Chris Wallace, who has received all sorts of (in my view largely unmerited) accolades for his performance last night, began the debate with one of the dumbest questions I have heard this election cycle:
First of all, where do you want to see the court take the country? And secondly, what’s your view on how the constitution should be interpreted? Do the founders’ words mean what they say or is it a living document to be applied flexibly, according to changing circumstances? In this segment, secretary Clinton, you go first. You have two minutes.
Think about that for a moment. Chris Wallace asks the candidates where they want the Supreme Court to “take the country.” But it’s not the Supreme Court’s job to take the country anywhere!
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This pathetic and predictably narcissistic answer got me thinking: how would the debate have gone if Ted Cruz been on stage instead of Donald Trump?
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And how might he have answered Wallaces’s little softball question about the Court? I imagine it might have gone a little something like this:
Thank you, Chris, and thank you to UNLV and everyone who took part in hosting this debate. It’s great to be here.
Chris, it’s not the job of the Supreme Court to “take the country” anywhere. It is the job of Congress to pass laws, and the job of the Court to interpret them according to the plain meaning of the words. If the Court followed that simple mandate, it would not be “taking the country” anywhere. It would be interpreting the law, which is its only function.
But Chris, I understand why you think it’s the Court’s job to “take the country” places, because far too often, that’s what the court does: ignore plain meaning and founding principles in favor of instituting the policy preferences of its elite members.
For example, in their Obamacare decision, this handful of unelected judges rewrote the text of Obamacare twice in order to impose that failed law upon millions of Americans.
The first time, the court ignored federal law and magically transformed a statutory penalty into a tax. The second time, these robed Houdinis transmogrified a federal exchange into a exchange “established by the state.”
This is lawless conduct. Justice Scalia said, “we should start calling this law SCOTUScare,” and I agree.
Unelected judges have become legislators — and bad ones at that. They are lawless and they hide their prevarication in legalese. Our government was designed to be one of laws, not of men, and the transparent distortions of the court are disgraceful.
These justices are not behaving as umpires calling balls and strikes. They have joined a team, and it’s a team that’s hurting Americans across this country.
If those justices want to become legislators I invite them to resign and run for office. That’s the appropriate place to write laws: on the floor of Congress — not from that courtroom. And if you elect Hillary Clinton, you’ll just get more of the same leftist and elitist arrogance.
Ted Cruz would have wiped the floor with Hillary Clinton.
OK, I have to confess: I’m not imagining Ted Cruz saying those words, so much as I’m repeating Ted Cruz’s words. Virtually everything you just read is a quote or very close paraphrase of things Ted Cruz has already said. You can read much of it here.
Why do I bring this up? Because, pretty soon, after Trump loses, we’re going to have to reassess where this party has been and where it’s going, and answer the question: What do we do next?
And, I don’t know. Somehow, I think this little mental exercise I just took us through . . . it feels relevant to that question.
Don’t you think?
- Discussion
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Ted Cruz Should Have Been the One Debating Hillary Clinton Last Night https://t.co/nWW62sgWYq
— RedState (@RedState) October 21, 2016
Yes, Cruz should have been. But the republicans keep the first 20 primaries open so the democrats can pick our candidate and we never gat a conservative. I’ve left the republican party now. I pray that Cruz does too!
Pray for righteousness to be restored and for the peace of Jerusalem
And, if Chris Wallace’s questions wasn’t bad enough, Clinton answered by saying she thought the next justices should represent the people!!!
I suspect Ted Cruz would have explained that they are not supposed to represent anything — but to interpret the existing laws.That bugged me too. I was just about screaming at the screen. Trump was mentally incapable of answering that question correctly. We expect Clinton to answer like she did but shouldn’t the Repub candidate have at least some working knowledge of the Constitution and the role of the SC? Guess that’s not important any longer. Elections are now just another reality tv show.
Trump is just not mentally quick. Nothing is going to change that.
Cruz definitely would have tied her in knots; that is why the MSM wanted Trump to be our candidate.
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