March 24, 2008
Pepperdine prof loses his marbles
Doug Kmiec, a well-known Con-Law professor at Pepperdine University -- my alma mater -- has apparently taken leave of his senses, choosing to endorse Barack Obama for president.
As a Republican, I strongly wish to preserve traditional marriage not as a suspicion or denigration of my homosexual friends, but as recognition of the significance of the procreative family as a building block of society. As a Republican, and as a Catholic, I believe life begins at conception, and it is important for every life to be given sustenance and encouragement. As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law, and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the Court within its limited judicial role. As a Republican, I believe problems are best resolved closest to their source and that we should never arrogate to a higher level of government that which can be more effectively and efficiently resolved below. As a Republican, and the constitutional lawyer, I believe religious freedom does not mean religious separation or mindless exclusion from the public square.
Having thus stated nearly all the reasons not to endorse Obama, Kmiec then engages in full-fledged cognitive dissonance.
In various ways, Senator Barack Obama and I may disagree on aspects of these important fundamentals, but I am convinced based upon his public pronouncements and his personal writing that on each of these questions he is not closed to understanding opposing points of view, and as best as it is humanly possible, he will respect and accommodate them.
Really?
Really?! Kmiec thinks Obama -- a politician to the left (way left) of Hillary Clinton -- will "respect and accommodate" his core conservative beliefs and values?
Kmiec says:
As a Republican, I strongly believe that the Supreme Court of the United States must be fully dedicated to the rule of law, and to the employ of a consistent method of interpretation that keeps the Court within its limited judicial role.
He can't possibly believe that Obama, with a Democratic majority in the Senate, has the slightest intention of appointing Supreme Court justices that fit that description.
Can he?
The biggest gains in collectivist ideology and principles -- neo- or quasi-socialism, if you will -- have come not at the ballot box, but courtesy of activist judges and justices engaging in social engineering from the bench.
I'd say it's a safe bet that everything Kmiec professes to favor and value in the judiciary is the polar opposite of what's important to Obama, and it's also a safe bet that at the end of Obama's second term, the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary would be very, very different from today's bench, changed in a way that would make the old Kmiec quite unhappy.
As to Pepperdine, I'd seriously reconsider letting Kmiec in the lecture hall; his analytical skills -- essential to teaching constitutional law -- are in serious doubt.
Posted by Mike Lief at March 24, 2008 07:28 AM
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Comments
The only thing more ironic than a Pepperdine Professor voting for Obama is MIke LIef voting for a Clinton.
Mike, I know you had your reasons, but I would not have been able to do that without throwing up in my mouth.
Why doesn't Kmiec admit that despite his common sense, he is mesmorized by the man's ability to give a speech.
Posted by: RW at March 25, 2008 09:09 PM
Kmiec’s swan dive off of the conservative pedestal and his philosophical face-plant into a dry political pool, emptied of principles, is puzzling.
Obama opposes just about everything Romney stands for; and Kmiec was a Mitt Romney-ite. Obama has actually done nothing in his life - zero, zip, nada - which even approaches what Ike or JFK had accomplished in their lives before running for president.
Kmiec has no basis to believe that Obama has any real qualifications to be President. Kmiec reminds me of the leftist Jesuits and rogue Catholic priests who gave socialism a foothold in Central America because of their enthusiasm for “social justice.”
If Kmiec believes that Obama would have named a Roberts to ANY court, well, Kmiec must have forgotten that Senator Obama voted against Roberts.
So far, all Obama has done is talk. All Kmiec has done is betray and abandon what used to be his own stated principles in his inane endorsement of an unqualified leftist for the Office of President of the United States.
The result is that both Kmiec and Obama now have no credibility. Professor, it is time for a "leave of absence" to work on the Obama campaign and, for efficiency sake, please pack up your stuff from your faculty office because you will need it in November as a department head at the Che Guevara School of Law. You cannot climb back onto the pedestal, unless you immediately recant and blame this aberration on global warming, menopause, an imbalance in medication or temporary insanity.
Posted by: Reagan's Ghost at March 27, 2008 06:43 AM