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June 27, 2003
Weekend Update
Nope, I'm not talking about my weekend (although I should have some good news on a car soon), but I just wanted to do a little housecleaning with some recent political events that have been on my mind.
- The Results are In: The winner of the Moveon.org virtual primary is (no surprise) Howard Dean. MoveOn's analysis of the voting and their assertions of fairness are quite interesting. What strikes me is how poorly Joe Lieberman performed in the voting. I'm no Lieberman fan, but he fared little better than Al Sharpton. I realize that MoveOn skews liberal-left, and I am aware of the criticisms (Salon link, sorry to non-subscribers) of Dean's campaign, but at the very least, I think it illustrates the difficulty of getting the more liberal-leaning Dems enthusiastically behind Lieberman.
- The SCOTUS scores a point: As George reported (via the Washington Post), the Supreme Court rules Texas's anti-sodomy law unconstitutional, generally on "privacy" grounds (although Sandra O'Connor notably used "equal protection" as her basis in a spearately written opinion). George offers an insightful observation that Kennedy's belief that future generations will seek "greater freedom" runs the risk of seeing freedom redefined in dangerous ways, others have argued that this decision might be a positive belwhether for preserving Roe v. Wade (actually, I'm not so sure the CSM is enthusiastic about the precedent, but I am). Like George, though, I am concerned about how broad concpets such as freedom and privacy will be interpreted by future SCOTUSes.
- "Even the Dead Will Not be Safe:" Interesting times in Georgia this week as two of the state's most charismatic politicians passed away, Maynard Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor, and Lester Maddox, a segregationist governor from the late 1960s. One interesting detail is current governor, Sonny Perdue's choice to lower state flags to half-mast to honor Maddox but not for Jackson. I'll refrain from speaking ill of the so-called "colorful" segregationist Maddox, but for someone who contributed so much to the city and the state (promoting minority business ownership and building Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport), Jackson deserves a lot better. Check out Andrew Young's wonderful column.
- Shut the F*** Up: Via Invisible Adjunct, I learned that Liz Lawley's blog was blocked by the filtering software being used in a bar where she checked her blog. In both cases, an interesting discussion of SCOTUS's decision to uphold the Children's Internet Protection Act ensues. As Liz puts it, "Scary stuff, isn’t it?"
Posted by chuck at June 27, 2003 4:38 PM
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