Good morning from the center of the right-leaning blogosphere this weekend! Yep, BlogCon has occupied Charlotte, NC today and tomorrow for two days of information, fun & networking.

So a hearty welcome to the Queen City (no jokes, puh-lease!)

PatriotPartner (John) and I will be attending the sessions today and tomorrow and we were so thrilled to see everyone last night at the BlogBash party at RiRa Irish Pub.

Watch for updates from Twitter. And occasional posts from me here. Maybe photos, too!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

In the New York Post today, John Podhoretz has a great piece which, in looking at some liberal commentators’ reaction to the Supreme Court arguments over Obamacare, considers the failure of all too many in the chattering classes to appreciate the merits of conservative arguments:

The panicked reception in the mainstream media of the three-day Supreme Court health-care marathon is a delightful reminder of the nearly impenetrable parochialism of American liberals.

They’re so convinced of their own correctness — and so determined to believe conservatives are either a) corrupt, b) stupid or c) deluded — that they find themselves repeatedly astonished to discover conservatives are in fact capable of a) advancing and defending their own powerful arguments, b) effectively countering weak liberal arguments and c) exposing the soft underbelly of liberal self-satisfaction as they do so.

Read the whole thing, and as you do, ponder why all too many in the chattering classes so regularly dismiss the intelligence of conservatives and the merits of our arguments.

Via Powerline picks.

. . . and they still voted for the bill.

Scalia on severability: Making us read this entire bill [i.e., Obamacare] would be cruel and unusual punishment.*

So, I guess that means he could still vote to uphold the constitutionality of the unpopular legislation.

——-

*Well, maybe that explains why most congressional Democrats failed to read the bill before voting in favor.  Such an action would violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

To find the text of the First Amendment, we simple go to google, type “First Amendment Text” without quotations marks into the little box and click “google search.”  Clicking on the first link, we get the Wikipedia entry, then clicking on the word, “text“, we get

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Emphasis added.  Please note that the authors of this amendment made clear to include the word, “exercise,” and not “worship.”  Which brings us to the editors of the New York Times.  Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto linked this editorial in the old gray lady on the president’s contraception compromise:

Nonetheless, it was dismaying to see the president lend any credence to the misbegotten notion that providing access to contraceptives violated the freedom of any religious institution. Churches are given complete freedom by the Constitution to preach that birth control is immoral, but they have not been given the right to laws that would deprive their followers or employees of the right to disagree with that teaching.

Note the word missing from this paragraph — and indeed from the entire editorial.  Yup, that’s right, it’s “exercise.”  As law professor Richard A. Epstein explains, “A direct legislative order to engage in conduct antithetical to their religious convictions would be in flat violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of the ‘free exercise of religion,’ which is far broader and more comprehensive than the religious right to ‘worship,’ to which the president grudgingly acquiesces.”  (Epstein via Instapundit.)

In not paying for their contraception, the churches are freely exercising* their religion — which opposes contraception.  I happen to think that’s a a silly belief, but then they might think it’s silly not to eat pork or shellfish.  The Times editors simply ignore the “free exercise” clause in their editorial.

Not just that.  Even if Catholic organizations don’t offer contraception, they’re not depriving their followers the right to disagree with their teaching, as the Times editors suggest.  (Do they really believe that if their employer doesn’t offer employees a benefit, they can’t get it on their own?) (more…)

Here’s the decision.

Decision is by Judge Stephen Reinhardt who is “one of the most-reversed judges before the Supreme Court“.

He just handed the Republicans a campaign issue.  They can make the case that unelected judges should not be resolving issues which the constitution entrusted to legislators — and the people themselves.

UPDATE:  I apologize for this sparse post on a very important topic.  A lot of things on my plate this week.  Let me just summarize my basic views which should be clear from my posts on gay marriage: I’m happy for the couples who can now seek the benefits of state sanction of their unions, but am concerned that we’re now turning to courts to resolve all manner of social issues.

This is not an issue of couples being able to live openly and call themselves married, but of the state recognizing their unions.

I would have different views on the constitutionality issue if states, like Virginia prior to Loving, were preventing gay couples from living openly within their jurisdiction.   Recall that the the loving couple in that case had three choices (1) leave Virginia; (2) get a divorce or (3) go to jail.  The couples in the current case could all still live openly in California — and even seek state recognition of their unions as domestic partnerships.

Just caught this on Memeorandum:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s public information office expects a ruling on Tuesday, Feb. 7 by 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern Time in the Perry v. Brown case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8.

“Regardless of how the 9th Circuit rules,” writes Howard Mintz in the San Jose Mercury News, “Tuesday’s ruling is expected to be only a prelude to further legal skirmishing that ultimately is likely to wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.”

If the Ninth Circuit overturns Prop 8, it will be interesting to watch President Obama’s reaction.

The Republican candidates will make political hay from this, by faulting liberal judges for overstepping their mandates.  And they’ll have a point.  This is an issue for state legislatures not federal courts.  And as we saw last year in New York State — and this year in Washington, elected legislators are moving forward on state recognition of same-sex marriage.

And one more thing.  This is not about the right to marry, to live openly with the spouse of your choice, but about state recognition of such unions.  It would be nice if the rhetoric in this debate reflected that reality.

Wonder how Matt Lauer and his colleagues in the legacy media would have reacted had George W. Bush expressed a similar frustration:

I think this is the nature of being President. What’s frustrated people is that I have not been able to force Congress to implement every aspect of what I said in 2008.

Well, it turns out our Founders designed a system that makes it more difficult to bring about change that I would like sometimes. But what I have been able to do is move in the right direction. And what I’m going to keep on doing is plot away, very persistent. You know what? One of the things about being President is you get better as time goes on.

Emphasis.  What arrogance.  Assuming people are frustrated because he can’t force Congress to implement his promises?   (Maybe they’d have been frustrated if he tried (and failed) to “force” Congress to act on something he’d been proposing throughout the campaign, you know that “net spending cut“.)

In reality, his party controlled Congress for the first two years of his term.  He was able to “force” the legislature to implement a good chunk of his agenda.  And people were frustrated, frustrated that the Democratic Congress implemented many of his proposals.

Doesn’t he understand that the people elected a Republican Congress in response to such implementation?

Many of us like the system our Founders designed — and they designed it deliberately to make it difficult to bring about the types of changes men like Obama would propose, changes which usurp the liberties of the people and centralize power in a in a far-distant capital. (more…)

Even Timothy Noah at the left-of-center New Republic, who favors “a bolder stance by our president to counter Republican obstruction. . .  just” doesn’t “see how these appointments [to National Labor Relations Board] can be legal”.  He says this in an update to his piece contending that “Cordray’s Recess Appointment Sure Doesn’t Look Constitutional To” Him:

As someone who strongly supported a recess appointment for Richard Cordray to run the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, I’m confused as to why President Obama chose to act today. Had he appointed Cordray yesterday, during a brief period when the Senate was technically in recess, the action would have been supported by precedent. Apparently, though, that appointment would have lasted only through 2012. By appointing Cordray today, Obama can keep him at CFPB through 2013.

The trouble is that the Senate isn’t in recess. For complicated reasons the Republicans have the ability to prevent the Senate from going into recess, and they have done so in order to maximize the difficulty of Obama making recess appointments. The White House maintains that keeping the Senate in pro forma session is a stupid gimmick, which is certainly true. It further maintains that because it is a stupid gimmick, that gives the president the right to act as though the Senate were in recess. That’s the part I have trouble following.

Via RealClearPolitics.  On this issue, Noah and Ace are on the same page, with the latter mocking the president’s contention that “The Senate has effectively been in recess for weeks, and is expected to remain in recess for weeks.”  (Emphasis added.)  Quoting the relevant constitutional provision (Article II, Section II), Ace quips, “Funny, I don’t see anything about ‘effectively’ being in recess.”

Noah also takes on other left-of-center bloggers as well as political scientists defending the recess appointments contending that the court cases and CRS reports they cite don’t justify the conclusions they’ve reached. Read the whole thing.

Even though I voted against Proposition 8 in 2008 and believe that voters should overturn it, I think the state Supreme Court got this one right:

The sponsors of ballot propositions can step in to defend their initiatives from legal challenges if the governor and attorney general refuse to do so, California’s highest court said Thursday in a precedent-setting ruling that could prove pivotal to the future of the state’s same-sex marriage ban and its notoriously vigorous citizens’ initiative process.

Responding to a question from a federal appeals court that is considering the constitutionality of the state’s voter-approved gay marriage ban, the California Supreme Court said the lawmaking power granted to citizens under the state constitution doesn’t end once propositions have been approved or rejected by voters.

. . . .

In the 61-page opinion, the seven justices said denying ballot proposition backers a seat at the table would effectively grant the governor and attorney general veto power over initiatives with which they disagreed, a situation the justices said would undermine the law-making powers California gave voters in 1911.

Emphasis added.  Look, I think the California initiative process has been way overused over the years, but the law is on the books.  And a governor’s refusal to defend a law should not prevent supporters of a popular initiative from defending it on constitutional grounds.  This notion also holds for a domestic partnership law passed by the Wisconsin legislature.

“Although” Maura Dolan reports in the LA Times, “the 9th Circuit is not bound by Thursday’s ruling, the decision makes it less likely that the appeals court would decide Proposition 8’s future on narrow, standing grounds.”

More on this anon (as time allows–other things I want to blog on and working on a non-blog related tedious time-consuming project.

Commenting yesterday on House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s contention the the federal government should shut down a non-unionized private sector plant in South Carolina, Ed Morrissey  offers a nice synopsis of the conservative view of government:

Government should have no interest in whether a particular plant is unionized or not, let alone assert authority in this area.  Government exists to uniformly enforce the law without bias.  Agencies like the NLRB want to use the color of authority to favor unions because they see that as a preferred social-engineering outcome — whether or not workers themselves want union representation or not.

We have come far from the legitimate exercise of government in this and many other areas.  It’s time to demand a return of government to its proper boundaries, and perhaps eliminating altogether those agencies that have arrogated to themselves the power to impose their preferred social prescriptions through the abuse of agency authority.  That would include the NLRB, the EPA, and a number of other federal entities.

Emphasis added.  Exactly.  This helps explain — in a most succinct manner — the rise of the Tea Party.

Article 2 of the United States Constitution specifies that the “executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”   (No, Vice President Biden, Article 1 does not define the executive branch.)

We have just one president.  While we may not always agree with the incumbent, the same article (i.e., 2) grants him a term of four years.  And Barack Obama was elected to a just such a term.  Given that we have only one president, it always seemed a little odd that our media have long allowed the opposition party to offer a response to presidential addresses.  (Wonder if this process started in the Reagan era.)

Well, to his credit, House Speaker John Boehner declined to choose a fellow partisan to offer the Republican response and this has upset his predecessor:

Republicans also announced that they would not prepare an on-air response to the president’s proposal immediately following the speech, a decision House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said was “disrespectful.”

“Listen, this is not the State of the Union address,” Boehner said when asked Thursday why Republicans would not give an official televised response. “The American people shouldn’t be forced to watch some politician they don’t want to listen to. And frankly, most of them would rather watch the football game.”

Sorry, Nancy, it’s hardly disrespectful.  Instead, the Republican refusal honors the office of the presidency and the meaning of the federal constitution.

Earlier this week, Michael Barone was one of a number of right-of-center political pundits to comment on “Jeffrey Toobin’s lengthy article on Supreme Court jurisprudence”, focusing on Justice Clarence Thomas and the judicial challenge to Obamacare.

It is possible, Barone writes

. . . to read Toobin’s article as a partisan hit job, echoing the demands of 74 Democratic House members that Justice Thomas recuse himself from sitting on a case challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare because of his wife’s involvement in the Tea Party movement.

Never mind that this is a standard neither Toobin nor the Democrats apply to other public officials with spouses active in public affairs — and that they’re not asking Justice Elena Kagan to recuse herself because of her work in the Justice Department on the issue.

Nor did they ask for their colleague Barney Frank to recuse himself from the House Financial Services Committee (under its current or previous names) despite the fact that the Massachusetts Democrat helped his spouse secure a job at  Fannie Mae, a Government Sponsored Enterprise this committee oversees.

Barone also points out that “despite his obvious distaste for Thomas’ views, [Toobin] takes [the justice] seriously as a judicial thinker and pathfinder”:

In addition, as Toobin accurately reports, Thomas is the strongest originalist on the court, the justice who most consistently seeks to apply the provisions of the Constitution as they were originally understood. . . .

Toobin’s article represents the end of the fashionable left’s attempt to portray Thomas as an intellectual lightweight.

Read the whole thing.  One wonders if some on the left failed to discern the intellectual caliber of the jurist’s mind because of the color of his skin.

In perhaps the most sober conservative assessment of the ongoing debt limit negotiations, Michael Barone makes a conservative case why conservatives can’t yet get what we want:

Republicans want to reverse that enormous policy change [increasing the federal government's share of gross domestic product from 21 percent to 25 percent], and many are ready to denounce any debt limit deal that leaves them short of that goal.

Before doing so, they ought to consult the Constitution. To achieve the changes they want and that voters endorsed in 2010, they need to win again in 2012. The deal that gets them closer to that is what they ought to be seeking now.

Barone reminds us that while Americans elected a Republican majority in the House last fall, in 2008, our fellow citizens elected Barack Obama to a four-year term.  The same constitution which set the president’s term also arms him with a veto, thus the sage pundit reminds us, “you have to win at least two elections in a row to make the kind of policy changes that the Obama Democrats made in 2009 and 2010 and that House Republicans want to make now.”

Read the whole thing.

While, as you can guess, I quibble with the title of Cynthia Yockey’s post that Glenn linked earlier today, she offers something which bears consideration and conversation:

. . . in the name of family values, we are forced out of our own families. However, gays have responded to discrimination by becoming entrepreneurs and professionals, which makes gays a natural constituency of fiscal conservativism and explains why 31 percent of gay voters voted for Republicans in 2010 (including me). Gays are the most getable demographic in 2012 for Republicans because there’s no voting bloc Obama and the Democrats have screwed over more than gays and they are furious and looking for a new home.

(Read the whole thing.  While I don’t agree with everything she has to say, she does raise some important issues and make some thoughtful observations.)

Now, while I do believe gay people are a natural constituency for a fiscally conservative GOP, I wonder how many have become so politicized by our overly political (gay) culture that they can’t see how free market policies benefit creative types, particularly the creative entrepreneurial types.  And gay people do seem to succeed in such professions, in numbers disproportionate to our representation in society at large.

As I learned in my conversation with Palin-effigy hanger Mito Aviles, state and local regulations on small business place unusual burdens on creative small business folk.  Their desire to scale back intrusive regulations correspond with the very principles of the Tea Party movement.

The question is:  how do we break them from their prejudiced view of the GOP, particularly given how the media dwell on social conservatives’ (alleged) dominance of the movement — and the ignorance of many gay leaders of the underlying philosophy of the Republican Party as it has evolved since the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964 and the election of Ronald Reagan sixteen years later.

So I’m reading today how the Stalinization of Healthcare Act of 2010 is facing renewed Constitutional scrutiny, this time at the hands of a three-judge panel on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia. Much hay has been made since the passage of the monstrosity and immediate court challenges thereto of the political make-up of the judges who have so far heard arguments and their seemingly ideologically mirrored conclusions about the federal government’s Constitutional authority to force its subjects citizens to purchase a service for no other reason than that they happen to live in America. Which is to say, up until now, every judge appointed by a Democrat has sided with the Administration, and every Republican-appointed judge has sided with Americans.

What’s gratifying about what we learned today is that members of the panel of the 11th hearing this particular case (this is the one in which twenty-six states have filed suit), made up of two Clinton appointees and on GHWBush appointee, are skeptical of the Administration’s position. If they were to rule the way observers are thinking they will, it’d be the first time a body representing the judicial branch has, ahem, crossed the aisle.

And to be honest, that’s what’s making me grit my teeth a little bit.

Yes, yes, yes. I’m all upset (or whatever) about the “politicization of the Judicial Branch…”

And yes. It’s always grated on me how the Left in America tends to go bawling to the Bar when they can’t convince a majority of their fellow citizens to go along with their cockamamie schemes. When accusations of ‘hate’, ad hominem insults, and attempts to shame voters (or legislators) into going their way don’t seem to win the other side over (imagine, huh?), the Left seems all too prepared time after time to lawyer-up and take their adversaries to court, rather than ever attempting (really) to settle their difference the good old-fashioned representative democratic (“American!”) way: at the ballot box.

So that’s partly—but only partly—why if (hopefully when) this charlie foxtrot is finally dispensed with, it’ll be a Pyrrhic victory for us. Not only because we had to go hat-in-hand to the Black Robed Sages like a bunch of little bitches…

No, no. It’s because this whole national humiliation has said some very troubling things about the state of our alleged democratic republic.

Consider: (more…)

First, on this occasion, I disagree with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.  He should let the state’s domestic partnership registry stand.  And as chief executive of the Badger State, he is wrong to ask that the state be allowed to stop defending it:

Gov. Scott Walker believes a new law that gives gay couples hospital visitation rights violates the state constitution and has asked a judge to allow the state to stop defending it.

Democrats who controlled the Legislature in 2009 changed the law so that same-sex couples could sign up for domestic partnership registries with county clerks to secure some – but not all – of the rights afforded married couples.

Wisconsin Family Action sued last year in Dane County circuit court, arguing that the registries violated a 2006 amendment to the state constitution that bans gay marriage and any arrangement that is substantially similar.

It does seem I already blogged about this.

But, while gay groups may bellyache about Walker’s actions here, they have helped make the case for Walker’s request of Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser.  Recall how HRC worked to pressure the law firm of King & Spalding from representing the House in its defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which, like the Wisconsin legislation in question, was passed by an elected legislature and signed by an elected chief executive.

Other gay groups have commended California Governor Jerry Brown and the state’s attorney general for failing to defend Prop 8, an amendment to the state constitution ratified in the manner stipulated by said document.

For these gay groups, it seems it’s only right for the state’s elected officials not to defend the constitutionality of a law when they don’t like the law.  Otherwise, it’s just jim-dandy.  But, in praising a state for not defending a provision enacted in accordance with its constitution and criticizing an elected legislature from defending a law similarly enacted, they have endorsed the rationale Governor Walker is using to drop the state’s defense of the state’s domestic partnership registry.

Seems some believe the rule of law means the rule of the laws they like, not the laws enacted in a republican manner.

NB:  I revised and expanded this piece shortly after posting it.

UPDATE:   (more…)

Well, last night after returning from a wonderful dinner with my Dad and his wife (including the best dirty martini I’ve had in a long while (thank you, Maureen!)), I went through my e-mail and read articles I had previously just skimmed on the decision of the law firm King & Spalding to end its representation of the “Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group of the House of Representatives on the constitutional issues regarding Section III of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.”  While I was aware of HRC’s involvement in the efforts to intimidate influence the law firm, dubbing them a “hissy fit” in a previous post, it seems the left-wing organization threw more than just a “hissy fit,” but instead mounted a concerted effort to get the law firm to drop this bipartisan group of federal elected officials as a client.

Via the diligent and determined Jennifer Rubin, we learn of phone conversations her Washington Post colleague Greg Sargent had with the liberal outfit:

The latest round got started this morning, when the Weekly Standardpublished an internal email from the Human Rights Campaign detailing that HRC had “contacted many of the firm’s clients” as part of its campaign to get King and Spalding to drop the case. Right wing bloggers, such as Jennifer Rubin, are pouncing on this as proof that the left engaged in an “unprincipled campaign” of intimidation to deprive the House of Representatives of legal representation.

Far from being abashed about this campaign, Fred Sainz, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, shared new details about it. He confirmed to me that his group did indeed contact King and Spalding clients to let them know that the group viewed the firm’s defense of DOMA as unacceptable.

You’d think they have better things to do with their time.  Instead of developing strategies to reach out to social conservatives and offer arguments about treating gay individuals with dignity or work with gay Republicans to develop better arguments about the merits of state recognition of same-sex unions, HRC has been busying itself trying to deprive an elected branch of the federal government of legal counsel in its defense of legislation enacted in accordance with the provisions of the United States Constitution.

Even Attorney General Eric Holder is defending “former Solicitor General Paul Clement, after gay rights advocates criticized his decision to take on the defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in court.”  Clement quit his job at King & Spalding when the firm dropped the case.

That HRC would go to such great lengths to get a law firm to drop its defense of DOMA come as no surprise to us nor to other gay people familiar with the work of this left-wing outfit.  They have long since stopped being, as Sargent styles them, a “gay advocacy group”.  They’re not advocating for gay people, but instead seeking to deprive their adversaries of the opportunity to defend their positions.  Indeed, they’re behaving as if their adversaries don’t even have a right to their defense.

And they’re celebrating a law firms decision that has earned it rebuke from jurists “on both sides of the ideological divide“. (more…)

As expected, some of our savvier readers understood why I posed the thought experiment about a hypothetical business decision in Wisconsin in a post yesterday.  I was addressing both the failure of the state of California to defend Proposition 8 and of the federal government to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).  Not to mention the hissy fit HRC and its allies threw when the House of Representatives attempted to retain the law firm of King and Spalding to defend the constitutionality of a law overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by a (Democratic) President.

Now, I don’t like that law and grant that some of DOMA’s provisions may indeed violate the “full fail and credit” clause of the constitution.  I think Congress should overturn it.  But, it is the law of the land.

I have many more thoughts on this issue and expect to address them in due time.  But, my father is in town and family takes precedence over politics.  So, while he and his wife are taking a nap to recover from jet lag, I have a brief moment to blog — and to take care of other pressing tasks.

As always, Jennifer Rubin can be counted on for insightful observations on a controversial matter.   She has posted, by my count, five pieces on the matter. Calling DOMA “rotten legislation“, she still believes its supporters have the right to defend it and faults the left for favoring “politically bullying to deter lawyers from representing clients it doesn’t like”.  Also read her subsequent posts on why King & Spalding decided to drop their defense of DOMA here, here, here and here.

Glenn Reynolds has a mini-roundup here.

Stacey McCain wonders what happens “When You Give in to Thuggery” and places before us the common sense of the matter in terms so plain and simple that we all can understand what’s at stake:

It is important to understand that the heart of the question raised by the King & Spalding decision is not whether we approve or disapprove of homosexuality, or even whether we support or oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage. What is at issue is whether the concept of “gay rights” should empower advocates of that agenda to bully and intimidate their critics.

John Hinderaker faults the left for politicizing the practice of law. (more…)

In 1982, Wisconsin was the first state to enact a non-discrimination law that prevented companies from firing individuals based on their sexual orientation.

Now, imagine if you will, a socially conservative business owner in rural Wisconsin who learns that a hard-working and  very reliable employee is gay.  In a misguided (but, from his point of view, well-meaning) action, this employer offers to enroll his worker in a conversion therapy program.  He refuses.   Their confrontation creates tension between the two, resulting in a decline in the employee’s work performance.  The employer fires him.

With the help of the ACLU and Fair Wisconsin, the employee takes the employer to court, contending the employer discriminated against the employee because he was gay (in violation of the 1982 statute).  The Alliance Defense Fund hears of the case and offers not just to defend the employer — but also to challenge the constitutionality of the Badger State’s 1982 law.

The Fund turns to the First, Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to make a case for the employer’s rights of free association as well as his liberty and property interests.  Seeing this case as an opportunity to strike down not just the 1982 Wisconsin law, but other state mandates on employers’ rights, a number of libertarian groups join the suit.

Accepting these libertarian arguments, Governor Scott Walker and state Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen elect not to defend the law.

Now, while I contend that the libertarian argument may well have constitutional merit, I believe Walker and Van Hollen would be wrong not to defend the state’s law.

Before I write a post on a related matter, let me ask you, our readers to guess that related matter and why I offer this hypothetical.

NB: Tweaked the piece since I first posted it in order to improve the flow and make my point clearer.

In his latest column, Michael Barone objects to the use of the terms “bicker” and “squabble” to describe the contentious negotiations between congressional leaders and the White House over the budget:

You’ve seen those verbs often if you’ve been reading about the budget struggles between the Republican-controlled House, the Democratic-majority Senate, and the strangely detached Obama White House.

The implication is negative. Children bicker. Small-minded people squabble. When you use those verbs to describe the actions or words of John Boehner, Harry Reid and Barack Obama you are implying that they are arguing about trifles.

But they’re not. They were arguing about big things, vast flows of money, public policies with real consequences.

. . . .

The fact is that the Obama Democrats increased the size and scope of government beyond anything ever seen except in World War II. The Republicans are trying to reverse this trend. Far from arguing about trivia, both Democrats and Republicans are arguing about the most fundamental issues of domestic public policy.

Read the whole thing; it’s well worth you time.  Barone offers an excellent analysis of the dynamics of negotiations and how such negotiations play out in light of the constitution’s provision for different terms of office for the president, representatives and Senators (those last in staggered terms).

*BTW, this is our 8,000th post since we moved from Blogspot.