Category: Politics

Why don’t Supreme Court justices have term limits? I don’t understand the logic behind these life time appointments. The US produces so many lawyers with great credentials, so why should this privilege of being on the Supreme Court be restricted to just a few individuals.

Its sad to see Chief Justice William Rehnquist drag himself to court despite his poor health. Sure, its a personal decision and he wants to continue serving. But when the country has so many qualified individuals can’t we give the poor guy some rest? (Btw, I truly admire his resilience and commitment, and this is nothing personal towards him or other cancer patients).

I just think its crazy to have lifetime appointments for any post. Getting rid of it will certainly help reduce the partisan nature of the battle that goes in the appointment and confirmation process. Some kind of system where every President gets to appoint a couple of Supreme Court justices or something on those lines.

The differences between the hardliners in the BJP and those in the Advani camp who aspire to embrace a more moderate veneer are increasing by the day. I think its only matter of time before the split in the party occurs. At the present time there is little sign of unity and no sign whatsoever of the next line of leadership emerging and gaining control of the party and crafting its future. As the Congress govt is cruising along in its second year in power, the BJP in its current form appears to be headed towards self-destruction.

The Democrats were all geared up for tet another battle as President Bush was ready to announce his Supreme Court nominee. With the selection of John Roberts, President Bush has foxed his opponents once again. A virtual unknown, the Democrats are going to have a hard time digging up dirt on this candidate. The conservative groups appear to be pretty happy with this choice too. In short, President Bush has kept his base happy and made life hard for his oppenents.

At present it looks unlikely that fighting John Roberts candidacy will win them any political mileage. It might be prudent for the Democrats to pass on this battle and instead go after the Karl Rove controversy.

Ever since the elections last year the Democrats have been struggling to develop a coherent strategy. Without a majority in either the senate or the house, the President has a strong chance of pushing ahead with his agenda. Faced with this predicament, the Democrats are inclined to oppose anything and everything simply because of the ideological differences. At present it sounds like they raise a hue and cry each time (judicial nominees and other appointments) and then finally go away empty handed. Unfortunately, this will not help their cause, especially in the long run. It might be prudent to develop a comprehensive strategy, which involves picking a few battles and somehow trying to win them. Else they will just come across as being obstructionist and this might worsen their tally in the years to come. The Bolton nomination is yet another test of their strategy.

I get the feeling that politics in the US is fast becoming like West Bengal politics (!!) — the same party is always in power, the opposition is just their to fill some seats and make some speeches with little influence on policy.

I had an interesting chat on a recent cab ride. I asked the driver, who happened to be Lebanese, what he thought of the happenings in the middle east, particularly the war in Iraq. And boy! This guy was like volcano, he could talk non-stop. It was an interesting perspective nevertheless from a middle east native. So here is the dump as verbatim as I can remember……

“Its great that there is change happening in Lebanon. Happy that Syria is forced to withdraw. Its all thanks to the war in Iraq. I fully support the war in Iraq. You think American’ s want to kill people? You have lived here for so many years. You know this is not true. Saddam was killing innocent Iraqis. Iran and Syria are behind the insurgency. I support an attack on Iran and Syria!!! But for the war, you think Syria would withdraw? You think India Pak would talk peace? ….How many universities did Saddam build? I wanted to study computers but there weren’t good universities in Lebanon. The Arabs think they can drive the Israelis into the sea or wherever and then live peacefully. Its not realistic. Everytime they fought the Israelis they failed. Lebanon has so many Palestinian refugees who never left after the last war with Israel. You are lucky you are from India. You have good schools there because its a democracy…..”

It certainly helps to have well educated qualified individuals as ministers. Check out this article with interesting quotes (from Tom Friedman of NY Times book release function) from Mani Shankar Iyer, Union Minister for Petroleum in the Manmohan Singh ministry. The current government in India a strange mix of extremes, especially when it comes to the ministers and there pedigree.

“There is only a veneer of democracy in the United States, and we have a real democracy,” he said, brushing aside suggestions that Iran’s election rules unfairly favor the hard-liners who control much of the government. “Election laws are so complicated in your country that people have no choice but to vote for one of the candidates who are with one of the two parties.” Ali Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran. Check out the complete article in NY Times. (registration required)

While there might be some partial truths in this, its ironical that it has to come from a politician in Iran!

The US Senate crisis appears to have been averted.

After all the excitement created by the Presidential elections last year, there has been a relative lull on the US political scene. Barring the boring opposition (which systematically ended in failure) from Democrats to virtually every nominee proposed for every single post by the President, there has hardly been any new exciting developments since the Presidential polls (with Howard Dean in charge there is some hope of an literal outburst sooner or later). Unfortunately, just when it seemed like some new excitement will creep into the mainstream the Senators have arrived at a comprise. What a pity! (They just saved the world from a few thousand hours of TV analysis and speculation and several thousands of pages of online commentary!)