(Update) *He* is Endorsing Obama!?
(posted by Mona)
As my author bio notes, I attended the Notre Dame law school. I learned Constitutional Law from Professor Douglas Kmiec, who had served directly under Ed Meese in the Reagan DoJ. Prof. Kmiec was and is a devout Catholic who believes abortion should be illegal, and that marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples. He has always been a Republican. (I tilted that way myself, then, and at the time shared his views on criminalizing abortion.)
His classroom was unerringly fair, and he did not in any manner ridicule or marginalize the many liberal, pro-choice, pro-gay-rights students in his class. Agreeing with him got one no brownie points (and not everything for his class was blind-graded). He was a great teacher and I respected and liked him, even tho I, as a libertarian, did not agree with him on any number of matters. He was kind-minded and even where I found him wrong, he was not anxious to “destroy” those who opposed him — more likely, he’d pray for them.
Well, writing at Slate, Kmiec — while not at all repudiating his socially conservative positions — has just endorsed Barack Obama for president, and explains himself thus, my emphasis:
No doubt some of my friends will see this as a matter of party or intellectual treachery. I regret that and I respect their disagreement. But they will readily agree that as Republicans, we are first Americans. As Americans, we must voice our concerns for the well-being of our nation without partisanship when decisions that have been made endanger the body politic. Our president has involved our nation in a military engagement without sufficient justification or clear objective. In so doing, he has incurred both tragic loss of life and extraordinary debt jeopardizing the economy and the well-being of the average American citizen. In pursuit of these fatally flawed purposes, the office of the presidency, which it was once my privilege to defend in public office formally, has been distorted beyond its constitutional assignment. Today, I do no more than raise the defense of that important office anew, but as private citizen.
Prof. Kmiec, this former student, libertarian and lapsed-Catholic atheist, says: God bless you. I always respected your integrity, and now more than ever.
************
Update: Patterico is appalled — simply stunned — and finds Kmiec’s endorsement of Obama merely to be “full of generalized reasons why (in Kmiec’s opinion) it wouldn’t necessarily be that bad if Obama were to win…”
I had him as a law prof, Patrick, so I’m somewhat surprised, but less than you, because Kmiec is a Catholic on everything, including unjust wars. He therefore isn’t likely to be impressed with John — bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran (to the tune of Barbara Ann) — McCain. See, unnecessary wars aren’t exactly pro-life. Further, Kmiec knows his Con Law, and, as I’ve followed his views in the press, I have seen that he is very conflicted and troubled by the claims Bush has been making for an Executive who supposedly has constitutional authority to ignore any law he doesn’t like.
I’ve never been prouder to be a ND law grad.
March 24th, 2008 at 12:42 am
Patterico is an idiot. He’s an idiot, specifically, for quoting Prof. Kmiec on the guidance of the Supreme Court by “rule of law,” and then having the gall to suggest any equivalence between that principle and the Federalist Society counterfeit version of originalism being pimped by Alito and Roberts. Anyone with McCain’s views on executive power wouldn’t know originalism if it bit him in the ass.
March 24th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Amusingly, I note someone in Patterico’s comments opining that the fact that Kmiec is a “professor” explains it all. Um, so are John Yoo and any number of shills who prop the Executive-cum-monarch theory.
March 24th, 2008 at 10:51 am
That sort of thing–their fake populism–is in itself another reason to hate the neocons. They demagogue about “latte-sipping elites” and “flyover country,” but this neo-Hamiltonianism has its own roots in academia and the “little magazines.” It’s just a repackaged knockoff of the Cold War Liberalism of Art Schlesinger and Adolph Berle.
“Executive-cum-monarch” is right, with an emphasis on “cum.” These people are just the latest version of the sycophantic intellectuals who have attached themselves to power thoughout history.
March 24th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Those genius scholars of Con Law at Power Line are also shrieking about Kmiec; how empty and dumb his reasoning ostensibly is in supporting Obama.
Yeah, when I want an honest and reasonable understanding of the Consitution, I always — but always — turn first to Power Line. pffft.
March 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Nice!