Randy's Views

It is difficult to determine which is more shocking - the United States Supreme Court’s decision to shield child rapists from the death penalty or its rationale for unilaterally amending the United States Constitution to do so.

In Kennedy v. Louisiana, as described by Justice Alito in his dissent, the Supreme Court held that “the Eighth Amendment categorically prohibits the imposition of the death penalty for the crime of raping a child. This is so, according to the Court, no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator’s prior criminal record may be.”

Stop for one moment and think about it. No matter how young the child. No matter how many times the child was raped. No matter how many children the perpetrator has raped. No matter how cruel and sadistic the crime. No matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted. No matter how many times the perpetrator has done it before - the perpetrator will never face even the prospect of the death penalty.

To reach its decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, on behalf of the Court, actually invoked “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society” to justify its greater protection for child rapists.

No one should overlook the facts of the case before the Court. Patrick Kennedy raped his eight year old stepdaughter so severely that the treating doctor testified that the girl’s “injuries were the most severe he had seen from a sexual assault in his four years of practice.” To quote the Court, “her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus.” When police arrived, she was bleeding profusely. It was so bad, she required emergency surgery.

So, how does the Court determine this “evolving standard of decency” that shields such child rapists from capital punishment? It looked for a “national consensus” among state governments and then to its own “independent judgment.”

According to the Court, “[u]nder the precept of justice that punishment is to be graduated and proportioned to the crime, informed by evolving standards, capital punishment must be limited to those offenders who commit a narrow category of the most serious crimes and whose extreme culpability makes them the most deserving of execution.” Most might believe that the rape of an eight year old girl should be considered among the narrow category of the most serious crimes that when combined with extreme culpability makes the perpetrator deserving of execution. Not this Court.

In fact, the Court concluded that the perpetrator had not committed a crime within the narrow category of the most serious crimes, nor did his level of culpability make him deserving of execution. Worse yet, the Court held that no child rapist, regardless of the circumstances surrounding the crime, who did not intentionally kill their victim, would merit capital punishment.

According to the Court, the death penalty in such a case would be disproportionate to the crime itself because the rape of a child did not result, and was not intended to result in the victim’s death.

Why? Because according the Court, the Constitutional standard for limiting the circumstances for the imposition of the death penalty “must change as the basic mores of society change” even when the Constitution has not been changed. And so, the Court changed the Constitution.

Never mind the formal procedure outlined in the Constitution for the amendment of the Constitution. The Court’s approach was simply to overlay its reading of the national consensus of state legislatures with its own judgment of the boundaries of acceptable punishment for heinous crimes.

From here, the Court concludes that since 1964, there appears to be “a national consensus against capital punishment for the crime of child rape.” Candidly, God help the United States if there is a national consensus that the rape of a child regardless of its circumstances is not as bad or morally depraved as murder.

And so, just like that, no Constitutional Convention; no two-thirds of the Congress; no ratification by three-fourths of the states - just a survey by Court and its own judgment and that is enough.

In the words of the Court, “[i]nformed by its own precedents and its understanding of the Constitution and the rights it secures, the Court concludes, in its independent judgment, that the death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the crime of child rape.”

They do not have a clue. God help this Court.

In 2006, American voters sent a very clear message to Washington, D.C. Americans wanted change - change from a pattern of corruption in the House of Representatives; change from failed strategies in Iraq; change from political bickering that prevented solutions from becoming reality; and change from the cultural drift from the core values that made America great.

Change is what Americans wanted in 2006; and change is what they got.

In the Congress, control changed from the Republicans to the Democrats in 2006 in both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. Now admittedly, since that change, things have not gone so well. The economy has struggled and even stumbled with staggering stock market losses that have undermined the confidence of even the staunchest optimist.

Gasoline prices continue to climb at an alarming rate and have risen from $2.50 per gallon when Democrats took control of the Congress to now over $4.00 per gallon. Solutions coming out of the Congress so far have been limited to more taxes or less consumption. Neither holds any meaningful hope for long term solutions to solve America’s growing energy crisis.

Meanwhile, unemployment continues to edge upward as more and more Americans face the prospect of tough economic times ahead. For many others, businesses have imposed new cost-cutting measures that limit new hiring, threaten overtime and reduce benefits.

With heavy pressure from rapidly rising energy costs, inflation has started to rear its ugly head, and threatens to prolong the economic slowdown for many months to come. It is really not a very pretty picture.

Not all of the change coming out of the 2006 election has been bad. With a big assist from General Petraeus, America’s military forces, through the sacrifice and commitment of its brave men and women, have turned the war around in Iraq.
The surge has by all accounts proven successful. Deaths are down; violence is down; and overall stability in the country is up. This has enabled the United States military to stick by its measured draw-down of troops from Iraq.

Yet, Afghanistan continues to be a real challenge. Tyrannies and terrorists never go easily into the night. As a result, the Taliban has escalated its violence in hopes to prompt an Iraq-like “cut and run” political response on the American political scene as the 2008 Presidential elections approach. President Bush will have no part of it and has promised increased forces in Afghanistan to secure the progress that America’s soldiers have already delivered.

Then, there has been the United States Supreme Court. After years of creating gray, and then wallowing in the murky middle, the Court has issued a series of rulings that are sweeping in effect. So far, the Court has adopted the mantra - “often in error, never in doubt.”

In definitive terms, the Court has granted enemy combatants held by the United States military the Constitutional right to challenge in a United States court the basis upon which they are held by the military. The Court has held that child rapists, regardless of how heinous their crime, can never be executed unless they killed or intended to kill their victim. This has been a change of a different kind.

Amidst all of this “change” comes the 2008 Presidential election which has been branded the “change election.” With the stark changes, some good, some not, that have occurred in the last eighteen months, Americans are starting to focus on a different kind of question: what kind of change?

Control of the Congress, the White House, and even the Supreme Court, will be at play in 2008.

All four hundred and thirty five House of Representatives will be elected.

Thirty-five United States Senators will be elected.

The next President of the United States will be elected.

And with two Supreme Court Justices approaching retirement, control of the current Supreme Court with four liberals, four conservatives, and a single swing vote will be at play. As a result, the next President will likely decide the make-up of the Court for the next twenty years.

Believe it or not, when the founding fathers gathered two hundred and thirty two years ago, this is exactly what they contemplated. No king or monarchy would rule for an entire generation. Control of government would not be passed down by the randomness of inheritance or a battle of bullets. Instead, the power of the government would rest in the people. After all, that is what the Declaration of Independence is really all about.

The ability to choose. America’s future is not predestined or predetermined. Instead, as an independent and free country, each American will have the power to directly participate in a process that determines who will lead the United States. Is this a great country or what?

On January 20, 2009, the United States of America will inaugurate its forty-fourth President. Absent some historic event between now and then, the Presidency of the forty-third President of the United States has for all practical purposes come to an end. At this point, the chances of any meaningful policy changes, appointments, or initiatives by a Republican President with a Democratic Congress in the last days of a lame duck term are nil.

Already, Bush-bashers portray President George W. Bush as one of the worst Presidents in history. (They seem to forget Presidents James Buchanan, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.) Mostly, the unabashed Bush haters trade on an unpopular war, a slowing economy, and a general malaise that has put the country in what can only be described as a ‘bad mood’. In doing so, they ignore the realities of the moment that confirm some momentous achievements of this President.

Undoubtedly, the most important event during the Presidency of George W. Bush was September 11, 2001. Like Gettysburg and Pearl Harbor, it is a day that will live in infamy. The challenges arising from the foreign attacks against Americans on the soil of the United States reached to the very core of everyday American life. Not every President would have been up to the task of leading the country at that time.

If, at that moment, the average American had been asked, “How will you measure the success of this President?” then the answer almost universally would have been, “Whether he protects the United States from another such attack.”

Against that measure, President George W. Bush has met the standard for a successful President in a challenging time. It has not been a lack of effort on the part of America’s enemies. Indeed, there have been many reported and unreported plots that have been thwarted by the United States government working with other governments around the world. Instead, his success has been the product of a concentrated and determined effort to protect and defend the United States of America.

Not everyone likes what it takes to protect America. From Guantanamo Bay to foreign intelligence to Iraq, there are reasons why many despise this President. Yet, they cannot ignore that his formula for protecting America has in fact worked. While they were prepared to take risks with American lives, he was not. Give him the blame for the decisions he made, but also give him the credit for his successes.

No one can seriously doubt that the terrorists are weaker today than they were on September 11, 2001. Osama Bin Laden has been relegated to hiding in caves and sending secretly recorded video tapes that mean little. Meanwhile, America’s military chases them wherever they may hide.

Unnoticed, President Bush has performed his job as the Commander in Chief with the character and dignity becoming his office. There have been no allegations of corruption or bribery flowing out of the Oval Office. There have been no scandals involving lurid details of secret liaisons and inappropriate affairs of the President. The business of the government has not been distracted by investigations arising out of the personal behavior of the President. Instead, this White House has performed the responsibilities of the Office of the President in a manner consistent with the honor and dignity of the highest office of the land.

A large part of this personal success has to be the open and obvious personal faith that the President has. Many believe that a personal faith in God has no place in government. Hence, they openly despise expressions of faith by public officials, including the President. Fortunately, President Bush has not allowed the secularists to dissuade him from relying on and applying his faith in the performance of his duties as the President of the United States.

His commitment to his faith and values were indeed reflected in his two appointments to the United States Supreme Court. Already, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito have been important voices on the Supreme Court.

History will be the ultimate judge of the George W. Bush Presidency. Whether Iraq was a key element or an unnecessary distraction in fighting and winning the war on terror may not be determined for decades. What is clear today, however, is that President George W. Bush has fulfilled his oath to protect and preserve the United States of America - both domestically and abroad. This is a fact that not even his worst detractors can challenge.

Senator Barack Obama handled it in the best way possible - diminish it and move on - as quickly as possible - with the hope that the story (about the picture) would die out and, as a result, most Americans would never see it. After all, the last thing the Obama team would want is an ongoing controversy that extended the political shelf life of a potentially devastating political satirical caricature beyond a media cycle or two.

So, what was it that created near panic among optimistic Democrats? It was the July 21, 2008 cover of the New Yorker magazine. The picture reflects Senator Barack Obama clad in Muslim garb; his wife Michelle Obama dressed with militant gear; a flag burning in the fireplace behind them; and a picture of Osama Bin Laden hung on the wall.

The New Yorker, whose liberal bias eliminates the infamous “vast right wing conspiracy” as a possibility, insists that its cover is nothing more than satire. (Undoubtedly, the director of sales viewed it as an instant revenue surge as magazine sales were sure to increase as the controversy blossomed.)

Yet, the fear of Democrats everywhere had to be that this could be one of those proverbial “connect the dots” moments where a single picture instantaneously defines in stark terms the Presidential nominee (and his wife) for an American electorate that has not quite made up its mind. Once the dots are connected, it is next to impossible to offer any other acceptable explanation.

Defining moments are not new in Presidential campaigns. Most often, they come in the form of a simple picture that reflects visually the unspoken suspicions of an unsure electorate about whom or what a candidate really is. Rarely are they completely accurate. Yet, they are lasting.

It happened in 1988 with a picture of Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis driving a tank wearing an oversized helmet. It said it all. No matter what he said, or how much he spent after that, the Massachusetts governor could never recover.

Something similar happened to Senator John Kerry in 2004. There he was windsurfing in a flowered swimsuit. The subliminal suspicions of a jetsetter rich kid who never grew up crystallized in a clear picture that explained it all.

Sometimes, it can be a political caricature that does the trick. For President Jimmy Carter, it was renderings of the attack of the killer bunny rabbit while he was fishing. (Any hope of recovering and proving that he had not lost all touch with reality was lost when he cited a conversation with his then twelve year old daughter Amy as proof of a national concern over nuclear arms proliferation.) The jokes, the ribbing, and the humor in it all - he could not recover.

These defining moments are not limited to Democrats. President Gerald Ford stumbling over steps getting off of Air Force One painted a picture of a bumbling never elected President who was in over his head. (Of course, insisting in 1976 that “[t]here is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration” while the Soviets had four divisions of troops in Poland did not help.)

And who can forget Senator Bob Dole falling off the stage in 1996 just as the public wondered if indeed he was too old. In 1992, it had been President George H. W. Bush seemingly confirming his disinterest by looking at his watch during a Presidential debate. After seeing these pictures, Americans checked the box, and then moved on to elect and re-elect President Bill Clinton.

In 2000, it was Vice-President Al Gore’s repeated sighs that caught the attention of voters. Whatever his kissing his wife at the 2000 Democratic Convention had accomplished, his contemptuous sighs and interruptions during the debate were eliminated.

So now in 2008 comes the cover of the New Yorker magazine. Rumors and innuendo circled during the Democratic primary contest with Senator Hillary Clinton over Senator Obama’s religion with more than hints by opponents that he might in fact be Muslim. Internet buzz continued about Michelle Obama’s doctoral thesis and her “real” opinions about America.

Early in the campaign there was the flag pin controversy arising out of Senator Obama’s refusal to wear the American flag on his lapel. And based on his continued willingness to talk with America’s enemies, his opponents have raised questions about just how committed he would be to find America’s number one public enemy - Osama Bin Laden.

Amidst it all comes this picture. Time will only tell whether it was an image that connected all the dots or instead is just another passing blip on the political radar in a long Presidential contest. Senator Obama says he has seen worse. But, it is unlikely that he has seen a picture more worrisome.

Twice former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Speaker Tom Murphy faced challenges to their Speakerships from disgruntled Members of their respective caucuses in the United States House of Representatives and the Georgia House of Representatives. Tom Murphy survived both. Newt Gingrich was not so fortunate.

Current Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson has now gotten his first official challenge as Speaker. Blue Ridge Republican State Representative David Ralston has announced that he will challenge the Georgia House Speaker Glen Richardson.

There are only three ways to really challenge a Speaker. First, during the Session, a Member can move to vacate the chair, which is the Speaker. This was the strategy of the famous coup attempt in the summer of 1997 against Speaker Newt Gingrich by several Members of the House GOP including some of the House leadership. As it turns out, the bluff by the challengers was called by Speaker Gingrich after he learned of the attempt, and the effort fell apart.

Second, there can be a challenge within the majority party’s caucus. Basically, before each legislative session begins, each party in the house meets to elect their nominees to various positions in the house, including the Speakership. Since the majority party has the most votes, it is presumed that all of its Members will vote for and elect its nominee for Speaker. Twice, Democrats challenged former Speaker Tom Murphy from within his own caucus. Representative Al Burruss from Marietta (in the 1970s) and Representative Dubose Porter from Dublin (in the 1990s) both tried to take Speaker Murphy down. Both failed. Both learned first hand the old adage which is something like “if you throw a spear at the king, you had better kill him.”

Candidly, it is virtually impossible to defeat a sitting Speaker who has successfully defended his party’s majority. To successfully mount a bid to unseat a sitting Speaker, the challenger would have to muster over one-half of the majority caucus’ Members in support. Given that the sitting Speaker doles out committee assignments, wields enormous campaign fundraising prowess, and preserves political turf for Members, the chances of success for such a challenge are pretty slim. In the absence of defections by Members of the House Leadership, the chances are virtually nonexistent.

There have been no such defections among the ranks in the Georgia House Leadership. Moreover, Speaker Richardson has amassed a formidable political war chest to help other House GOP Members who stand with him. More significantly, he has wasted no time in racking up public endorsements for his reelection as Speaker that far exceed the one-half of the House GOP Conference that he needs.

Currently, Republicans have 101 seats, which means that Speaker Richardson needs only 51 votes to be reelected as the House GOP nominee for Speaker. He has 80 commitments. Basically, the chances that Representative David Ralston can beat him within the House Conference are nonexistent. There is, however, one other possible challenge that can be made to a sitting Speaker.

A House Member can lead a group of defectors who simply refuse to vote to reelect the Speaker. Unlike any other leadership position in the House of Representatives, the Speaker is elected by all of the House of Representatives. As a result, the Speaker must receive over one-half of all the House in order to be elected or reelected as Speaker.

Generally, it is presumed that all of the Majority Party will support its nominee and all of the Minority Party will vote for its nominee. Since the Majority Party has the most votes, the presumption is that its nominee wins.

But this is not always the case. In 1998, Congressman Bob Livingston led a group that insisted they would not vote for Speaker Newt Gingrich for reelection. Since the number of defectors exceeded the Republicans’ margin of control, they could have prevented Speaker Gingrich’s reelection as Speaker. No one will ever know whether the defecting Republicans would have followed through with their threat. Speaker Gingrich stepped down before the 106th Congress began.

In the Georgia House, it takes 91 votes to elect a Speaker. Could there be eleven (11) defections willing to jeopardize control of the Georgia House? Unlikely. Representative Ralston has already made clear that he has no intention of taking

his challenge to the floor of the Georgia House. After all what would it profit a man to topple a Republican Speaker only to land the Speakership in the hands of the Democratic Party.