Saturday, 14 May 2011

Rants

Mitch’s Black Thursday

•UPDATED•

On Thursday, the Indiana Supreme Court repealed the 4th Amendment:
Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.

In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer’s entry.

"We believe … a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,” David said.
More about this abomination anon (after my blood pressure drops), but a note on the (national) political implications.  There are some, because Judge David is a Mitch Daniels appointee.  And if Mitch tries to duck the consequences of this, he’s dead as a presidential candidate.  Because the buck stops at his desk:

If he didn’t know about the guy, black marks for him and his staff. It’s pure incompetence, and Republicans don’t need incompetence in 2012.

If he DID know, but appointed David anyway, then he’s just demonstrated that he’s at best another get-along-go-along Republican of the McCain stripe, and at worst a closet progressive.[1]  We don’t need that in 2012, either.

There are excuses on offer, but I don’t buy them: Yes, being governor means having lots to do.  But we’re not talking about traffic court here; if Daniels wasn’t paying attention he should have been.  And if David was the "best of a bad lot” (that the nominating commmission came up with), then Daniels has demonstrated zero political skill: I refuse to buy the story that a sitting governor is unable to exercise input (formal or informal) in the nominating process.

And the actual circumstances may be worse.  The excuses presume good will, but once you examine the history, it appears that Daniels was, at best, indifferent to the flaws in the nominating process and the red flags among David’s credentials.

So, if Mitch is serious about the presidency, he should call a press conference Monday morning and announce four things:
  1. That he– personally– finds the court’s decision abhorrent and contrary to American values.
  2. That he cannot support any judge so out-of-touch with the American liberties that he would even consider such a decision, and, specifically, that he wants all hoosiers to vote against the retention of Judge David in the 2012 election.
  3. That he will IMMEDIATELY call a special session of the legislature "for the purpose of drafting a state constitutional amendment overturning this decision and affirming 4th Amendment protections within the state of Indiana.”
  4. and that he will encourage and support legislative efforts to impeach ALL THREE judges who voted in the majority.
It has to happen Monday, and it has to be all four.  Anything less is not enough.

But will he do it?  I doubt it.  And thus the end of the abortive Daniels run.


(Expanded from a comment posted at Daily Pundit.)
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[1] UPDATE (110516 15:35)He’s toast.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 22:28:00 GMT | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1

It says, "Add a comment," but you seem to have covered the topic quite well. So: no comment.

M

Posted by: Mark Alger at 05/15/11 16:33:43 (TUgI4)

2 Daniels' stock took a nosedive in my opinion when he tried to appease wayward Democrats in his legislature who staged their own version of the Badger Bugout.

It dropped again when I read about him saying the reason voters are supposedly leery about voting for Republicans is because they don't <b>like</b> Republicans. Not trust -- <b>like.</b> I don't expect great things from any pol who gets something like that wrong.

This state supreme court thing puts his stock in the junk bin as far as I'm concerned, and strongly argues that there was a reason why he didn't talk about trust.

Posted by: McGehee at 05/16/11 02:01:40 (1GxQE)

3 If Daniels did exactly as you suggest, the whole eerie episode could actually aid him. I do my writing from Iowa where we bask in the myth that we make and break White House aspirants.  (We don't, but that's another subject.)
Daniels' political trouble here is simple. Hardly anyone knows he exists, or cares, and he hasn't a prayer in Hell of raising enough money to change that. Aside from that, he alienated the evangelicals who pretty much run the state GOP caucuses with his call for "a truce on social issues."
An aggressive, hind-legs, attack on David's decision might be just the political ploy he needs to light his fire.  You ought to bill him for consulting services.

Posted by: jim at 05/16/11 14:21:48 (/+0cu)

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