Just Another Bush Administration Hypocrisy

What one Bush official said about the judge’s ruling in the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban case:

Bush-Cheney reelection campaign chairman Marc Racicot said the ruling is a prime example of “why American needs judges who will interpret the law and not legislate from the bench.”

In fact, the Bush administration’s lawyers begged this judge to legislate from the bench. According to the judge’s ruling (p. 30 – pdf file), the law written by congress was too broad to be constitutional, so the administration’s lawyers asked Judge Hamilton to “narrow the construction of the statute to eliminate any doubts about the Act’s unconstitutionality.” The judge quite properly refused to do so, since her job is to rule on the law, not to rewrite it.

So first they beg a judge to legislate from the bench. Then, when she refuses to do it, they turn around and criticize her for legislating from the bench (which she didn’t do). Lovely people, these Bush folks..

This entry posted in \"Partial Birth\" Abortion, Abortion & reproductive rights. Bookmark the permalink. 

2 Responses to Just Another Bush Administration Hypocrisy

  1. 1
    Aaron V. says:

    Let’s say it again: “Judicial review has been a principle of U.S. jurisprudence since Marbury v. Madison.”

    However, crybaby conservatives get in a snit and play the “judicial activism” card every time a conservative-backed law gets struck down as unconstitutional or a law is intepreted in an unconstitutional matter.

    Judicial review is an established principle. Judges are elected and/or selected for their expertise at applying law to fact. And “judicial activism” are code words for “the judge didn’t rule the way we wanted him or her to.”

  2. 2
    Jim says:

    So true, so true! The political right actually wants “judicially active” judges; they just want ’em to rule in their favor as they busily attack laws which uphold our freedoms. It is time that the loyal opposition (i.e. those of us who think the Constitution and the Bill of Rights should pretty much stand as written) started to shout this from the rooftops (metephorically speaking). When you look at the people the Bush administration has put forward as judicial nominees for the federal courts, all you see are conservative “judicial activists” who can’t wait to legislate from the bench. For all their patriotic rhetoric, the political right in reality hates both democracy and the concept of individual sovereignty.