ephemeral "penumbara of rights" outside of the text, possibly the worst decision that the Supreme Court has passed since the Dred Scott decision was the Kelo v. New London decided last year. That case, decided by the "liberal wing" of the Court, is a horrendous assault on private property rights, essentially rewriting the plain language of the Fifth Amendment to allow government to take your private property on the flimsiest of pretext and give it to another private party. It is horrible decision that is made possible only if one buys into the "living constitution" philosophy.

Which brings us full circle to the commerce clause and Justices Scalia and Thomas. Why would these two conservative justices possibly strike down a federal law limiting abortion? Because they see the Constitution and its drafters as silent on the issue, thus making its regulation a question for the states and, by its nature, beyond the power of the federal government to regulate under the commerce clause. That is appropriate jurisprudence. This nation would be well served if the left stopped their partisan pandering to NOW and other far left groups that want Roe v. Wade used as a litmus test for Supreme Court nominees. If you want a litmus test, it should be whether a prospective justice would support Kelo v. London.

Update: See also this similar take on the Cahart decision at the Wall St. J.

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