Not Even Speaking The Same Language

Looks like we'll have a fairly active couple of months politically while Congress deals with the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Expect to hear phrases like "judicial activist" and "up-or-down vote" get thrown around. The problems is, the two sides don't even mean the same things when they use those terms.

Let's look at "judicial activist" first of all. I've always thought of the term as meaning "creating law where there was none" -- court-ordered busing, finding a "right to privacy" in the Constitution that doesn't mention the word, ordering gay marriages be recognized, that sort of thing. The left, however, seems to think that "judicial activism" means overturning laws passed by Congress. Quite a bit of difference there...

With respect to "up or down vote": Many opponents of Judge Alito will say that he won't deserve a vote because Harriet Miers didn't get one. (Of course, this will be during breaks between making fun of a Baptist preacher electrocuted during a baptism.) In my mind, there's a big difference between Senators from the majority party informing the President that he doesn't have the 50 votes needed to confirm, and a minority of Senators procedurally stopping a vote on a candidate who has the 50 needed votes.

On another note, I'm amused by how some Senators are upset that President Bush nominated a judicial conservative, even though these same Senators said last year that this is what would happen if Bush won the election. By trying to make the election a referendum on this point, and losing it, it would seem to me that their protests are a little bit disingenuous...

Going deep....

Update 0924 02 Nov: More evidence of a double standard...

Update 1431 02 Nov: An example of the "up or down vote" meme can be found here.