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Banned
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Originally Posted by Mr Mephisto
Duly noted. Apologies for the thread hijack. I get carried away sometimes when addressing blatant mistruths. 
Agreed 100%. I'm all for security, but that final order was just a little OTT.
To be fair, was Clinton any different? I honestly don't know. I have heard it said that he held a lot more press conferences, and didn't impose "no free speech" zones. But did he engage in unprepared Q&A sessions?
We've moved on from silly and paranoid "security measures" to general criticism of Bush's dealings with the media.
Mr Mephisto |
Well, who better to assess the contrast between free speech rights during
the Clinton years, compared to today, than one of Cinton's staunchest political opponents, former republican congressman Bob Barr, of the Clinton
impeachment trial fame.................
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<a href="http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20040825_barr.html">http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20040825_barr.html</a>
................Back When Politics Was Fun, Protest Was Part of It
Throughout the Reagan and Clinton presidencies, and even to some extent during the Nixon years, politics was fun. At least, political protesting had its lighter moments. (Nothing was really fun during the dour Carter Administration, and George H.W. Bush's presidency was, well, pretty boring except for the First Gulf War.)
Who can forget the great costumes and Nixon face masks that appeared at many political rallies and other events during the 1960s and early 1970s? Reagan and Clinton masks, the latter sometimes adorned with long, Pinocchio-type noses, added color and a bit of levity to political demonstrations throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s. There was, in a word, tolerance.
Reagan, with his constant good humor, almost always disarmed protesters with his wit. Conservatives wearing anti-Clinton T-shirts frequently showed up at Clinton rallies. The worst they might face from the then-president's supporters were scowls.
This atmosphere didn't mean security was absent; it was very present. In the 1960s through the end of Clinton's second term in January 2001, everyone knew if you caused disruption, Secret Service agents would be on you in an instant, as they should be.
But during that period, you didn't feel you were doing something criminal if you simply decided to show up at a rally with a protest T-shirt on, or lugging around a sloppy paperboard sign criticizing the president. You didn't feel intimidated................
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IMO, a true test of respect for our constitution's system of checks and balances by any president is appointments made to the supreme court.
Here is some info on the two supreme court justices appointed by Clinton:
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<a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761579563/Stephen_Breyer.html">http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761579563/Stephen_Breyer.html</a>
Breyer, Stephen Gerald (1938- associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1994- President Bill Clinton nominated Breyer to replace Justice Harry Blackmun when Blackmun retired in 1994.
Breyer was born in San Francisco and graduated from Stanford University in 1958. He also studied politics, economics, and philosophy as a Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford in England. In 1964 he earned a law degree from Harvard Law School then spent a year working as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg.
Breyer began teaching law at Harvard University in 1967. He served as an assistant special prosecutor in 1973 for the Justice Department during the Watergate scandal. In 1974 Breyer became special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee where he worked on deregulating the airline industry. In 1979 he became the committee's chief counsel, and in the following year President Jimmy Carter appointed Breyer to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1990 Breyer became the chief judge. He earned a reputation as a pragmatist on cases involving business regulation, not deciding issues based on strictly conservative or liberal ideology. He supported government deregulation of business and enforcement of strong antitrust laws, but favored regulations that set environmental, health, and safety protections. Breyer's nonideological approach, which earned him the support of both Democrats and Republicans, paved the way for an easy confirmation by the U.S. Senate to the Supreme Court in 1994.
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Quote:
<a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561043/Ginsburg_Ruth_Bader.html">http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761561043/Ginsburg_Ruth_Bader.html</a>
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader (1933- ), American jurist and professor of law, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1993- ), who has worked toward ending institutionalized discrimination against women. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 15, 1933. She attended Cornell University and the law schools at Harvard and Columbia universities. Despite graduating from Columbia at the top of her class, she encountered difficulties in finding a job in a traditionally male profession. In 1959 she secured a clerkship for the U.S. District Court of Appeals in New York. Ginsburg taught at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963 to 1972, the year she returned to Columbia Law School and became the first tenured female professor at that institution.
Ginsburg attracted notice in the 1970s for her teachings and litigation aimed at ending institutionalized discrimination against women. Between 1973 and 1976 she argued six cases on women's rights before the Supreme Court, winning five of them.
Ginsburg received an appointment to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. On the Court of Appeals she was known for her scholarly, balanced opinions. As a moderate-liberal, Ginsburg sided with both liberal and conservative wings of the court.
President Bill Clinton (1993- ) nominated Ginsburg to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1993. Ginsburg became the second woman appointed to the Supreme Court, after Sandra Day O'Connor, who was nominated in 1981.
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Compare the two Clinton appointments to the same publication's write up
of Bush Sr. appointees:
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<a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558105/Thomas_Clarence.html">http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558105/Thomas_Clarence.html</a>
Thomas, Clarence (1948- ) American jurist, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Born in Savannah, Georgia, he earned an A.B. degree from Holy Cross College and the J.D. from Yale Law School before taking a job as assistant attorney general of Missouri (1974-1977). As assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education (1981-1982) and chairman of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (1982-1989) he earned a reputation as an outspoken black conservative who opposed minority preference programs. He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1989, and nominated by President George Bush to the Supreme Court in July 1991, replacing the retiring Justice Thurgood Marshall. Thomas's already controversial confirmation hearings were jarred by allegations of sexual harassment brought against Thomas by Anita Hill, a law professor who had worked for him in two federal agencies during the 1980s. Adamantly rejecting Hill's accounts of his alleged misconduct, Thomas described the nationally televised proceedings as a “high-tech lynching” engineered by liberal opponents. The Senate confirmed him in October 1991 by a 52 to 48 vote.
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Quote:
<a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558495/Souter_David_H.html">http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761558495/Souter_David_H.html</a>
Souter, David H.. (1939- American jurist, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. Born in Melrose, Massachusetts, he studied for two years as a Rhodes scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, before returning to Harvard University to take his law degree. After two years in private practice in New Hampshire he entered public service, eventually becoming the state's attorney general (1976-78). Named to the state trial court in 1978, he was elevated to the state supreme court in 1983. He served for two months in 1990 as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. In July of that year, Souter was nominated by President George Bush to the Supreme Court and confirmed by the Senate in October.
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Last edited by host; 01-17-2005 at 09:51 AM..
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