September 17, 2005

Hillary on Flag Burning

I was just reading a post by Neil the Ethical Werewolf on why Hillary can't win the presidency in which he referred to this Brendan Nyhan post from July on her flag-burning position. She's against a constitutional amendment banning it, but she supports the passage of a federal law against it. Am I missing something here? I suppose it's possible that the Supreme Court could take up this issue again and Johnson v. Texas could be overruled (the only justices in that majority who are still on the Court are Scalia and Kennedy), but until that happens, isn't she just supporting the passage of a law that she (being more than a little intelligent) realizes is likely to be found unconstitutional? And if so ... well, why on Earth would any Democrat happily throw gasoline on the smoldering fire that is that part of the right-wing's culture war, particularly with several Americans dying in combat every week? This position seems downright terrible on both substantive and broad political grounds, and seems to play up the growing image of her as a craven political manipulator - albeit in this case one who is supporting an incomprehensible political end. Am I missing something here?

Between this and John McCain's steroid fixation, my already low opinion of both of the front-runners for the 2008 presidential nominations is sinking even lower.

Posted by armand at September 17, 2005 06:09 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


Comments

do you seriously identify mccain as an '08 front-runner. the beating heart (albeit pumping black ichor) of the republican party despises him. and he'll be older than reagan was. there's no way he makes it past super tuesday, by hook or by crook . . .

Posted by: joshua at September 19, 2005 11:05 AM | PERMALINK

I'm very doubtful about his chances to win the nomination - but at this point he leads most polls, hence the "front-runner" comment. As to who will win the nomination, too early to say of course, but I'd keep a close eye on Gov. Haley Barbour.

Posted by: Armand at September 19, 2005 11:13 AM | PERMALINK
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