Keith Burgess-Jackson

I leave you this fine evening with a column by Charles Kesler.

Do you suppose Democrats would oppose waterboarding if it were the only way to save their children?

How many of you have walked a leashed dog? The purpose of a leash is to give you control over the dog. When I walk Shelbie, for example, she’s all over the place. One moment she’s in front of me on the sidewalk; the next she’s on the grass to my left, sniffing something; the next she’s on the grass to my right, urinating. I can yank her to attention at any time, simply by pulling on the leash. This doesn’t mean she has no freedom of movement. It means her freedom of movement is limited. By me.

A cellphone is a leash. Anyone who has your number can yank you to attention at any time, simply by calling you. If your cellphone is turned off, then it’s not a cellphone. It’s a hunk of metal or plastic in your pocket. If your cellphone is turned on, then you’re leashed. You may not mind being leashed, but you’re leashed. You may have to be leashed as part of your job, but you’re leashed. I refuse to be leashed. Nobody can yank me to attention. Why is this so hard to understand?

By far the greater number of wrong decisions are made because people don’t arrange their business so as to give themselves time to think.

(R. M. Hare, “Reasons of State,” chap. 2 in his Applications of Moral Philosophy [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973], 9-23, at 20 [address given in 1957])

If this isn’t the best album ever made, then I’m a coyote‘s daughter-in-law.

Here.

This review essay by Joe Queenan is hilarious, even (especially!) to an inveterate toothpick chewer like me. I never leave the house without three toothpicks in my shirt pocket. I carry a wad of toothpicks (bound by a rubber band) in my bicycling jersey. When one gets chewed to pieces, I reach for another. I chew toothpicks while riding, running, driving, and walking, although not (yet) while sleeping. I chewed a toothpick every second of all 11 marathons I ran. I sometimes chew two toothpicks. I hope one day to chew three. People recognize me in bike rallies as the toothpick guy. If it weren’t for toothpicks, I would be an ordinary person.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News polled right-of-center bloggers to find out which Republican presidential candidates are most desired and which least desired. Here are the results. Here is my ranked list of most desired:

1. Fred Thompson
2. Mitt Romney
3. Rudy Giuliani
4. John McCain
5. Duncan Hunter

Here is my ranked list of least desired:

1. Ron Paul
2. Alan Keyes
3. Mike Huckabee
4. Tom Tancredo
5. John Cox

Feel free to supply your own rankings as a comment to this post. I will not approve any comment that has Ron Paul ranked most desired.

To the Editor:

In his Oct. 23 Op-Ed article, “Lawbreaker in Chief,” Prof. Jed Rubenfeld plucks a single phrase from Judge Michael B. Mukasey’s testimony, imbues it with a meaning that is at odds with the rest of the testimony, and asserts that Judge Mukasey espouses a theory of unlimited presidential power whereby the president does not have to “obey a valid statute.”

To the contrary, Judge Mukasey repeatedly and emphatically stated that “the president does not stand above the law.” He also properly noted that the law “includes the Constitution.” Hence the president is not bound by unconstitutional statutes, including those that encroach on the constitutional “authority of the president to defend the country.”

Professor Rubenfeld distorts and mutates this reasoning to accuse Judge Mukasey of asserting that “the president’s authority ‘to defend the nation’ trumps his obligation to obey the law.” In fact, Judge Mukasey said only what Professor Rubenfeld himself conceded in his article, that the president may “disregard” an unconstitutional statute.

Kate Stith
New Haven, Oct. 24, 2007
The writer is a professor at Yale Law School.

Note from KBJ: The letter writer acts surprised that a progressive would resort to distortion. Earth to Stith: To a progressive, the end justifies the means.

According to the editorial board of the New York Times, President Bush’s opposition to the S-chip extension is “ideologically driven.” See here. Think about this for a moment. Why would only one side of this issue, or any issue, be driven by ideology? Either both sides are driven by ideology (albeit of different sorts), or neither is. Note also the lack of charity, which typifies progressives. Conservatives aren’t well-meaning but misguided; they’re perverse. Their objective is to harm people. The board wants it to seem as though there is no debate. On one side are those (the angels) who want to do the right thing; on the other are those (the devils) who want to do the wrong thing. In fact, as any fair-minded observer knows, President Bush’s opposition to the bill is principled. The board simply doesn’t like his principles.

Here is Peggy Noonan’s latest column. Here is Peg Kaplan’s latest post.

Back home to Denver
Repair the battered Rockies
To kick Boston’s ass

I found law school stultifying. I learned what I was taught, but I craved answers to two questions:

1. Where did these legal rules that we were studying come from?

2. What, if anything, justifies or grounds the rules?

The first question is historical in nature, the second moral or philosophical. After my first year of law school, I enrolled in the M.A./J.D. program, which allowed me to study history as well as law. It took four years instead of three, but when I finished, in the spring of 1983, I had two degrees instead of one. I have never regretted this additional year of study. If nothing else, it kept me sane. If you’re wondering why anyone (including you) should study history, see here.

Here.