Happy New Year

The Republican Party – and its conservative backers – are understandably still celebrating the 2013 gift of Obamacare imploding. 

It’s tempting for the GOP to approach 2014 cautiously, even timidly, so as not to distract attention from the failing healthcare law.  But in politics, as in war, matters usually don’t follow plans.  So the GOP must be wary of being perceived as doing nothing.

Public opinion polls, of course, show strong disfavor for the President’s policies, besides Obamacare.  But the general electorate is hardly enamored of Republicans, either.  Plainly, a broad dissatisfaction with Washington politicians is a common attitude across the land. 

So the better course is for the House majority to push alternative policies – on health care in particular – and promote them heavily to counter administration attacks that the GOP “only opposes”.   Success with these efforts – combined with the unpopularity of Obamacare – should increase the prospect that we will be able to congratulate ourselves next Christmas on the earned gift of a Senate majority and continued control of the House of Representatives.

Accordingly, let’s look forward to a very Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

This is a time for perspective and appreciation.

Focus on all that’s right with you, your family and your country.  Think of what the birth of Jesus meant and means.  Be joyful.

Life on earth is temporal, indeed.  If you strive to lead a good life, take pleasure in the effort and don’t blame yourself for the shortfalls.  We conservatives are, above all, realists.  Since utopia is not for earth, we can hardly expect perfection in ourselves or in the attainment of our quests.

 

As for politics, the ebbs and flows continue.  We are entitled to bemoan that substantial numbers of our fellow countrymen, and our President, in particular, seem determined to lead America astray, intentionally or otherwise.  But 2014 offers hope.

 

So, of course, the struggle continues, as it will after we are gone.  All we can do in the meantime, really, is be true to our principles and God and carry on.  And isn’t that a fair definition of a good life?

 

Merry Christmas.

How Can a Conservative be a Defense Attorney?

It’s interesting how many people pigeon-hole members of certain professions as holding particular views.

   

Prosecutors support law enforcement so they must be conservatives.  Or defense attorneys represent people accused of breaking the law (who are often poor and mal-educated) and therefore are probably liberals since people on the left are partial to the downtrodden.

There is some truth to these assumptions, but not always. 

In a formal sense, there is no necessary connection.  An attorney is a representative of his client.  His views can be completely independent of his client -- whether that is the U.S. government or an accused bank robber.

 

That said, it is a fair judgment that an attorney who is personally hostile to the police is not likely to gravitate toward employment with the local prosecutor’s office.

 

As for me, I can’t deny that most of my comrades at the defense bar are not right of center.  And while I don’t generally volunteer my political persuasion, I don’t conceal it if asked.   Almost uniformly the announcement generates surprise from those inside and outside the profession.  It shouldn’t.

A criminal defense lawyer doing his job well performs a very important conservative role.

A person accused of a crime has specific rights, in large part recited in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

 

The defense attorney’s job, in part, is to make sure his client’s rights are protected.  What could be more conservative than that?

An equally important task is to hold the prosecutor’s “feet to the fire”.  Make the government prove its case, subject the evidence to critical scrutiny.  Fight the common assumption that only guilty people are charged by the police.

 

This approach is founded on the simple fact of human nature recognized by conservatives; power corrupts.  No matter how well intentioned, people in authority, whether police or prosecutors, are vulnerable to the belief that what they do or believe is always right.  Experience regularly reminds us that that’s not true.

I am a conservative and a defense attorney and proud to be both.   

American Foreign Policy Under Obama: A Report Card

I guess some would expect The Sensible Conservative to hand the President an “F” as obviously deserved.

Certainly, there is a strong argument to be made that indeed it is.  But I do believe in being fair and sensible and so a review of Barack Obama’s five years in office should be done.

First, it’s important to note that candidate Obama never made foreign affairs a part of his campaign (other than ending the Iraq war).  Rather, his political career, including two years in the U.S. Senate, featured conventional liberal prescriptions for domestic concerns.

Accordingly, it is not surprising that the Administration’s initial forays overseas were marked by naivete and wishful thinking.  The so-called guilt tour of the Middle East and the much maligned “reset” with Russia of early 2009 are prominent examples.

Yet the U.S. reaction to the “green revolution” of Iran’s protesters later that year was of a different sort.  America stood by while foes of the anti-U.S. regime were brutally repressed.  We provided no help and barely uttered a peep in protest.  Did the Administration not understand the opportunity to advance our interests?  Or was the inaction a consequence of an ideological aversion to doing so?

In 2010 the Iraq war wore down as the President announced a date certain for withdrawal.  Military observers criticized the action as premature and likely to cause an unraveling of the stability that so many Americans had fought and bled to secure.  Efforts to obtain an agreement on a long term presence were unsuccessful.

The Administration refocused attention on Afghanistan (which Barack had termed during the 2008 campaign as the “good war”).  Drone strikes were stepped up and U.S. forces increased.

At the same time, the President let the world –and the Taliban – know that our commitment there was not open-ended, either. 

[Announcing that U.S. involvement in an unpopular war will end by a specific date is undoubtedly comforting to Obama’s anti-war constituency, but it can only encourage our enemies on the battlefield to persevere until we depart, thus severely undercutting the objective that was the purpose of our involvement!]

The President continued the hunt for Osama Bin Laden which finally culminated in success.  But despite Administration predictions, his Al Qaeda terror group was not affected.

In Libya, an American foe was toppled.  In this effort, the U.S. famously led from behind as British and French allies took a more prominent role.

The Administration’s relative diffidence about affairs after the  fall of Gadaffi resulted in a deadly cost as the killing of our ambassador and three other U.S. personnel in September of last year demonstrated.

Earlier this year, the “red line” was crossed in Syria and Al Qaeda’s influence there expanded greatly, all without a visible U.S. response except verbiage. 

In the past few months, Obama has entered into a temporary deal with Iran regarding its nuclear activities.  This has been subjected to condemnation by Israeli and Saudi Arabian allies who are most vulnerable to Tehran’s aggression.

Now comes news that America had acquiesced in part to China’s unilaterally-imposed expanded air security zone, contrary to the interests of our ally Japan, in particular.

Further, Russia has succeeded in cowing the Ukraine into renouncing previous plans to join the European Union. 

[Can anyone doubt that these recent actions – plainly in opposition to the interests of America and our allies – were taken after calculating that the U.S. reaction would be tepid and ineffectual at best?]

Naivete and inexperience were probably factors in the conduct of Barack Obama’s foreign policy five years ago.  But Americans did have a right to expect that he would have learned lessons since then.   Instead, reviewing the Administration’s performance, it is hard to conclude that the President understands that his proclivity for grand words and cheap face-saving deals projects weakness (he’s just all talk).  Inexperience is no longer an acceptable excuse.

Our president is one stubborn individual.  But he’s also consistent.  He is loath to accept that his “liberal” view of policy – at home and abroad – is simply wrong and, more importantly, dangerous to America’s survival as a strong and free land.

The grade?  “D-”.  Noting that his policies haven’t been entirely devoid of successes and anyway, in the Christmas season, I may be inclined to be overly generous. 

Senate Democrats Change the Rules – How Should the GOP React?

Late last month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and fellow Democrats changed centuries-old Senate rules by prohibiting filibusters for votes on Administration appointments and judicial nominees (Supreme Court picks excluded).

The potential requirement of a super-majority remains in effect for other matters (sixty votes would still be needed to cut off debate).

Republicans were outraged by this diminution of their power as the minority.  They wasted no time in shouting “hypocrisy” – both Harry Reid and then-Senator Barack Obama, among other Democrats, had decried threats to impose filibuster limitations when they were in the minority.

More ominously, GOP noted that their time in the majority will come soon again. How will Senate Democrats like the rule change then?  Of course, what goes around typically comes around.  And when Republicans regain a Senate majority, which thanks to Obamacare seems quite likely next year, should payback be the GOP response?

 

No.

Of course the temptation will be strong.  But is yes the right answer?

 

The purpose of a filibuster is to provide a roadblock to majority rule.  That is consistent with a purpose of the U.S. Constitution:  prevent unrestrained simple majority tyranny.

James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, #62, noted the special role of the upper chamber in this regard: 

“The necessity of a Senate is… indicated by the propensity of
 all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse                      of sudden and violent passions… .”

The current Senate majority has undercut this Constitutional restraint.  Although Republicans, when they resume control, can adopt the new rule for short-term partisan gain, such would not be in the Nation’s interest.

Better, I suggest, would be for the Republican Party to demonstrate its higher allegiance to the Constitution by repealing the 2013 rule change.  That act, by itself, would probably carry political dividends for the GOP by illustrating that it is concerned with more than partisan advantage.

 

But of far greater importance to the country, rule reversal will likely serve as a strong deterrent to future efforts to tamper with traditional safeguards for minority rights contemplated by anybody.

 

If Senate Republicans do, indeed, acquire majority status in 2015, they will have the opportunity to set a standard of putting the long term interest of the Nation ahead of all other considerations.  It is reasonable to expect that future generations of political leaders will be inspired – or shamed – into honoring it.