by Matt Barr

The Sullivan Award

There's a special kind of guilty pleasure you get when someone uses an example of something true as evidence that its proponent is completely insane. Let's inaugurate the Sullivan Award for such things:

I'm beginning to wonder if the Republican party will soon oppose the whole concept of an independent judiciary. Just read William Bennett's screed in National Review. It contains the sentence: "It is a mistake to believe that the courts have the ultimate say as to what a constitution means."

Andrew: It's a mistake to believe that the courts have the ultimate say as to what a constitution means. Though a court hasn't told me this, our constitution establishes three coequal branches of government, one with legislative power, one with executive and one with judicial. Believing it's only one branch's problem leads to things like the President signing the execrable campaign finance law.

Florida's governor and the President of the United States swear an oath to uphold their constitutions. That's not an imperative to take it under advisement till they get guidance from their courts. And think of the mischief a legislature could wreak if it weren't bound by the constitution till slapped down by a court. Does Mr. Sullivan, or Prof. Tribe, believe that Congress wouldn't have ordered Terri Schiavo's life saved if it weren't concerned whether its actions were constitutional?

Bennett's article recommends Gov. Bush use his police powers to, we assume forcibly, have Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted. I don't agree, to be clear. But the passage Sullivan finds so remarkable is really unremarkable.

At the same link, Sullivan goes on about the sanctity of marriage, another arrangement where vows are made, which vows Michael Schiavo has broken about as completely as they can be broken. So I'm not sure what "the sanctity of marriage" has to do with anything.

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