Tribe: Judge Taylor's decision the right one

[gratuitous]

And apparently all the carping about her "style" is designed to mask that the decision will hold up on appeal. At least according to Laurence Tribe, who knows a thing or two about the law. Commentary by Glenn Greenwald with a link to Tribe's legal analysis of the decision:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/posts/2006/08/20/professor-tribe-points-to-those-with-constitutional-blood-on-their-hands/#more-9731

A federal district court this week ruled what has been evident for some time now — that the President of the U.S. has been systematically breaking the law without any valid defense, and ruled further that his administration has been violating the constitutional rights of Americans. In response, most of the media and the "legal experts" they consult have been far more interested in pretentiously demeaning the quality of the Judge’s written opinion — as though what matters is to have law professors snidely grade the Judge’s work – than they are interested in the grave constitutional crisis our country faces as a result of a lawless presidency.

More at the link.

[texpatriot2004]

1. Honored to K&R. Thanks for the link. nm

[Marie26]

2. I think it'll hold up

through the Supreme Court, assuming standing isn't a problem. It'd be interesting to see what Bush does if the SC rules against this program. They show no signs of stopping it now, and I think they'd actually defy the SC rather than end the surveillance program.

[longship]

3. Recommended and kicked.

:kick:

[Jim__]

4. I hope Tribe is right and the decision is upheld.

If bush is given the OK on his claim that as CIC he can do whatever he wants, the US is finished as a democracy. It will take another revolution to win back our freedoms.

[EST]

5. This is a damned good article.

I especially appreciate the competent deconstruction of Arlen the Spectre,
"and when the lawmakers who are posturing as the program’s critics have in fact engineered a statutory "fix" that amounts to little more than a whitewash in the offing —"

When the best coverage the alleged news brokers can arrange is a bleating herd of punditry aristocracy who choose to attack the messenger (again) in the form of Diggs-Taylor, it certainly informs us as to what side of the question they automatically orient toward.

The damage arises, to me, from the choice that the vice-presidents men made to pursue their own agenda in the face of an obvious constitutional question. The unwillingness of the administration to bring their challenge to the attention of congress or the scotus, prior to taking the actions they have, tells me they knew full well the shakiness of their premise.

These crooks have to be held accountable and they have to face prosecution and punishment, if for no other reason than to give future presidents pause.

[Supersedeas]

6. constitutional analysis by the Corp Media--surely, you jest--instead CNN

feeds up some partisanship by TOBIN.

[gratuitous]

7. Not to mention the self-appointed "experts"

And there are a couple running around even here at DU, highly concerned about Judge Taylor's "sloppy" writing (thankfully their analyses are uniformly example free) and how that's going to doom this decision to being overturned. In reading the opinion, I found the framing of the questions before the court was rather "sloppy," which makes the decision all that harder to write.

Whether the writer is a judge or an appellate attorney, it's difficult to write an effective opinion or brief when dealing with a poor set of pleadings or brief in the first place. A lot of your writing (and attorneys are under strict page limits on their briefs) is spent on "Respondent said blah, blah, blah, which doesn't address the issues at hand in this case." Then comes three pages of why your adversary is off base. Then a page spent saying what your adversary more properly should have said. Then comes the rebuttal, and you've already spent four or five pages of a 20-page limit just getting one issue properly framed. When there are multiple issues, as there were in this case, it's very difficult to be brief in the brief, if you catch my meaning.

Likewise, a judge has to explain why a party's lame argument is lame, restate the argument as it should have been made in the first place, then explain why it's still no good. While judges don't labor under the same page restrictions that attorneys do, it's still difficult to sound coherent when the substantive portion of an opinion comes only after eight pages of getting the table properly set for the centerpiece.

[gratuitous]

8. Gee, where'd all the legal experts go?

We were chock full of them over the weekend . . .

Nobody wants to argue with Laurence Tribe?