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| Anna Diggs Taylor - A real case for impeachment |
| 2006-08-21 |
| There is poor reasoning, and then there is head-spinningly, jaw-droppingly poor reasoning. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's angry 44-page ruling against NSA terrorism surveillance is the latter, and constitutes little more than a political stunt, with ever-so-helpful declarations like "There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution." The American Civil Liberties Union forum-shopped this lawsuit, handed it to a reliably left-liberal Jimmy Carter appointee in Detroit and got its desired result. It probably didn't count on the extreme intellectual embarrassment of Judge Diggs Taylor's opinion, however, which is now being noted by left and right alike. The New York Times, of course, could be counted on to call the ruling -- which declares NSA surveillance unconstitutional, sides with the journalist-academic-lawyer plaintiffs who alleged that their rights were being monitored and issues a permanent injunction against the NSA program -- "a careful, thoroughly grounded opinion." But aside from the NYT-ACLU-Democratic Party axis, just about everyone commenting on the legal worth of the opinion acknowledges its exceptional logical poverty. The Washington Post called the opinion "neither careful nor scholarly" and "long on throat-clearing sound bites." A writer for the hard-left Web site Daily Kos called it "poorly reasoned and totally unhelpful." "[A]n atrocity," wrote the liberal blogger Publius: "[p]remature, unsupported, and in violation of elementary civil procedure." "[T]here's no question that it's a poorly reasoned decision," Wake Forest University national-security law professor Bobby Chesney said. "[A] few pages of general ruminations about the Fourth Amendment (much of it incomplete and some of it simply incorrect)," wrote the legal scholar Orin Kerr. "I wouldn't accept this utterly unsupported, constitutionally and logically bankrupt collection of musings from a first-year law student, much less a new lawyer at my firm," wrote Brian Cunningham, a lawyer who served under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. |
| Posted by:Shung Phinetle2153 |
| #7 Another example of why elections make a difference. Right Jimmy? |
| Posted by: Captain America 2006-08-21 13:34 |
| #6 Very old topic, it seems. "A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Ritchie, 1820. ME 15:298 "Having found from experience that impeachment is an impracticable thing, a mere scarecrow, [the Judiciary] consider themselves secure for life." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Ritchie, 1820. ME 15:297 "Impeachment is a farce which will not be tried again." --Thomas Jefferson to William B. Giles, 1807. ME 11:191 |
| Posted by: SwissTex 2006-08-21 11:19 |
| #5 She may be right in her opinion, but there is no solace in being dead right. |
| Posted by: john 2006-08-21 10:25 |
| #4 What more proof of the idea that hiring based upon anything but taking the most highly qualified person will result in dismal failure do you need than this person who was hired on the basis of something other than being the most qualified person and her decision in this case? |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2006-08-21 09:26 |
| #3 Congress has no interest in impeaching any of them anymore. So much for the lie of 'checks and balances'. Long past time the judges be subject to the direct consent of the governed. |
| Posted by: Unimble Elmomort5902 2006-08-21 09:25 |
| #2 She's dumber than a box of rocks. I believe the judge might be well advised to go back and take a gander at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) as articulated under the USA Patrioit Act. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-08-21 09:23 |
| #1 I'm afraid that poor reasoning, lack of research, disregard of case law and precedent, etc., are not requisites for impeaching a Federal Judge anymore. If they were, Ruth Ginsberg, perhaps the most incompetent judge in SCOTUS history, would have been long gone, along with nearly the entire 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. |
| Posted by: mcsegeek1 2006-08-21 09:18 |