Author Archives

Stuart Taylor, Jr.

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The Judicial Selection Wars: How a Truce Could Be Fashioned

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Republicans and Democrats are nearing the brink of nuclear warfare over President Bush’s judicial nominations. Unless both sides compromise, the damage to the government and the nation could be profound. Hostilities have raged on and off since the 1987 Battle of Bork, resulting in a downward spiral of partisan bitterness and recriminations. The latest and biggest escalation has been Senate Democrats’ all-but-unprecedented filibusters of professionally well-qualified Bush nominees who are simply too conservative for the Democrats’ taste. And now, as both sides prepare for a climactic battle in the event of any Supreme Court retirements, Republicans are threatening the so-called nuclear option.

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America’s Credibility Is Taking a Hit in Iraq

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Did the Bush administration deliberately mislead the nation and the world when President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and others so confidently suggested, as their casus belli, that Saddam Hussein had hundreds of tons of banned chemical and biological weapons and a program to build a nuclear bomb?

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Three Judges, Four Opinions, 1,638 Pages, and One Good Idea

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

"Last year when I ran for the Senate … I locked myself in a room with an aide, a telephone, and a list of potential contributors. The aide would get the `mark’ on the phone, then hand me a card with the spouse’s name, the contributor’s main interest, and a reminder to `appear chatty.’ I’d remind the agribusinessman that I was on the Agriculture Committee; I’d remind the banker I was on the Banking Committee. And then I’d make a plaintive plea for soft money-that armpit of today’s fundraising…. I always left that room feeling like a cheap prostitute who’d had a busy day."

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Santorum on Sex: Where the Slippery Slope Leads

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

"If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything…. The definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be."

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The U.N. Is Often Grotesque, but We Need Its Help

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

The Bush administration is in the midst of making momentous decisions about how to deal with the United Nations in the post-Saddam era. Those decisions will critically affect our chances of winning the peace in Iraq and of proving our claims that Saddam had an arsenal of banned weapons-claims on which President Bush has staked his credibility. And they will set the direction of America’s relations with the rest of the world for years to come.

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How Bush Can Save International Law, Not Sacrifice It

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

International rules lose their validity when widely flouted or when superseded by new strategic realities. The U.N. Charter’s curbs on the use of military force had suffered both fates long before George W. Bush became president. America’s pattern of acting without Security Council authorization-justifiably, in at least some cases-dates back at least to the 1962 Cuban missile blockade and has marked U.S. military activities in Vietnam, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, and Nicaragua.

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Myths and Realities About Affirmative Action

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Many supporters of using racial preferences in university admissions have distorted debate about the practice by fostering some misleading myths as to how it actually works. As the Supreme Court prepares a climactic decision, to be issued by early July, on the preferential admissions systems at the University of Michigan’s undergraduate and law schools, let’s examine some of these myths and the realities they have obscured. And let’s consider the likely effect on diversity if colleges were to give preferences based on disadvantaged socioeconomic status instead of race.

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Iraq and Beyond: Navigating the Fog of War

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

There is no shortage of second-guessing about the war in Iraq, and no shortage of causes for concern. While the conduct of our military ensures eventual victory and should make us proud, the hope of a relatively painless liberation, with grateful Iraqis dancing in the streets almost from day one, has proved too optimistic. The mangled bodies of women, children, other civilians, and combatants are piling up. News photos of horrifying mistakes are bringing hatred of America to unprecedented levels around the world. We may be losing the hearts and minds of Iraqis whose loved ones and neighbors become "collateral damage" and whose lives we have so far changed very much for the worse.

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This War May Be Legal, But Arrogant Diplomacy Could Kill Us

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

President Bush asserts that America has the "sovereign authority to use force in assuring its own national security" and does not need a new vote of the United Nations Security Council. On the other hand, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that "to go outside the Security Council and take unilateral action … would not be in conformity with the [U.N.] Charter." Russian President Vladimir Putin and many others have agreed that such an attack would be illegal.

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Falsely Accused `Enemies’ Deserve Due Process

by Stuart Taylor, Jr.

National Journal

Two major court decisions on the rights-or lack of rights-of suspected terrorists, Talibans, and others detained in the war against terrorism came down on March 11. The first held that the 650 foreign nationals seized by U.S. forces abroad and detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have no legal rights enforceable in U.S. courts. The second decision, by contrast, sharply rebuffed the Bush administration position that even a U.S. citizen arrested in this country can be held incommunicado indefinitely, with no right ever to see a lawyer, a judge, or anyone else, if the military labels this person an enemy combatant.