{"id":657,"date":"2005-10-05T13:47:06","date_gmt":"2005-10-05T17:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=657"},"modified":"2009-04-12T21:07:30","modified_gmt":"2009-04-13T01:07:30","slug":"can-this-nomination-be-justified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/10\/05\/can-this-nomination-be-justified\/","title":{"rendered":"Can This Nomination Be Justified?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2005\/10\/04\/AR2005100400954.html\">Can This Nomination Be Justified?<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[T]he president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech. The day before the 2000 Iowa caucuses he was asked &#8212; to ensure a considered response from him, he had been told in advance that he would be asked &#8212; whether McCain-Feingold&#8217;s core purposes are unconstitutional. He unhesitatingly said, &#8220;I agree.&#8221; Asked if he thought presidents have a duty, pursuant to their oath to defend the Constitution, to make an independent judgment about the constitutionality of bills and to veto those he thinks unconstitutional, he briskly said, &#8220;I do.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good grief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;[T]he president has forfeited his right to be trusted as a custodian of the Constitution. The forfeiture occurred March 27, 2002, when, in a private act betokening an uneasy conscience, he signed the McCain-Feingold law expanding government regulation of the timing, quantity and content of political speech.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-aB","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6280,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/11\/oathbreaker\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":0},"title":"Oathbreaker","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Talking about sworn oaths and the people who break them.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;politics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":374,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/01\/14\/creationist-textbook-stickers-declared-unconstitutional\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":1},"title":"Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 14, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Freedom of speech anyone?","rel":"","context":"In &quot;politics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6296,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/02\/19\/a-dictatorship-by-any-other-name-is-still-a-dictatorship\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":2},"title":"A Dictatorship by Any Other Name is Still A Dictatorship","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 19, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Unitary Executive\" = \"Dictatorship\" - call it what it is.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;politics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":268,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/10\/08\/enemy-combatants-and-the-war-on-terror\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":3},"title":"&#8220;Enemy Combatants&#8221; and &#8220;The War on Terror&#8221;","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been conflicted over the idea of the President of the United States being able to declare a U.S. Citizen an \"enemy combatant\" and hold him\/her without the \"Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.\" It bothered me so much that I decided to look into it myself.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;politics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":534,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/06\/08\/school-controls-speech\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":4},"title":"School Controls Speech","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 8, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"\"It's true that under the Court's Establishment Clause caselaw the government generally may not itself engage in religious speech, nor may it give preferential treatment to religious speech. But this ban on government preferences for religious speech doesn't require or authorize discrimination against private religious speech. Such discrimination is itself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;politics&quot;","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4952,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2017\/01\/31\/the-march-to-tyranny\/","url_meta":{"origin":657,"position":5},"title":"The March to Tyranny","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 31, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"How quickly a country can fall...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Opinion&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}