The Conservative Cave
Current Events => Archives => Politics => Election 2008 => Topic started by: DixieBelle on May 06, 2008, 11:11:58 AM
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The judicial debate will heat up this morning on two fronts: At 10am, McCain addresses the subject at Wake Forest University. Minutes later, GOP Sen. John Cornyn will speak on the Senate floor. Sen. Cornyn “will note that the simple fact thus far during President Bush’s final two years in office is that there have been a record low number of federal judges approved by this Senate. Since Democrats took over the Senate in 2007, a total of 7 circuit court judges have been approved—and only one this year.â€
Here are McCain’s prepared remarks.
ARLINGTON, VA — U.S. Senator John McCain will deliver the following remarks as prepared for delivery at Wake Forest University, in Winston-Salem, NC, today at 10:00 a.m. EDT:
Thank you, Ted, and thank you all very much. Dr. Hatch, I’m grateful for your invitation to this great university. And Senator Richard Burr, thank you for that warm welcome to North Carolina and to Wait Chapel. I’m honored to be here, and I brought along a friend. I’m sure you’ll recognize him — my pal, Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee.
We appreciate the hospitality of the students and faculty of Wake Forest University, and especially during exams. I know exam week involves some tough moments, like when you’re up at 3:00 a.m. and have to choose between studying or watching one of Fred’s old movies. Most of the students here look confident and ready, so you need no advice from me as final exams draw near. But for those of you who might be feeling a slight sense of panic coming on, all I can say is that a few bad grades don’t have to be end of the road — so just give it your best and move on. An undistinguished academic record can be overcome in life, or at least that is the hope that has long sustained me.
Your kind invitation brings me here as a candidate for president of the United States, and anyone in that pursuit has plenty of promises to make and to keep. When it’s all over, however, the next president will be compelled to make just one promise, in the same words that 42 others have spoken when the moment arrived. The framers of our Constitution had a knack for coming right to the point, and it shows in the 35-word oath that ends with a pledge to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution itself.
This is what we require and expect of every president, no matter what the agenda or loyalties of party. All the powers of the American presidency must serve the Constitution, and thereby protect the people and their liberties. For the chief executive or any other constitutional officer, the duties and boundaries of the Constitution are not just a set of helpful suggestions. They are not just guidelines, to be observed when it’s convenient and loosely interpreted when it isn’t. The clear powers defined by our Constitution, and the clear limits of power, lose nothing of their relevance with time, because the dangers they guard against are found in every time.
In America, the constitutional restraint on power is as fundamental as the exercise of power, and often more so. Yet the framers knew that these restraints would not always be observed. They were idealists, but they were worldly men as well, and they knew that abuses of power would arise and need to be firmly checked. Their design for democracy was drawn from their experience with tyranny. A suspicion of power is ingrained in both the letter and spirit of the American Constitution.
SNIP - read the whole thing at link http://michellemalkin.com/2008/05/06/bench-marks-mccain-the-gop-and-judges/