The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> Picture This (posted 6/30/03 1:38 a.m.) br> Constitutional conservatives last week took their biggest lumps in years, it would appear. After all, diversity became officially recognized as a higher requirement than equality under the law, on top of which the high court discovered still newer areas of privacy the framers never imagined (and which, in any case, were thought to be the purview of the states' legislatures). For decades the worry has been that as a country we have drifted from the original principles that made our Constitution the miracle it seemed. Now we know the situation is a whole lot worse. Who in twenty-five years will remember why Justice O'Connor recommended a return to equality? Break someone's back it's not likely he'll walk again. /p>

If anything is remembered it's that O'Connor's disingenuousness was never recorded as such. In establishment circles the liberal mind is encouraged to get away with whatever it wants. The topper might have come, appropriately enough, in an op-ed piece written for Sunday's Washington Post under the byline of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. The subject is "the Senate's role" in Supreme Court nominations, and guess whose authority Kennedy invokes to make his case? Yes, the very framers who otherwise ceased to exist last week. "When a president tries to ignore the Framers' careful decision to have the Senate share the appointment power," he wrote, "then the responsibility the Framers placed on us may require us to stand up to the president..."

He thinks so highly of the framers he even capitalizes their name. Thus Kennedy becomes the latest in a long line of permanent Democrats -- Patrick Leahy, the N.Y. Times, David Broder, Tom Daschle -- to send a warning shot at George W. Bush regarding any future nominations to the high court. (Weren't these the same liberals mocking Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive war?)

A favorite argument of these folk is that Bush should consult with Democrats the way President Clinton consulted with Sen. Orrin Hatch before appointing, supposedly with Hatch's approval, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. On second thought, that's a great idea. The White House should take Democrats at their word, and insist they sign off on nominees who are as right of center as Ginsburg and Breyer are left of it. That may be the only way left to restore balance to the nominating process, not to mention the Supreme Court. Teddy's Framers would treasure whatever brief new life they're granted.

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p> Rice-A-Roni (posted 6/24/03 4:07 p.m.) br> What a great story. Rice University's Owls on Monday defeated mighty Stanford to capture the annual College World Series. It's the first time Rice has won a national championship in anything not having to do with academics. Though it appears the school won the baseball trophy on its own merits, think again. The NCAA, in its Supreme Court endorsed wisdom, has gone out of its way to help loser sports programs like Rice's. So where Stanford played nine players at time, Rice fielded 11. For every three strikes for Stanford, Rice received four. Its pitchers didn't walk anyone until the umpire called ball five. Its hitters enjoyed four outs an inning. When Rice was up it was only 85 feet from first to home. Stanford hitters had the usual 90 feet to traverse, but only after counting "one thousand one, one thousand two" before leaving the batter's box. /p>

To its credit, Rice intends to defend its national championship next year. Talks are under way to augment its winning formula. That will mean 14 Owls on the field at once, 80-foot baselines when they're at bat, and five strikes and six balls for its designated hitters. We can't all be winners if former losers risk return to the cruel age of equal rules.

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