There's a lot you can say about first year Alex Cortes, but you certainly can't charge he lacks tenacity. According to friends of mine at the Cav Daily Opinion section, Cortes had submitted a piece several times arguing Hillary Clinton couldn't constitutionally run for president because the U.S. Constitution describes the president's powers using the pronoun "he" (you can read a version of it on his blog). The paper rarely prints letters unrelated to the University community and felt no particular compunction to make an exception in this case. He was so insistent that it became something of a running joke at the paper, and a heavily modified version of it wound up in their April Fools' issue.
Undeterred, Cortes decided to broach the issue in another forum: a lecture given at the Law School today by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In the Q & A afterwards, Cortes asked Scalia what he thought of the idea. Scalia responded, "Give me a break." He then took a few minutes to explain why the idea held no water whatsoever.
Considering that Scalia's the strictest constructionist of the bunch and even he gave the idea the Supreme Court version of an eye roll, perhaps Cortes will finally lay it to rest. Then again, knowing him, probably not.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
good post aj...unfortunately i am more conservative than scalia. im a strict constructionist in every sense of the word. scalia is not.
Alex, something tells me the problem isn't that Scalia isn't enough of a strict constructionist. Simply put, there's a difference between being a strict constructionist and understanding the grammatical usage of the pronoun "he." Like I said before, even your own party thinks you're nuts.
Alex,
As we've discussed before, liberals were the first to question the word "he." Conservatives argued then, and I argue now, that it has never been intended to oppress women in an all male government, but that it was simply the traditional language of the time. Conservatives were right the first time this came up, and Scalia is right now.
Also, you may or may not have heard of a little thing called the 14th amendment. That is another way that our Constitution protects women from discrimination such as the discrimination which you continue to suggest.
Finally, I think that you need to spend a little more time thinking about how to beat Hillary legally and fairly, and less time thinking about why she can't constitutionally hold office because of her gender. There are a lot of other problems with Hillary that can be focused on, so I would suggest focusing your efforts elsewhere.
Below is the section of the 14th amendment to which you are referring:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
notice how it says State. if you are a strict constructionist, then this portion of the 14th amendment doesn't apply to the federal govt and only to the states
HAHAHAHA, Great post AJ. Everytime I think the one man self-parodying comedy show that is Alex Cortes can't get any better, it does!
Seriously though Alex, has the past year really just been Andy Kaufman-esque comedy show. If so you are truly a genius. This is truly priceless.
Alex - i'm very disappointed that when you had the opportunity to ask hillary a question in sabato's class, you chose to ask her about something other than this pressing topic. your question seems rather irrelevant given that you don't believe she could legally be president. was there a reason you chose to ask her about the economy instead?
i cant stand how she and her fellow democrats lie about the Bush tax cuts.. that bothers me far more than the constitutionality of her presidency
Alex's question to Scalia was just too much. Did he ever consider that we might have had an intelligent and relevant question from a member of the audience in place of his inane one? That's just selfish to waste the audience's time on a question that literally made the justice go into a diatribe about the grammatical structure of pronouns and their antecedents. With Alex's writing skills, I am not surprised that this was news to him...
Low blows aside, it is amazing the self aggrandizement project he runs. Apparently for him any attention is good attention. I wonder how many public embarrassments and utter defeats it will take to unwrap this kid's mind from the shackles of rabid ideology and ignorance.
Anyway, good post AJ... you continue to be among my funniest, most intelligent and least ideologically driven friends. If only more people were like you! :)
is this christa byker? and for your information i wouldn't have asked the question if a lot of people were raising hands, but almost no one was. i do recognize its triviality.
Post a Comment