Author Archives

Stuart Taylor, Jr.

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Opening Argument – Misguided Libertarians Are Hindering the War on Terrorism

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

A civil-libertarian backlash against the USA PATRIOT Act is gathering steam. More than 140 cities and communities in 27 states have passed resolutions opposing it, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU itself has intensified its nonstop barrage, filing a lawsuit on July 30 challenging the constitutionality of one of the act’s most far-reaching provisions, and airing TV ads that warn of government spies secretly searching homes. Some librarians say they are destroying records to prevent the feds from tracking patrons’ book borrowing and Internet browsing.

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Opening Argument – Guantanamo: A Betrayal of What America Stands For

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

"The only thing I know for certain is that these are bad people." So said President Bush during his July 17 press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, when a reporter asked whether they had concerns about "not getting justice" for some 660 Muslim prisoners from 42 countries languishing in 8-by-8-foot cells at Guantanamo Bay.

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Opening Argument – The President Should Stop Saying Things That Aren’t True

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

President Bush’s pre-war exaggerations of the strength of the intelligence that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program and large stockpiles of biological and chemical arms were neither "lies" nor as far from being true as partisan critics suggest. His now-infamous assertion in his January 28 State of the Union address — that the British government "has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" — would have been quite accurate had he crossed out "has learned" and inserted "believes." More recently, Bush could have repaired the damage to his credibility by taking responsibility for any overstatements or errors about details, while carefully explaining why the case for war was and remains strong.

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How Campus Censors Squelch Freedom of Speech

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Steve Hinkle, a student at California Polytechnic State University, was posting fliers around campus last November 12 that advertised a speech to be given the next evening. The fliers contained a photo of the speaker, black conservative Mason Weaver, and the words "It’s OK to Leave the Plantation," the name of a book in which Weaver likens African-American dependence on government programs to slavery.

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Center Court

by Evan Thomas and Stuart Taylor, Jr.

Newsweek

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor got her job through affirmative action. It was obvious to officials in the Reagan Justice Department, as they searched for a Supreme Court justice in the summer of 1981, that she lacked the usual qualifications for the high court. "No way," Emma Jordan, an assistant to the then Attorney General William French Smith, recalls thinking. "There were gaps in her background where she had clearly been at home having babies. She had never had a national position. Under awar

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor got her job through affirmative action. It was obvious to officials in the Reagan Justice Department, as they searched for a Supreme Court justice in the summer of 1981, that she lacked the usual qualifications for the high court. "No way," Emma Jordan, an assistant to the then Attorney General William French Smith, recalls thinking. "There were gaps in her background where she had clearly been at home having babies. She had never had a national position. Under awards, she had something like Phoenix Ad Woman of the Year." No matter. President Reagan wanted to appoint the first woman justice, so he named O’Connor.

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Getting Serious About Race: The Next 25 Years

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

"We are mindful … that `[a] core purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment was to do away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race.’ … Accordingly, race-conscious admissions policies must be limited in time…. We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest [in racial diversity] approved today."

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Legal Affairs – Courting Trouble

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Conservative and liberal activists, lawyers, political junkies, and the media are abuzz with eager anticipation that this summer will bring the mother of all Senate confirmation battles, with the closely divided Supreme Court’s ideological balance at the tipping point. "It is almost certain," Time magazine forecast last month-with more confidence than evidence-"that by the end of June, when the Supreme Court adjourns for summer recess, at least one justice will have announced his or her retirement."

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Ashcroft and the Post-9/11 Arrogance of Power

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Some of the 762 mostly Middle Eastern men detained on immigration charges after the September 11 attacks "appear to have been arrested more by virtue of chance encounters or tenuous connections to a … lead rather than by any genuine indications of a possible connection with or possession of information about terrorist activity," concludes Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in his 200-page report, released on June 2, on the detentions.