Let’s All Just Get Along

The Senate’s most self-satisfied senator, Joseph Biden, has established a website asking citizens to join him in pressuring President Bush to pick a liberal Supreme Court nominee so that a contentious confirmation battle can be averted.

Well, yes, I’ll admit he didn’t quite put it that way, but if the Left’s currently favorite sycophant, Joe Wilson, is entitled to spurts of “literary flair,” why shouldn’t the rest of us be as well?

Let’s look at what Biden actually said because it is revealing of the liberal Democrat mindset toward the judiciary, the Constitution and the will of the people.

Biden writes on his site, “please join me in encouraging President Bush to select a Supreme Court nominee, who, like Justice O’Connor, will receive unanimous support in the Senate.”

Biden adds that such a nominee would be one “who will exercise the independence and impartiality that America expects from its highest court.”

I guess you can’t blame a guy for trying, but are these statements not a flagrant insult to the intelligence of more than half the voters in this country, not to mention a demonstration of contempt for their expressed will?

All this talk about getting along and establishing harmony and political consensus from Democrat leaders, who have been dedicating their lives to maximizing political acrimony, is a bit hard to swallow.

These jokers never urged President Clinton, who didn’t even receive a majority of the popular vote in either of his presidential elections, to pick a consensus or mainstream candidate, or one who would respect the Constitution enough to be acceptable to Republicans.

The people elected President Bush, who promised to appoint judges like Scalia and Thomas to the appellate bench. Listening to the nonsense coming from the mouth of Joe Biden and other Democrats, one might assume — if he didn’t know better — that President Bush had delivered the following speech during the 2004 presidential campaign:

“I think that trying to achieve goodwill between the executive and legislative branches of our government is more important than appointing constitutionalist judges. Knowing that Democrat senators will only vote to confirm liberal judges who believe they should rewrite the Constitution in their image, I’ve decided to abandon my commitment to uphold the integrity of the Constitution in order to placate recalcitrant, dictatorial Democrat senators. In doing so, I can increase the likelihood for harmony among all three branches of government.

“After all, when the Framers wrote in the Federalist Papers about checks and balances among those branches, they had a jaundiced view of human nature — actually buying into the antiquated Biblical worldview. I’m sure if they were alive today, they would agree the years that have transpired since their days on earth have shown the folly of that worldview and proven that man is actually on a steady, linear path to enlightenment and peacefulness.

“And, as I think through this, I see the folly of my own ways, too, and hereby recant my own stubborn insistence on preserving the Constitution as written by the Framers. Indeed it does need to be rewritten to conform to the superior wisdom of modern times and, if elected, I’ll appoint judges to the court who not only aren’t paralyzed by Neanderthal notions rooted in centuries’ old law, but who would make my opponent, John Kerry, proud.

“My fellow Americans, you also must realize that if I’m elected Democrat senators will only confirm my judicial nominees if they are ‘independent and impartial,’ and rightly so. Judges should be independent and impartial in the sense that they should not rewrite the Constitution in their ideological image. The judiciary is the one branch of government designed not to be political.

“I realize that Democrats, if and when they do urge me to nominate ‘independent and impartial’ judges, will mean something entirely different by those terms. They will mean that I should appoint judges independent of the constraints of that arcane document we refer to as the Constitution and who will not exhibit a bias toward upholding its provisions.

“But since I’ve already convinced myself of the superiority of their progressive vision for the Constitution as an evolving document, I can cut them some slack on their semantic sleight of hand with the deceptive use of the terms ‘independent’ and ‘impartial.” Besides, as I’ve already told you, even if I were not convinced of their wisdom in these matters, I’d subordinate my own judgment to theirs, realizing that to get along with them is the highest end to which I can hope to aspire as your next president. Please elect me, so I can get on with the business of implementing their agenda.”