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March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review Jan. 10, 2006 / 10 Teves, 5766

Alito not extreme enough for left

By David Limbaugh


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | But for the seriousness of the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, it would be comical to observe the cries of extremism against Alito from those who argue that he would support President Bush in establishing a near monarchy.


Liberal editorialists and politicians have seized on Alito's alleged expansive view of executive power to oppose his nomination. According to them, Alito would enable the president in his nefarious schemes to torture enemy combatants (and probably domestic liberals) and to incarcerate them indefinitely, and to permit the government unchecked power to spy on American citizens.


How wonderfully serendipitous, given the current flap over the president's warrantless electronic intercepts of Al Qaeda phone calls, that the president's pick happens to have a paper trail revealing his "dangerous" notions about presidential authority. Why, in the words of columnist Robert Kuttner, "[Alito] would give Bush effective control of all three branches of government and the hard-right long-term dominance of the high court."


Setting aside the left's disturbing tendency to sympathize with everything Al Qaeda these days, don't be fooled by all this noise about runaway presidential powers. They only object to executive largesse when they don't control the presidency, which, with any luck, will remain the case for years to come. Their real concern — and please excuse me for stating the obvious — is over abortion rights. If Alito is confirmed, it is actually conceivable the Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue of the legality of abortion back to the states. Liberals — you know, the people now complaining about imperialistic presidential authority — are horrified at the idea that the Court might poke a hole in their glorious precedent establishing a federal constitutional right to abortion.


You see, it is not unchecked governmental power they're worried about or encroachments on democratic rights — otherwise they, too, would be outraged at the Supreme Court's disenfranchisement of the states and people on issues like abortion. No, it's not a matter of how much power any particular branch of government has, but whether it will use that power to impose a liberal worldview.


Unless a president is willing to govern like a liberal on most issues, he is a conservative extremist. Unless the Court will continue to usurp the states' and peoples' rights and mandate such things as the nationwide legality of abortion and a strict separation of the Christian religion from government, it is a tool of the reactionary right wing.


Indeed, I have decided to renounce my association with mainstream conservatism. After hearing no less an authority than Sen. Dianne Feinstein expounding on conservative extremism on "Fox News Sunday," I realized the error of my ways. What was I thinking?


Feinstein told Brit Hume, "I think there still is a mainstream conservative movement rather than an activist conservative movement." And anyone who thinks Roe v. Wade was improperly decided by the Supreme Court is outside the mainstream and worthy of being filibustered.


Feinstein then went on to pretend her support for abortion — probably on demand, no less — is based on popular support for the abominable practice. Feinstein said, "The American people, according to the latest ABC poll [are] 60 percent supportive of Roe. This is a pivotal question. And he's in a pivotal spot because of Sandra Day O'Connor's particular position on the court, where she was dispositive in so many 5-4 votes."


Does anyone really think Feinstein or other left-wingers would do a sudden about-face on abortion if public opinion changed? More to the point, how can anyone take seriously such arguments from people who are supportive of a wholly fabricated constitutional "right," established by judicial fiat, that has taken the issue out of the democratic process?


The left's idea of an ideologically extreme, democracy-smothering activist is one who might vote to overturn a case born of ideologically extreme, democracy-smothering activism. A justice who would interpret the Constitution according to its plain meaning and the Framers' original intent is to be damned as an extremist because he would dare to disestablish a "right" that has been crammed down the throats of the states and people by an imperial judiciary.


The left is shameless. It will oppose Alito precisely because he is not willing to support extra-constitutional power grabs by any branch of government against the constitutional rights of the people. It is not extremism, encroachments on the separation of powers doctrine, or infringements on civil or democratic rights they oppose, but those who are unwilling to engage in those very excesses in furtherance of an "enlightened," "progressive" liberal utopia.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

David Limbaugh, a columnist and attorney practicing in Cape Girardeau, Mo., is the author of, most recently, "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) Comment by clicking here.

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