Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Democrats and the rest of the Left, the President stuck to his guns and nominated John Roberts to the Supreme Court. The not-so-loyal opposition has already begun to put its foot in its mouth, as the President dares them to raise a ruckus over a nominee they unanimously confirmed two years ago to the appellate bench. Hinderaker's take on Leahy/Schumer:

[I]t was fun to see Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer on television tonight; they looked just awful. After President Bush's terrific, upbeat presentation of Roberts, and Roberts' graceful, brief talk, Leahy and Schumer sounded like they had just dropped in from another planet. They were dour, hateful, and came across as sad and pathetic minions who have been sent on a hopeless mission by their bosses at "People for the American Way." Hugh thinks the Roberts' nomination is a "home run," and from what I've read, it sounds that way. Let's just hope and pray fifteen to twenty years from now, he's still in the Rehnquist-Scalia-Thomas mold, and not drifting aimlessly as O'Connor ended.

Cal Thomas:

The president and those who wish to see the Constitution restored to its "original intent" need to reteach it if they are to overcome the liberal orthodoxy expressed by the late Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and echoed recently by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that "the Constitution is what the judges say it is."

Try that at the supermarket. Is a pound what the shopper says it is, or do scales, which rely on a standard, determine a pound's true weight? Would we get away with telling a police officer who pulls us over for speeding, "I decided that 70 miles per hour is 55 for me"?

Why, then, this constantly changing Constitution that is in the minds of liberals to be altered like a suit of clothes to fit the wearer, rather than a document to which all must conform if the general welfare is to be promoted?

It is because those revisionists know they can't use the legislative process to ram through any of their social engineering ideas. ... They know the people (with the possible exception of a majority in Massachusetts) would vote them out of office and so they turn to unelected judges, appointed for life, to do their ideological dirty work for them.

If the Constitution is to again be seen as a finished document that has been refinished in recent years, the president must foreswear any talk of "moderation" and "conciliation" in his choice of court nominees. Truth cannot be moderated.

[...]

The president owes the country an ideological battle, which he can win if he is willing to fight it. By virtue of his office, he commands attention unavailable to anyone else. He should not only campaign for his nominee(s), he should act like a teacher, quoting the Federalist Papers and the Constitution and making his case that this great document served America well until some judges began tampering with it.

David Limbaugh reveals the Democrats' plan to paint constitutional originalists as "extremists":

They are hoping to convince the people that any nominee who is reputed to be an originalist is an extremist -- "outside the broad mainstream." Because they view the Court as a co-equal policy-making branch of government, they are treating the confirmation process as another national election.

Their bogus praise for O'Connor is simply the first step in their ruse. By lauding her as a "mainstream conservative," they lay the groundwork for labeling anyone less activist than her an extremist.

There is an idiom in the sports world that "a win is a win is a win." In other words, it doesn't matter if you've beaten your opponent by 50 points or one. It doesn't matter if you win the race by .0001 of a second, or if you blow away the field, with the rest a full lap behind you. A win is a win is a win. So, in the case of politics, is a majority a majority a majority. It doesn't matter if the majority is 80-20, 70-30, or 50.1-49.9. A majority is a majority is a majority. I only bring this up because there is no apparent end to the pitiful whining eminating from the political left. I suppose when you have nothing constructive to offer the nation, the best you can do is complain about what the party in power is doing, without offering any alternatives whatsoever. Jeff has delivered, in few words and using simple math so the left can keep up, a majority primer on why the Republicans have a large enough majority to legitimately run the country.

Nancy Pelosi, on the Kelo decision:

It is a decision of the Supreme Court. If Congress wants to change it, it will require legislation of a level of a constitutional amendment. So this is almost as if God has spoken. It's an elementary discussion now. They have made the decision. The Supreme Court is not the end-all, be-all of what is legal or not in this country. Does no one remember anything from their basic civics class? If the Supreme Court can willy-nilly declare whatever they like unconstitutional or constitutional, where is the system of "checks and balances" we all learned about? Yes, the Court is to act as a check and balance on the other two branches, but likewise, the executive and legislative branches act as checks and balances on the Supreme Court. There shouldn't have to be a constitutional amendment on the part of the legislature to overturn Kelo, Ms. Pelosi, because the Court's decision is unconstitutional and wrong. It's right there in Amendment number five of the Bill of Rights. New corporate structures to provide increased tax revenue fails to qualify in every way, shape, or form of the "public good" in the eyes of the Founding Fathers.

Senator Ted Kennedy, 1981:

"It is offensive to suggest that a potential justice of the Supreme Court must pass some presumed test of judicial philosophy. It is even more offensive to suggest that a potential justice must pass the litmus test of any single-issue interest group. The disturbing tactics of division and distortion and discrimination practiced by the extremists of the new right have no place in these hearings and no place in the nation's democracy." Senator Ted Kennedy, 2005: "Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement gives President Bush, elected by a divided nation that has become even more divided, a unique opportunity to unite us by choosing for the Supreme Court someone who can win support from a broad bipartisan majority in the Senate and whom the vast majority of Americans will be proud of." The enormous difference in the dates shown above--which should be enough to secure support for Congressional term limits--aside, where, dear Senator Kennedy, Democrats, and other members of the radical left, in the Constitution does it say the President of the United States must consult with the Senate on his choices for federal bench appointments? Rather than choosing someone "who can win support from a broad bipartisan majority," the President should be choosing as a nominee a justice who will abide by the Constitution (aka, an "originalist"), versus one who will make up rights and law based on nothing found within the Constitution (aka, an "activist"). Something tells me that if enough justices on the Supreme Court fit the former model, rather than the latter, the American people would be quite proud of them, Senator, because the Court wouldn't be meddling in our lives and we would rarely hear from them. Here's hoping the President nominates another Scalia or Thomas. I want to see Kennedy's face turn all red. Oh wait, too late. [Thanks to today's Best of the Web.]

Jeff calls it:

The conclusion is as heart-breaking as it is unavoidable: There are people out there —- reporters, pundits, Senators and Congressmen —- who hate the President and the Republican Party so deeply and with such passion that they would rather see the United States defeated and Iraq collapsed into a failed state than support what they see as George W. Bush’s war. I don't quite share Jeff's pessimism regarding tonight's speech, unless that pessimism means the expectation that the President will simply remind the American people that he has said all along that this war wouldn't be finished overnight, that it was a long-haul project, that we should remember there are still people out there who want to hurt and kill us, but right now we are winning. The President has been consistent with regard to the prosecution of the war against terror in general, and in Iraq specifically. There is no timetable for withdrawal, because we have not yet achieved total victory. Which is something the left, and increasingly the Democratic Party specifically, cannot allow.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm too simple-minded to get it. Perhaps because I didn't go to law school, spend years on a judicial bench, and have half a dozen clerks doing all of my research for me, I just don't understand the intricacies and nuances of the Constitution of the United States of America. Or maybe there simply aren't the intricacies and nuances the Supreme Court would have us believe there are. Amendment I of the Bill of Rights says, in part: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..." Now, I challenge any legal scholar on the planet to explain how a monument to the Ten Commandments, or the posting of the Ten Commandments on the wall of a courtroom, is Congress establishing a state religion. Or even a state government establishing a state religion. Religious aspects aside, the Ten Commandments are an important legal document, important to the legal history of Western civilization. Again, with religious aspects aside, the Ten Commandments contain some pretty healthy codes of conduct for everyone, believers and non-believers. What's wrong with suggesting that people do not steal from one another? Amendment V of the Bill of Rights states, in part: "...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." Kelo vs. New London is not about "public use." Public use is a road, a school. Public use is not a new shopping mall, new condos, new office space. I have to disagree with Jeff on this decision; both sides of the Court are not right in their opinions. Simply because there is precedent leading up to the decision in Kelo doesn't make the decision proper. It simply means that all of the precedent is itself unconstitutional. If the Court has, in the past, rejected the "narrow interpretation of the public use requirement," then the Court was wrong. The Court was negligent in its duty to uphold the Constitution, and it was negligent in Kelo. If the town of New London can't come up with enough tax revenue without confiscating people's legally-purchased private property, then perhaps the town should dissolve its charter and let the county take over basic services.

Jeff Jacoby:

Prices are advertised everywhere. From newspapers to billboards to websites, we are forever being told how much things cost. Want to buy contact lenses? A cruise to Alaska? A pedicure? The price of almost any product or service is readily available, and vendors vie for business by keeping their prices competitive.

But not when it comes to health care. In this second part of his look at health care, the first part of which I noted on Thursday, Jacoby argues that by de-linking health care from employment, through tax reform, prices will be driven down. The tax reform in question is to make health care coverage one purchases oneself tax deductible; it currently is not. Here's the kicker: Based on RAND Corporation research, they estimate that making medical expenses deductible would reduce health care spending by $40 billion -- all without forcing a single benefit cut on anyone. [Emphasis added. --R]

Since my post on the subject, I've been thinking of Tom's comments, and watching as TiVo snags Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, and Clifford for my nearly-two-year-old's viewing pleasure. Then Peggy Noonan comes along with brilliant commentary on the continued need for PBS, just without the politics. Her suggestions are certainly some I'm sure everyone could live with. Get PBS out of the news and opinion business, and back to what made it so vital in the first place: science and the arts. I am man enough to admit it when I'm wrong. So let's keep PBS and NPR around; so long as they dump the political angles, and stick to the classics.

Detailing the woes GM is facing in providing health care to only 160,000 current workers, but 1 million others, Jeff Jacoby provides a microcosm of the problems the citizenry would face should health-care fall under the purview of the government.

GM's hourly workers undoubtedly have a sweet deal -- who wouldn't love health insurance that comes with a $0 deductible and no premiums? But such sweet deals drive up the cost of health care for everyone. When somebody else is picking up the tab, there is little incentive to economize -- that is as true of medical care as of anything else. The price of prescription drugs, hospital stays, and medical procedures has skyrocketed in part because tens of millions of Americans are insured through their employers with low-deductible medical plans. Why not run to the doctor for every minor ailment when the out-of-pocket cost to do so is minimal? Why inquire whether a procedure can be performed less expensively when it'll be covered by insurance either way?

In no other area do we rely on insurance for routine expenses or repairs. Auto insurance doesn't cover oil changes; no one uses homeowner's insurance to repoint the chimney. That's because most of us pay for those policies ourselves, and therefore get only the insurance we really need -- generally against catastrophic events, like a car being stolen or a house burning down.

Only when it comes to health care do we expect insurance to cover nearly everything.