Douglas Kmiec is former chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and now a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University and a devout Catholic. Kmiec endorsed Obama earlier this year, despite his conviction that Obama “believes in a pretty progressive agenda.”
Kmiec said his support deepened after meeting with Obama and other faith leaders last month, during which the busy candidate spent 2 1/2 in a freewheeling discussion with people who differed with him.
“I think he’s the right person at the right time to re-establish principles of constitutional governance that have been ill treated by the current administration, and to free us from the tar paper that we know is Iraq,” Kmiec said, adding that many Republicans privately agree. “I think he’s a man in the market for every good idea he can find, and he doesn’t care what label it comes with.”
David Friedman, the son of late conservative icon and Nobel economist Milton Friedman, has also endorsed Obama. Calling McCain a “nationalist,” Friedman, an economist at Santa Clara University, thinks Obama could turn out like the liberals who deregulated New Zealand’s economy.
“Of the two, Obama is less bad and at least has a chance in some ways of being good,” said Friedman. Friedman likes Obama’s University of Chicago advisers such as Austan Goolsbee and Cass Sunstein, who he believes are trying to forge a new leftism that incorporates free-market views. “I don’t expect to agree in general with them,” Friedman said, “but I certainly would be happy if the left became more libertarian, since the right seems to be less libertarian than it used to be.”
I don’t think Fred’s problem is with the messenger. It’s with the message. Denial comes in many forms.
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WHAT do the daughter of Richard Nixon, a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and the son of Milton Friedman, the monetarist economist, have in common? They are all Obamacons: conservatives, Republicans and free market champions who support Barack Obama, the Democratic party nominee, for president.
The Obama campaign has a sharp-eyed political operations team tasked with seeking out prominent endorsers “on both sides of the aisle”, according to a campaign official. It came tantalisingly close to securing one of the biggest names in politics when Colin Powell, secretary of state during President George W Bush’s first term in office, said last week that he might vote for Obama....
Professor David Friedman describes himself as a “classic liberal”, who had a lively intellectual upbringing as the son of Milton Friedman, Margaret Thatcher’s economic guru.
“I hope Obama wins,” he said. “President Bush has clearly been a disaster from the standpoint of libertarians and conservatives because he has presided over an astonishing rise in government spending.”
....
Douglas Kmiec is former chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and now a constitutional law professor at Pepperdine University and a devout Catholic. Kmiec endorsed Obama earlier this year, despite his conviction that Obama “believes in a pretty progressive agenda.”
Kmiec said his support deepened after meeting with Obama and other faith leaders last month, during which the busy candidate spent 2 1/2 in a freewheeling discussion with people who differed with him.
“I think he’s the right person at the right time to re-establish principles of constitutional governance that have been ill treated by the current administration, and to free us from the tar paper that we know is Iraq,” Kmiec said, adding that many Republicans privately agree. “I think he’s a man in the market for every good idea he can find, and he doesn’t care what label it comes with.”
David Friedman, the son of late conservative icon and Nobel economist Milton Friedman, has also endorsed Obama. Calling McCain a “nationalist,” Friedman, an economist at Santa Clara University, thinks Obama could turn out like the liberals who deregulated New Zealand’s economy.
“Of the two, Obama is less bad and at least has a chance in some ways of being good,” said Friedman. Friedman likes Obama’s University of Chicago advisers such as Austan Goolsbee and Cass Sunstein, who he believes are trying to forge a new leftism that incorporates free-market views. “I don’t expect to agree in general with them,” Friedman said, “but I certainly would be happy if the left became more libertarian, since the right seems to be less libertarian than it used to be.”
Lots of conservatives I know say they will vote Obama for similar reasons as Kmiec and Freidman. The next president is going to have his work cut out for him in restoring respect for our Constitution and country.
It’s always easier for the drooling ‘tards to attack the messenger in the vain hopes of ignoring the message. The catch is that only other drooling ‘tards allow themselves to divert their attention similarly.
Man I just wish I didn’t have this image of Jesse Jackson in the Cabinet.
I wish he wasn’t from the political circles that have produced so much corruption. I don’t like the attitudes of the mainstream back politicians toward government. Nagan, Jackson, Sharpton, Berry, Waters, the guy in Detroit. Now his power thus far has come from those circles. I don’t expect him to abandon those people.
I worry less the more I hear from people like Friedman, Volcker and Nunn but I can’t stomach the socialists in closet that might come out after the election.
For me, the elephant in the room is the prospect of two - but assuredly one - supreme court resignation in the next eight years. When the gun control decision had only five of nine votes, one can see how precarious is the preservation of the constitution and bill of rights as written. At least three of those four dissenters openly advocate a “living” document that should be “molded” to fit the current whims of society, never mind that such beliefs are anethema to a document that guarantees rights and can only be changed by the will of the majority of people voting to amend, rather than the whim of 5 unelected judges.
Does anybody really believe that Obama will not nominate another like those three?
For me, the elephant in the room is the prospect of two - but assuredly one - supreme court resignation in the next eight years. When the gun control decision had only five of nine votes, one can see how precarious is the preservation of the constitution and bill of rights as written. At least three of those four dissenters openly advocate a “living” document that should be “molded” to fit the current whims of society, never mind that such beliefs are anethema to a document that guarantees rights and can only be changed by the will of the majority of people voting to amend, rather than the whim of 5 unelected judges.
Does anybody really believe that Obama will not nominate another like those three?
I found the pdf of this case and searched for the words you quoted, “molded” and “living”. “Molded” does not appear. “Living” appears twice, once to say “Further, any self-defense interest at the time of the Framing could not have focused exclusively upon urbancrime related dangers. Two hundred years ago, most Americans, many living on the frontier, would likely have thought of self-defense primarily in terms of outbreaks of fighting with Indian tribes, rebellions such as Shays’ Rebellion, marauders, and crime-related dangers to travelers on the roads, on footpaths, or along waterways,” and the second time to say, “Insofar as the Framers focused at all on the tiny fraction of the population living in large cities, they would have been aware that these city dwellers were subject to firearm restrictions that their rural counterparts were not.” Both of those may be right or wrong, I’m not arguing, but they look like they’re talking about finding what the intent of the framers might have been. What’s wrong with that??
WASHINGTON — Two former secretaries of state have declared the War Powers Resolution of 1973 obsolete and proposed a new system of closer consultation between the White House and Congress before American forces go into battle.
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Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and James A. Baker III oversaw a year-long study of the longstanding tension over war powers between the executive and legislative branches. In a report to be released on Tuesday, they concluded that the 1973 law, which was passed in the waning days of the Vietnam War and which aimed to limit the president’s ability to commit American forces to war unilaterally, never served its intended function and must be replaced.
For me, the elephant in the room is the prospect of two - but assuredly one - supreme court resignation in the next eight years. When the gun control decision had only five of nine votes, one can see how precarious is the preservation of the constitution and bill of rights as written. At least three of those four dissenters openly advocate a “living” document that should be “molded” to fit the current whims of society, never mind that such beliefs are anethema to a document that guarantees rights and can only be changed by the will of the majority of people voting to amend, rather than the whim of 5 unelected judges.
Does anybody really believe that Obama will not nominate another like those three?
Who Would Obama Nominate to the Supreme Court?: Over at Prawfs, Andrew Siegel had put together a list of potential Obama nominees to the Supreme Court if Obama wins in November and a Justice resigns. I think Andrew’s list is particularly thoughtful; it’s probably as close as we can get at this point to a prospective Obama “short list.” Here’s the list:
1) Diane Wood
2) Elena Kagan
3) Merrick Garland
4) Cass Sunstein
5) Teresa Wynn Roseborough
6) Leah Ward Sears
7) Sonia Sotomayor
8) Deval Patrick
9) Eric Holder
10) Barrington Parker, Jr.
