Glenn Greenwald provides his usual excellent commentary while discussing yesterday's ruling, including an important point on the lack of a real defense by the government the first time around. He also emphasizes, though I think belittles some of the dismissive tone of at least one of the judges, the majority did not decide the merits.
Of those judges who did, they held the President was lawless. Blogs have started to point out a new poll that suggests the public is evenly divided on support for impeachment proceedings. This sort of thing sort of explains why -- thoughts from some Democrats that the public really isn't ready yet for such "strong" action (even serious hearings apparently ... too much) notwithstanding -- people think that way. BTW, I saw Sen. Biden (and John Edwards actually) on C-SPAN yesterday as part of that station's race for 2008 coverage. Biden said a truly asshole thing ... that some of his listeners would disagree with his support of the troops until they leave Iraq. Who exactly doesn't, Joe? Do they LIKE helping Republican talking points?*
But, what is with the frankly patronizing extended discussion for non-lawyers who are outraged at the refusal to hear the merits? The constitutional principle is no more complicated than any number of others we apparently can understand without such remarks. And, again, the judges simply didn't do their jobs adequately -- protecting a harmed group against violation of statutory and constitutionally secured rights. [I commented there ... the comment before mine makes the point well.] Sorry, I'm not too "understanding" of them right now even if I agree they weren't patently lawless or anything in so holding.
The standing ruling was wrong. The fact it was somewhat reasonable is not too shocking, since the same can be said for any number of wrong rulings. The comment turned me off and underlines how it will be even worse when those not so upset at the underlining case think about the matter. "Well, he stopped, right ... and really the claim was sorta hypothetical ... so the courts really shouldn't get involved. I'm kinda upset, but hey, no reason to change my mind-set THAT much." Sorta like Republicans upset at the President's war policies, who refuse to actually do something tangible to force his hand.
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* Seriously. FU. The "all the Iraq stuff had my name on it" business was hard to take too, making him sound like a jerk too (he has that tendency), but this is too much. It's like the Obama line about Dems not wanting to appear to not support the troops by voting against a funding measure that puts them in further harm's way. I don't yell at the screen as much in such cases except for certain sports events ... btw, this up/down Mets season is stressing me out.