MICHAEL O. ALLEN

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A step back in time

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Prior to the debate in Tennessee, C-Span re-broadcast the Oct. 15, 1992 debate between incumbent President George H. W. Bush, then Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, and crackpot businessman H. Ross Perot. Some of you will recall that debate as the town hall style debate where Pres. Bush doomed his re-election by impatiently looking at his watch, as if he had somewhere better he’d rather be.

What the re-broadcast made evident 16 years later is how phenomenal a candidate Bill Clinton was. He was so young but so wise and so brilliant. He played the audience masterfully, like a master violinist playing a rare Stradivarius, connecting many questions he answered that night to many members of the audience.

Carole Simpson, the ABC News correspondent who was the moderator that night, asked a question that I did not remember until I saw it again tonight but which struck me as important:

“We have very little time left and it occurs to me that we have talked all this time and there has not been one question about some of the racial tensions and ethnic tensions in America. Is there anyone in this audience that would like to pose a question to the candidates on this?”

AUDIENCE QUESTION: What I’d like to know, and this is to any of the three of you, is aside from the recent accomplishment of your party, aside from those accomplishments in racial representation, and wit-hout citing any of your current appointments or successful elections, when do you estimate your party will both nominate and elect an Afro-American and female ticket to the presidency of the U.S.?

SIMPSON: Governor Clinton, why don’t you answer that first?

CLINTON: Well, I don’t have any idea but I hope it will happen some time in my lifetime.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I do, too.

CLINTON: I believe that this country is electing more and more African Americans and Latinos and Asian Americans who are representing districts that are themselves not necessarily of a majority of their race. The American people are beginning to vote across racial lines, and I hope it will happen more and more.

More and more women are being elected. Look at all these women Senate candidates we have here. And you know, according to my mother and my wife and my daughter, this world would be a lot better place if women were running it most of the time.

I do think there are special experiences and judgments and backgrounds and understandings that women bring to this process, by the way. This lady said here, how have you been affected by the economy. I mean, women know what’s it like to be paid an unequal amount for equal work. They know what it’s like not to have flexible working hours. They know what it’s like not to have family leave or childcare. So I think it would be a good thing for America if it happened. And I think it will happen in my lifetime.

SIMPSON: Okay. I’m sorry. We have just a little bit of time left. Let’s try to get responses from each of them. President Bush or Mr. Perot?

BUSH: I think if Barbara Bush were running this year she’d be elected. But it’s too late.

(Laughter) You don’t want us to mention appointees, but when you see the quality of people in our administration, see how Colin Powell performed — I say administration —

AUDIENCE QUESTION: (Inaudible).

BUSH: You weren’t impressed with the fact that he —

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Excuse me. I’m extremely impressed with that.

BUSH: Yeah, but wouldn’t that suggest to the American people, then, here’s a quality person, if he decided that he could automatically get the nomination of either party?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Sure — I just wanted to know — yes.

BUSH: Huh?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I’m totally impressed with that. I just wanted to know is, when’s your-

BUSH: Oh, I see.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: When?

BUSH: You mean, time?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah.

BUSH: I don’t know — starting after 4 years.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Laughs)

BUSH: No, I think you’ll see —

SIMPSON: Mr. Perot.

BUSH: I think you’ll see more minority candidates and women candidates coming forward.

SIMPSON: We have — thank you.

BUSH: This is supposed to be the year of the women in the Senate. Let’s see how they do. I hope a lot of —

SIMPSON: Mr. Perot — I don’t want to cut you off any more but we only have a minute left.

PEROT: I have a fearless forecast. A message just won’t do it. Colin Powell will be on somebody’s ticket 4 years from now — right? Right? He wanted that said — 4 years.

SIMPSON: How about a woman?

PEROT: Now, if won’t be, General Waller would be — you say, why do you keep picking military people. These are people that I just happen to know and have a high regard for. I’m sure there are hundreds of others.

BUSH: How about Dr. Lou Sullivan?

PEROT: Absolutely.

BUSH: Yeah, a good man.

SIMPSON: What about a woman?

PEROT: Oh, oh.

BUSH: (Inaudible) totally agree. My candidate’s back there.

SIMPSON: (Laughs)

PEROT: Okay. I can think of many.

SIMPSON: Many?

PEROT: Absolutely.

SIMPSON: When?

PEROT: All right. How about Sandra Day O’Connor as an example?

SIMPSON: Hm-hm.

PEROT: Dr. Bernadine Healy —

SIMPSON: Good.

PEROT: National Institutes of Health. I’ll yield the floor.

BUSH: All good Republicans.

PEROT: Name some more.

(Laughter)

SIMPSON: Thank you. I want to apologize to our audience because there were 209 people here and there were 209 questions. We only got to a fraction of them and I’m sorry to those of you that didn’t get to ask your questions but we must move to the conclusion of the program.

October 7, 2008
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Nino in full

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Associate Justice Antonin Scalia hosted about 26 students from the Thomas Jefferson High School in Alexandria ( Fairfax County),Virginia at the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday. C-Span organized the meeting as part of its “Students and Leaders” program with sitting Supreme Court Justices.

Susan Swain of C-Span explained that TJ, as the school is known, had just been named the top high school in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

ascalia02 I was surprised the Trenton, N.J.-born Scalia, who grew up in Queens, New York, is 72 years old. I’d thought him to be in his 50s (probably because his age, for me, was fixed at around the time he came on the court). In any case, Scalia is a father of nine and has 28 grandchildren (the session must have seemed like a normal family gathering to him).

Scalia was discursive and trenchant, if it is possible to be both at the same time, explaining, for instance, why he’s against the Court’s proceedings being televised. He talked about his upbringing and his hopes and dreams growing up. Here’s a link to the full talk, if you have RealPlayer. The most important point he addressed, to me, was on Free Speech. But before we get to that, he opened on an interesting note:

“Most of our time, I understand, would be devoted to questions but the price of admission is that I’m permitted to say a few things that I want you to know. And most of them pertain to the Constitution. You know the American people used to have a degree of veneration for that document that seems to have disappeared in recent times.

“I once receive a letter from a lady in Indiana which enclosed a copy of a letter that one of her ancestors had written to his grandson who at that time was in Georgia . The letter enclosed a copy of the constitution. It was written in about 1840. And it said to the grandson:

“My dear young man, if you would commit this to memory and repeat it to me upon your return, I will pay you the sum of $5.”

That was a lot f money in those days, 1840. That’s the kind of importance that people of prior generation placed upon the document.”

He went on to discuss the Constitution, its importance to our society compared to some of the oldest democracies in Europe. It was an engaging, very informative hour. Scalia did not condescend to the students. He mentioned Lawrence v. Texas, the 6-3 landmark ruling that in 2003 struck down sodomy laws that had criminalized homosexual sex, a number of times in a tone that left no doubt the ruling still rankled him.

The last question then fell to a student whose name I did not quite catch (I listened several times and the best I could make it to be is Kenneth Lee):

“Justice Scalia, how do you define Free Speech and has your definition evolved over time and does it have the capacity to evolve?” he asked:

Scalia:

Well, now it can evolve. I guess I have the capacity to admit that I made a mistake because what I look for is what was, what was considered . . . You know, the First Amendment does not guarantee Free Speech. It says: “Congress shall make no law abridging the Freedom of Speech . . .”

He seemed flustered at first but, now relishing the question, plowed on:

Ha, the definite article. What freedom of speech? That freedom of speech that was the right of Englishmen in 1791. So, I look back there and I say, you know, it doesn’t mean absolute any freedom of speech. In 1791 you couldn’t give information about troop movements to the enemy. That was treason. That speech was not permitted. You could not libel people. You would be punished in court for libeling people.

So, it was the freedom of speech that was the tradition of the Anglo Saxon law. And, no, my view on that doesn’t change because I’m not an evolutionist. I don’t believe in a ‘living Constitution’ (a well trod ground during the hour the students spent with him).

But, you know, you ought to be happy about that because I was the fifth vote, you may or may not know, in the case that held it was unconstitutional to prohibit the burning of an American Flag.

Now, in my social views, which I don’t apply from the bench, I’m a fairly conservative fella, to tell you the truth, and I don’t like people who burn the American flag and, if I were king, I would put them in jail. But I am not King and I am bound by First Amendment and my understanding of it is it gives you the right to criticize, to criticize severely, the country, the Court, the flag, and burning the flag is just a matter of communication. It’s a symbol. Just as language is a symbol. I mean, there is no communication that isn’t symbolic, right. I mean, these noises I’m making symbolize ideas.

And, when you read a paper, the markings on the paper symbolize sounds which in turn symbolize ideas. Burning a flag symbolize an idea. So, that was why I was the fifth vote and you ought to be happy about that because once I find what’s in the first Amendment, you got me. I can’t do what I would like to do.

The lesson I leave you with is, how are you going to control the judges who don’t believe in the original meaning, but who think the Constitution morphs and it means whatever it ought to mean today? You know what, they’re going to find that it ought to mean what they think it should mean, which is to say you don’t have much control over the judges.

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April 9, 2008
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