George Will Slams Gingrich For “Sinister Radicalism” On Courts
I’ve written twice myself on Newt Gingrich’s absurd attacks on the judiciary, here and here, but it takes a wordsmith like George Will to really put Gingirch’s insanity in its place:
Gingrich radiates impatience with impediments to allowing majorities to sweep aside judicial determinations displeasing to those majorities. He does not, however, trust democratic political processes to produce, over time, presidents who will nominate, and Senate majorities that will confirm, judges whose views he approves.
Although not a historian, Gingrich plays one on television, where he recently cited Franklin Roosevelt (and Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln) as “just like” him in being “prepared to take on the judiciary.” Roosevelt, infuriated by Supreme Court decisions declaring various progressive policies incompatible with the Constitution’s architecture of limited government, tried to “pack” the court by enlarging it and attempted to purge from Congress some Democrats who opposed him. Voters, who generally respect the court much more than other government institutions, reelected those Democrats and so thoroughly rebuked FDR’s overreaching that Congress lacked a liberal legislating majority for a generation.
To teach courts the virtue of modesty, President Gingrich would attempt to abolish some courts and impeach judges whose decisions annoy him — decisions he says he might ignore while urging Congress to do likewise. He favors compelling judges to appear before Congress to justify decisions “out of sync” with majorities, and he would sic police or marshals on judges who resist congressional coercion. Never mind that judges always explain themselves in written opinions, concurrences and dissents.
Gingrich’s unsurprising descent into sinister radicalism — intimidation of courts — is redundant evidence that he is not merely the least conservative candidate, he is thoroughly anti-conservative. He disdains the central conservative virtue, prudence, and exemplifies progressivism’s defining attribute — impatience with impediments to the political branches’ wielding of untrammeled power. He exalts the will of the majority of the moment, at least as he, tribune of the vox populi, interprets it.
Atop the Republican ticket, Gingrich would guarantee Barack Obama’s reelection, would probably doom Republicans’ hopes of capturing the Senate and might cost them control of the House. If so, Gingrich would at last have achieved something — wreckage, but something — proportional to his swollen sense of himself.
There really isn’t much more to say, is there?
Indeed. But when you stop and consider that the Republican party is no longer Conservative…why in the world would you expect their favored candidate be?
Prudence is the central Conservative virtue says Will? What is prudent about invading and occupying Iraq? What is prudent about the institutionalisation of torture? What is prudent about turning a balanced budget into massive structural deficits? What is prudent about un-checked consumption of resources? What is prudent about polluting the air and water we all breathe and drink, in the interest of the profits of a few? What is prudent about leaving millions without health insurance? What is prudent about wanting to increase the greatest economic inequality since immediately before the Great Depression?
The GOP is no longer Conservative. It is not prudent. It does not propose solutions to our problems based in reality. It spews dogma and hate and dreams of a utopian world in which everyone is the same color and speaks the same language and believes the same superstitions and has the same sexual preferences.
Today’s GOP is less Conservative than Obama.
Only that….
Makes him the perfect candidate for the Republican Party.
“it takes a wordsmith like George Will”
No, Gingrich has been taken to task much more completely and forcefully by a number of commentators in the last week.
This piece is rather lame in the sense that he doesn’t debunk Gingrich’s historical claims but simply uses the occasion to, as usual, take a cheap shot at progressive, once more mischaracterizing their positions.