Missouri Senator Kit Bond has a way with words.
Warming up the crowd at a Sarah Palin rally in Cape Guradeau, the Republican highlighted Barack Obama‘s love for liberal judges, including those who support “the gay.”
Taking the stage as one of the pre-program speakers at a Sarah Palin rally here in Rush Limbaugh’s hometown, [Bond], fired up the crowd by warning them about Barack Obama’s judicial philosophy.
“Just this past week, we saw what Barack Obama said about judges,” Bond said. “He said, ‘I’m tired of these judges who want to follow what the Founding Fathers said and the Constitution. I want judges who have a heart, have an empathy for the teenage mom, the minority, the gay, the disabled. We want them to show empathy. We want them to show compassion.’”
And no sane person would want a judge with a heart. That would be blasphemous.
Chris
If he actually quoted Barack accurately, then that’s yet ANOTHER reason to vote FOR Obama. Of course we want judges with compassion and empathy. It takes a special kind of idiocy and cold-heartedness to want otherwise.
Daniel
interesting he mentioned “the teenage mom”….wouldn’t that be Palin’s daughter?
Mark
Yes, indeed. Yet another Republican who mis-quoted Obama, forgot that Palin’s daughter is one of the people he hates with a passion, and is over-medicated. Look at the man. How many meds do you think he’s on? Really. I think that’s why he’s such a moron.
John Smith
The quote from Obama is accurate. But have you all taken leave of your senses? Do you want judges to base their decisions on the law and the Constitution, or shall a judge make a decision based on sympathy for whoever is standing before him or her? By the way, judges take an oath to enforce the law and the Constitution, and I hope that all judges, including Obama’s choices, follow their oaths.
RyanInSacto
@John Smith: Of course we want judges to base their decisions on the Constitution. However, the distinction drawn here is a false one. The Constitution is in no way specific enough to be relied upon solely in most cases. The Founders specifically kept the language broad and vague in order to allow for interpretation. The term “activist judges” is merely a shorthand way of saying, “I didn’t like that ruling and therefore I’m going to say that the judge was straying from the Constitution.”
John Smith
Here is Obama’s quote from July 17, 2007:
Obama on judges, Supreme Court Posted: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 4:21 PM by Mark Murray
Filed Under: Democrats, 2008
From NBC’s Carrie Dann
Speaking at the Planned Parenthood conference in DC this afternoon, Barack Obama leveled harsh words at conservative Supreme Court justices, and he offered his own intention to appoint justices with “empathy.” Obama hinted that the court’s recent decision in Gonzales v. Carhart — which upheld a ban on partial-birth abortion — was part of “a concerted effort to steadily roll back” access to abortions. And he ridiculed Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote that case’s majority opinion. “Justice Kennedy knows many things,” he declared, “but my understanding is that he does not know how to be a doctor.”
Obama also won a laugh at the expense of Chief Justice John Roberts, saying that judgments of Roberts’ character during his confirmation hearings were largely superficial. “He loves his wife. He’s good to his dog,” he joked, adding that judicial philosophy should be weighted more seriously than such evaluations. “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”
Capt. Jack Harkness
I’m really at the point right now that it shows me just how INSANE and just basically BAD Republicans are and in my opinion right now ANYONE who votes Republican and votes for this evil scum.
I will no longer associate with anyone who Votes Republican and I will no longer do business with any Republican Presidential Candidate Supporters. Thats just the way it has to be for me now.
John Smith
@RyanInSacto: Suppose you are a judge and a defendant is before you facing a charge of murder. If that defendant is a teenage mom, poor, African-American, gay, disabled, or old, should your empathy alter your judicial decisions or shall all citizens be judged equally under law? Isn’t equality under the law the foundation of our legal system?
JJ
There are always mitigating factors in any crime to consider no matter what.
The doctrinaire ideologues, or strict constructionists is the nice term I guess, like Scalia and Clarence Thomes (yuch!) are a problem.
People should grow up and realize that the Constitution is nearly 250 years old. Things change. We need to judiciously interpret the Constitution, not adhere to its black and white contents. Remember, women couldn’t vote and African-Americans were slaves in 1780.
As for Kit Bond, the Republicans are trying everything at the last minute: race-baiting, and red-baiting included. The reference to teenage pregnancy is clearly race-baiting since most people don’t know the truth that whites account for a higher percentage of teen pregnancy, and they think of the image of the black teenage welfare mom.
Republican fear-mongering goes like this: we don’t want a Black, godless communist, homosexual, who consorts with terrorists, and (Florida only: doesn’t like Isreal) as president do we?
The Republicans are down in the gutter about as far as one can go, I think, but let’s see, it might be deeper.
gueller
I freakin Love Sarah Palin, just like other’s freaking love Obama.
Tim
So he wants good Christian judges who, with a cold black heart, will mercilessly interpret the Constitution how the founders saw it?
What, so we bring back the 3/5ths clause,
cause that worked out well for everybody didn’t it?
JJ
Are there gays for Palin?
RyanInSacto
@John Smith: You are posing a staw-man argument. You are assuming that there is a way to make Constitutional decisions in which the justice in question doesn’t actually have to judge. They’re called “judges” for a reason. The question is not *whether* they will judge, but *how* and trying to ignore that doesn’t make it go away.
Furthermore, murder cases are rarely, if ever, Constitutional issues. I don’t think the Supreme Court hears murder cases. They might hear sentencing appeals because those might relate to the Constitution in some way. So stop obfuscating the issue here – Obama is concerned with how the Court will treat civil rights and civil liberties. If you’re spending your time on a gay blog, you should be concerned about those things too.
BobP
The term “activist judges” was coined by W. It referred to the Mass. judges, who were the first to allow gay marriage. He called them activists judges because the majority were republicans, and he couldn’t very well call them the “republican liberal judges”, now could he.
BobP
The term “activist judges” was coined by W. It referred to the Mass. judges, who were the first to allow gay marriage. He called them activists judges because the majority were republicans, and he couldn’t very well call them the “republican liberal judges”, now could he?
John Smith
@RyanInSancto: The President appoints all Federal judges from Supreme Court to Appeals Court to District Court, which hear cases of all kinds. I am as concerned about civil rights and civil liberties as you are. Everyone should be judged equally, whether or not they are the member of a particular social group. It worries me that Obama wants to give some litigants favorable treatment, a sort of affirmative action, which is inconsistent with equal protection under law. And yes, I know this is a gay blog, and I am gay. The gay community is very diverse, and the rainbow flag flies for a diversity of gay people.
Mr C
John I see sublimmal thoughts of racism in your comments.
Do you all research McCain like you have Obama, And if not…why? strange to me.
No one is more activist then these white congressmen and judges who shit on this community time and time again.
Don’t you think you’ve had enough of it?
Mordecai
The Log Cabin Republicans must be so proud of Sen. Kit Bond. Not to mention the disabled community, for that matter.