Hugh Hewitt exposed, read this and weep
By anonymousbosch Posted in User Blogs — Comments (16) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
It's very interesting to go to RadioBlogger's july 2005 archives and read what Mr. Hewitt was saying about the SC back then. Here's a small sample. I'll put them all together, the perfect ingredients for a ** sandwich:
Hugh Hewitt on why federal judicial experience and a track record do matter:
You see, I've tried to explain to people about Judge Janice Rogers Brown, that she has not been a federal judge. And my concern over her and Priscilla Owen is, that federal judges just do different things than state judges. And I want to see a little bit from them, before you run as a conservative. I don't want to run blind. And I think she really hasn't done, for example, federalism issues, hasn't done federal pre-emption, hasn't interpreted the free exercise of the establishment clause, though there are Constitutional counterparts in California. That's my concern, Erwin. I just don't think they're reliable enough when it comes to understanding how they'll handle federal issues.
Hugh Hewitt on why age matters and why you don't want someone close to 60:
HH: You know, I had this argument with people earlier. I view every year as 70 votes. So when you trade from a Luttig or a Roberts at 50-51, or McConnell, or even a Miguel Estrada at 44, you're giving up seven hundred votes, seven hundred decisions. That's a lot of future influence for a president to give away to someone who he doesn't know who it's going to be.
and
Now let me close with Larry Thompson and Ted Olson, in the Washington Post write-up, as well as J. Harvey Wilkinson. They're all a little long in the tooth, really.
and now for the COUP DE GRACE. Hugh Hewitt on why Brilliance and Intellectual Greatness matter:
I want to pause for a moment, because you'll say great things about Luttig, Roberts and McConnell, as I have. There is an argument for brilliance that's got to be made here. And I don't know some of these judges. But those three I do, and they're brilliant. And brilliance matters, even if you're a dissent, because you've got to mold the law schools. You've got to mold the professions. You've got to look ahead. I think Bush needs to go for someone about whom there is no question of intellectual...the capacity for intellectual greatness.
Your Honor, Mr. Hewiit is GUILTY of fraud in his support for Miers. The evidence is clear and convincing, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
as a regular listener to Hugh, I don't see how he has contradicted himself. Hugh, if nothing else, is an eternal optimist. For him, the time for lobbying for his choices was before the nomination. Once the nomination was presented, he examined why we got this particular choice. And how it would play out in the long term. His point has been since Miers was named is that this isn't as dire as one would think, so let's get her done and move on.
Ummm...right.
Your argument is excrement, anonymousbosch. It's whining and carping backed up by some cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes from Hewitt's interviews. How soon will you graduate from high school?
As another addicted listener to Hugh Hewitt, you miss that Hugh is a Big Picture person. In his book for the 2004 election, If It's Not Close They Can't Cheat , he pointed out that "majorities matter." One point he made in support of that position is that, sometimes you support a imperfect candidate, if that candidate's election will help the party and the overall cause. Example--supporting Lincoln Chaffee for reelection makes Big Picture sense. A RINO Senator who votes with the conservatives 25% of the time is better than a Dem who votes 0%
If your point is that Hewitt is a hypocrite for supporting Miers after previously saying that excellence was important on the SCOTUS, you ignore the Big Picture, junior. Hewitt has repeatedly made the point that the benefit of trashing and maybe derailing the Miers nomination, even if she's not the nominee most of us would have wanted, is not worth the cost of damaging the President's ability to govern.
Hugh's actions IRT Miers are an example of strategy and practicality. Your post here demonstrates why you should stick to Dungeons and Dragons.
Or, you can come back here with more drivel like this. And we shall smack you silly some more.
Your mother is calling you. Finish your milk and go home. And, be sure to look both ways as you cross the street. Ask an adult to take your hand if necessary.
...D&D? casts Flesh to Stone @ smagar
"Majorities Matter". That's right. Thank God we have a 55 seat majority in the Senate. If we didn't we might have had to pick a stealth SC nominee strictly on the trust W theme that has no judicial background or record whatsoever.
If Bush, with a 55 seat majority in the Senate, can't get a real SC justice in there, then he's more of afailure than I imagined.
As for ability to govern, you're right. I've been awed by his ability to govern wrt SS reform, cutting spending, no child left behind, not creating new entitlements, dealing with the southern border, and CFR/BCRA.
sixteenth century. I've a print of your Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1500) on my wall.
That was enthusiasm, not snark.
Brilliance is a fine thing, and this President has a good track record with that for Circuit Court nominees and stellar on his first SCOTUS pick. I haven't been following Hugh's line of thought, not for any prejudice against his opinion.
I don't know that we needed any more or less brilliance than has Edith Jones.
OK - these are incriminating comments, and well found to the extent they are not completely out of context. BUT, another thought crosses the mind. Given HH's prominent recent post citing Disraeli as support for the "party man" position, is there any evidence of HH disagreeing with the party in a particular action? Any nominee he objects to as stridently as his support appears for this one? Any particular policy where he's diametrically opposed to the POTUS and administration?
I'm a frequent blog visitor and infrequent listener, but I recall none. Does he have any critical credibility, or his he wholly the big-picture party man?
Just wondering.
Have you heard of "RINOs"? There are plenty in the GOP herd in the Senate, and they are easily stampeded. Tell us how you'll get the RINOs to vote the way you want on conservative SCOTUS Justices. Go ahead. We're listening. We're not holding our breath, but we're listening.
As for W's ability to govern, apparently you don't think much about what he's accomplished in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider War on Terror. I'll concede that his domestic policies are more moderate than I'd like.
But American government is not like a trip to Burger King. You do not get to have everything your way.
You don't like Dubya as a President--fine. Go vote for someone who's destined to be an also-ran in the 2008 GOP primaries. (Is Alan Keyes running?) Stay irrelevant.
You've got cookie crumbs on your Garanimals top. Your mom's gonna be mad. Does she know you're up this late?
Hugh Hewitt is, and always will be, a party guy. A partisan.
He is not someone who is deeply committed to a conservative ideology or principle. He's committed to the Republican Party.
What that says about his credibility, and more importantly intellectual consistency, I leave to others to decide.
Judges has nothing!!! to do with Bush' incompetence. Bush's pick of a stealth leads simply tells me that Bush doesn't trust the Senate GOP to pull the trigger. Blame it on Frist or blame it on the RINOs themselves for not being able to pull the trigger, but a filibustered Originalist Judge does NOBODY any good...
Once the Senate can give ASSURANCE that the trigger can and will be pulled, that's when Bush will give ASSURANCE to his constituents with his picks. Until then, we need to all work harder to elect a stronger majority in the Senate.
Hmmmm.
"Stay irrelevant."
Considering that Bush hasn't advanced one single conservative ideal, issue or agenda, isn't that exactly what you are doing?
"Stay irrelevant."
As for Bush's judicial picks I'm not entirely sanguine. There was a recent case where a Bush appointed federal judge ruled that the DOJ wouldn't have to reveal the names of convicted illegal alien criminals because of their right to privacy! Yet American citizen criminals have no such rights!
This isn't a case of a judge being an activist on the bench? Am I to infer from this that all of Bush's appointments are good? And we have yet to see Roberts really in action. He may turn out well. He may not. If he doesn't, we've got 40 years to rue this.
While reading Hugh Hewitt's response to this thread and others, I could barely hold back from laughing.
While I'm sure Hugh is a nice guy, in fact, the rumor is he's so nice they almost named his twice. But having said that, Hugh has lost credibility on the Miers issue. Hewitt doesn't seem to understand that the crux of his argument was that Bush should have named a judge with an experienced record on the bench, ie Luttig. For Hugh to now say we should support Miers because doing so will help the Bush agenda in the long term is absurd.
Can't have it both ways Hugh...
Do you honestly hear him contradicting himself now?
What you don't get is that for Hugh, individual battle victories don't matter in the least if the war is ultimately lost.
So he stated his disapproval of the nominee, and moved onto the next question: where do we go from here?