OK, that was a bit effusive, considering that Andy Mc believes that President Obama should have been removed from office for the commission of high crimes and misdemeanors,1 and, almost as bad, thinks that Ken “Stick Up My Ass” Starr was a good man, which he was not.2 But, well, I came to praise Andy, and I will.
I praise Andy for his brave piece for the National Review, Dissent from NR’s Editorial Favoring Federal Abortion Ban. Andy is particularly ticked with his brethren for their confident statement that “We are persuaded that the undoubted federal power to defend basic civil rights under the 14th Amendment extends to this issue, as Republicans have held in their platform for decades.”
Andy, it seems, doesn’t regard the language of the Republican platform as controlling. According to Andy, the federal government doesn’t have the “undoubted” power under the 14th amendment’s guarantee of “due process”, or any other doctrine, to defend “basic civil rights”—whatever they are. To say otherwise simply allows the left to first invent and then defend whatever “basic civil rights” they please.
In an Addendum, Andy replies to the alternative justification for federal congressional power, the “equal protections” clause, summing up his rejection of the argument in a rather curious manner:
In any event, I meant no disrespect to the equal-protection argument. I simply have not given it much credence. I may be wrong about its force, but that would mean it had greater potential to be used against constitutional conservatives if we stretch it to categories it has never been understood to cover, in order to justify federal preemption in an area of law traditionally and prudently left to state control.
Well, it seems to me that Andy meant a lot of disrespect for the equal-protection argument, since he thinks it’s totally invalid and would, if employed, simply empower the Left to expand federal power over the states indefinitely. And what about the language in his concluding sentence, referring to abortion as “an area of law traditionally and prudently left to state control”? What happened to “abortion is murder”? Is Andy, a Catholic, really down with letting any secular authority defining away cold-blooded murder? Just askin’.
ADDENDUM
Andy is joined in dissent by non-AV fave rave Charlie Cooke as well as some-guy-I-never-heard-of Phillip Klein.
1. Andy wrote a whole book the subject, which I have not read, and which I urge you not to read as well.
2. After umpteen investigations of both “Whitewater” and Vince Foster’s suicide had produced absolutely nothing of value, Ken announced that his investigation was winding down and, as a result, he would be leaving to take a position with Pepperdine University. Unsurprisingly, the right wing went bonkers and demanded that Starr “stay the course” and convict that son of a bitch of, you know, something. And Ken complied. If you want to know more about what a shit Starr was, Joe Conason will be glad to fill you in.
