"What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" Powell said. "No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim kid believing that he or she can be president?"
"It troubled me. We have two wars. We have economic problems. We have health problems. We have education problems. We have infrastructure problems. We have problems around the world with our allies. So those are the problems the American people wanted to hear about, not about [1960s radical William] Ayers, not about who is a Muslim or who's not a Muslim," Powell told reporters after the endorsement.
By now, I have no love of Colin Powell, who felt "duty" meant supporting/enabling a crooked war and administration writ large. But, like it or not, he is not far from a significant minority of the electorate, including those that once supported the war (etc.) but now feel disgusted with it all. You can say all you want how they should have opposed it from the start, how much they let themselves be lied to or lied to themselves, but it won't get you much in the end. A woefully flawed individual of this sort still will be respected, in large part not only because of his actual accomplishments, but because he is like more people than we wish to admit.
Anyway, the way he announced support of Obama mattered too. Who else of his stature firmly went against all this bashing of Muslims? The concern for Palin's competency, the tenor of the McCain campaign and all the rest, that was nice too, but honoring a dead Muslim soldier was a necessary act of decency. It is sad, actually, when something so obvious is said and deemed (rightly) of some moment for being said. So, even if you think it should not, his endorsement mattered.
It is no doubt faint praise to laud the Supreme Court for having the intellectual honesty to apply its legal principles even-handily, regardless of whether those principles favor Democrats or Republicans. At a minimum, justice is supposed to be blind. Still, given the lingering shadow that Bush v. Gore casts over the Supreme Court's objectivity in cases involving Presidential elections, even such minimal fairness is heartening.
I referenced earlier the Supreme Court's decision to stop the lawsuit brought by Ohio Republicans against the Ohio Secretary of State, which intended to force her to match up newly registered voters with DMB records or such as apparently required under HAVA. To simplify somewhat. [The lawsuit and the resulting judicial opinions are usefully summarized here, the source of the above quote. Electoral litigation as such here.]
The OSOS (a Democrat) argued she did what was required, it is too late in the day (including under HAVA), and such a private lawsuit was not allowed under Supreme Court precedent. She lost in lower court -- after an en banc panel overturned the original appellate ruling -- but the Supremes agreed on standing grounds. Yes, Virginia, the Supremes can be consistent, even when it hurts their ideological fellow travellers. The more strict standing rules will hurt in other cases, but that is how these things work -- the rule of law gives some and takes some away.
Apropos also is a 2006 election case also decided around this time of the year involving an anti-voter fraud measure concerning citizenship. Some at the time was concerned that it took the problem of voter fraud as an "compelling interest" given the lack of any real evidence of it being a compelling problem in practice. It also noted the alternative of provisional ballots (in this case, one had to show up with the proper id in five days ... quicker than some states that gave ten) though they leave something to be desired. Bottom line, however, the SC (again, via a unanimous per curiam) trusted the district court, focusing on time restraints.
The worthwhile main dissent to the en banc ruling overturned in the case here also raised the time restraint issue, one addressed by HAVA too -- sometimes, partisan lawsuits are sensible, but last minute ones of this sort are problematic. The dissent, like the dissents in the SC voter id case, also noted the flaws with provisional ballots. As to the standing issue, fwiw, the SC agreed with it. This even if the second dissent was not quite fair in saying "In a case full of irony, we have a majority of this court inferring a private right of action – on the basis of, well, nothing – to create utter bedlam in a state’s election."
That dissent also argued that one of the majority should have recused herself since her husband was running for state office. She noted with disdain that it is not like "only Republican candidates will benefit from preventing vote fraud." But, the litigation was brought largely because -- this time around (Republicans sometimes have registration drives too) -- more new voters there lean that way. Her vote did not turn the case one way or the other; in such a partisan tinged matter, the appearance of impropriety should be a concern. OTOH, it was ill advised for a federal appellate judge to be personal like that -- honestly, the bias here was a bit of a stretch. The net result, however slight, was to make it much more likely for some to see impropriety not likely present.
Well, at least rank partisan impropriety of a person sort. Taking everything into consideration, including other courts decisions on the merits, the en banc reversal was ill advised as a general matter. And, ideological sentiments very well might have something to do with it. The whole thing underlines the importance of the lower courts, the SC not likely to take the time to decide in this fashion as a general matter.
After all, if they decide more than around eighty cases, they get tired. Still, we had a death penalty case looked over again in September and two quick opinions in the first couple weeks of October. Such activity!