Federal Judge Vaughn Walker

California federal courtroom for the first time.

Less than four weeks ago, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals determined that it was time to begin a pilot project exploring the benefits of broadcasting federal civil trials.   It is somewhat remarkable that the long-protected privacy of California federal courtrooms would become negotiable just weeks before the start of the Proposition 8 discrimination trial.   The Ninth Circuit’s “pilot project” immediately opened the door for Federal Judge Vaughn Walker to take extraordinary legal steps, on New Year’s Eve no less,  to extend the project to include the discrimination suit against Protect Marriage.  With every day, the prosecution of Protect Marriage seems to be led, not just by formidable constitutional attorneys David Boies and Ted Olson, but by Judge Walker as well.  An outraged National Review Online columnist, Ed Whelan, notes that by waiting until New Year’s Eve to make procedural moves to broadcast the Proposition 8 discrimination trial, Judge Walker essentially precluded the public from having any opportunity to oppose it.  In a letter written directly to the Judge, Whelan publicly challenges the motives behind the move:

“The longstanding policy of the Judicial Conference of the United States opposes all broadcasting of civil and criminal cases in federal district courts.  The concerns that animate that policy—including the threat of intimidation of witnesses and litigants—are especially present in the Perry case, as the December 28, 2009, letter from counsel for Defendant-Intervenors makes clear.

I will not address here the curious announcement on December 17, 2009, of the Ninth Circuit’s pilot program.  Suffice it to say that the selection of cases for a pilot program ought to involve, at a minimum, addressing the following questions:

1.  Does any party object to televised proceedings?

2.  Is there any reason to believe that televised proceedings might increase the risk that trial participants would face intimidation, harassment, or abuse?

3.  Is there any reason to believe that that televised proceedings might create a risk that trial participants, including the judge, would engage in grandstanding behavior?

Only in cases in which the answer to all three questions is NO would it make sense to consider further the possibility of participation in the pilot program.  By contrast, in Perry, the answer to all three questions is YES.

I am aware that a coalition of media companies has asked you to have Perry televised because “televising this modern-day Scopes trial would present viewers with a national civics lesson on a hotly contested issue that crosses social, political, educational, and religious boundaries.”  But the role of the courts is not to “present viewers with a national civics lesson.”  It’s to decide cases fairly.  In some cases, that goal might be jeopardized by televising the proceedings.  But in other cases it will be.  The very fact that these media companies are intent on portraying the case as a “modern-day Scopes trial” reinforces the ample evidence that this trial should not be televised.  If you persist in failing to recognize that elementary fact, the national civics lesson that you will be providing is yet another reminder that too many of our federal judges willfully abuse their authority in order to advance their own political agendas.

If you proceed to rubber-stamp the proposed revision to Rule 77-3 in order to enable televised coverage of Perry, I respectfully submit that your reckless and prejudicial course of conduct on this matter will have clearly demonstrated that your “impartiality might reasonably be questioned” within the meaning of the judicial-disqualification law, 28 U.S.C. § 455(a), and that you will then be obligated to disqualify yourself from further participation in Perry.  Indeed, I invite you to examine dispassionately whether you are already required to disqualify yourself.”

Ed Whelan writes, what everyone is thinking.

Read more here as the National Review Online examines the strategy behind the federal court challenge of Prop 8.

Anyone with a television set in 1994 remembers the televised circus that was the O.J. Simpson trial.  Judge Ito’s courtroom became a circus and the trial a judicial farce.   Indeed, the public is fascinated with law and order. It is also true that some events in our society really do not bear the intrusion of video cameras.  Truth was distorted in the O.J. Simpson case, and certainly the majority of Americans feel the outcome was dreadfully impacted.

Even if the famous Bush vs. Gore Supreme Court case in 2000, where the outcome of a presidential election and the interests of every American was at stake, only audio broadcasts were allowed of the proceedings.

The Supreme Court, with Justice Steven Breyer dissenting, has for the present, protected the proceedings from becoming an even bigger media frenzy.

For example, maybe you missed this report from Byron York over the weekend.  In a commentary – a commentary! – about the Obama administration’s attacks on Fox News, Ken Rudin, NPR’s political director, first said this:

“It’s not only aggressive, it’s almost Nixonesque,” Rudin said. “I mean, you think of what Nixon and Agnew did with their enemies list and their attacks on the media; certainly Vice President Agnew’s constant denunciation of the media. Of course, then it was a conservative president denouncing a liberal media, and of course, a lot of good liberals said, ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous. That’s an infringement on the freedom of press.’ And now you see a lot of liberals almost kind of applauding what the White House is doing to Fox News, which I think is distressing.”

Listener response must have been furious.  Within 24 hours Rudin said this:

“I made a boneheaded mistake yesterday,” Rudin wrote on his NPR blog. “Comparing the tactics of the Nixon administration — which bugged and intimidated and harrassed journalists — to that of the Obama administration was foolish, facile, ridiculous and, ultimately, embarrassing to me. I should have known better and, in fact, I do know better. I was around during the Nixon years. I am fully cognizant of what they did and attempted to do.”

“I apologize for a dumb comparison.”

I wonder if at any time, during the eight years of that Dark Period known as The George W. Bush Administration, any NPR commentator ever described Bush’s approach to the news media as (shudder!) “almost Nixonesque?”  Not Nixonesque, mind you, but almost Nixonesque.  Such an irresponsible thing to say  . . . .

Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s popularity has plummeted lower than Dick Cheney’s.  We were treated to story after story about how much people hated Cheney during the Dark Period.  To get this news, it looks like we have to go to the Washington Examiner, a conservative on-line alternative.

Perhaps this kind of blindness, mixed with inconsistency, is one of the reasons why CNN’s ratings have fallen 68% and the network is now in prime-time last place.  Could be!  This appalling performance by Anderson Cooper, followed by this embarrassing (and tardy) apology by Anderson Cooper, are perfect examples of what CNN does to drive away fair-minded viewers.

With Mr. Cooper’s antics in mind, Don Surber may be right with this slightly different theory:

The sneaky opinion — Anderson Cooper’s sneering contempt for conservative protesters — is what people don’t like. Cooper and company try to be stealth but they come of as snide and fake, as if they are trying to hide who they really are.

My guess:  It’s a combination of all these things.  In any event, people are voting with their remote controls, and CNN is losing.

Shriver on Today's Women

constant balancing act that is a reality for women who try, or need to be part of both worlds.

Maria Shriver is a good reporter and always has been.  Now she adds to her perspective, enormous life experience as a mother of four, a front row seat in political life, and eight years as a Governor’s wife touring the communities of California.

I highly encourage viewing her segments airing on the NBC Evening News, or Today, or MSNBC this week.  There is a lot to learn from her reports. It is valuable to know the source of the research as well.  The American Policy Institute, partnering with TIME Magazine, conducted polling of 3,413 people throughout the U.S.  Both men and women were polled in the study.   For your information, former Clinton aide, John Podesta, is the head of the American Policy Institute.  Scanning the initial findings, the results are telling.

The Shriver Report is  probably the most interesting survey about women completed since 1963, when President John F. Kennedy directed Eleanor Roosevelt to examine the standing of American women.   At that time only 10% of American families were headed by unmarried women.

Anyone can download the entire report at the American Policy Institute if they wish, and it is fascinating reading.  Here are some highlights:

1-Half of all families in the U.S. now require two breadwinners.

2-A woman is the primary breadwinner in 4 out of 10 American families today.

3-Half of all workers in America are women.

4-60% of all college degrees are being earned by women.

5-Half of all P.H.D.’s are being awarded to women.

6-40% of all women in the workforce are employed as managers or professionals.

7-80% of all the buying decisions in America are made by women.

8-350,000 women are now in the U.S. Military.

9-The number of women starting their own businesses has grown 23% in recent years.

10-The number of women starting their own businesses is growing twice as fast as men doing the same.

11-53 % of college graduates breastfeed their babies, while only 29 percent of high school graduates do so.

True North Readers should go to www.TodayShow.com and watch for yourself.  Some of the conclusions drawn by NBC producers about the findings in this report are probably more trendy than…true.  On Monday Shriver and Matt Lauer discussed how fathers and mothers are now virtually “interchangeable” at home, suggesting that families can be constructed in any way, shape or form, and have the same outcome.  I doubt that broad-based research would support that very “today” observation.

While it is true that men are spending comparatively more time in American households,  and many are doing outstanding jobs replacing Mom, where are the surveys asking children how much they miss their Mothers?   How often are they sent to school sick because it is impossible for them to stay home?  What kind of stress level exists in their homes and how often do they feel they have the benefit of their parents’ undivided attention?

These would be hard questions for me to answer honestly in my own house.

A study of children might be the next valuable step in looking at A Woman’s Nation, because women are still nature’s primary nurturers.  The Shriver Report reveals that only 30% of women now can be classified as “stay at home moms.”   In reading reports such as these,  mothers who are dedicating themselves to the raising of their children, and/or are fortunate enough to be able to do so, may feel like propeller planes from another age.

A truly interesting empirical study would be to compare the performances and emotional I.Q.  of  children from the same 3,413 homes measured by the TIME and American Policy Institute study.   It might be terribly helpful to new parents, growing families and ambitious parents, to understand how the emotional and mental maturity of children is truly impacted for better and for worse, when they come from busy two-career homes or one career homes, or from homes with stay at home moms and moms and dads balancing role reversals.

We know many men and women are buckling under the stress of the worlds they are  tackling each day.  What we truly need to measure is: Are our children buckling too?

While parents are spending more time away from home fighting for wages and exhausting themselves in the world of work, our children are growing up in a world that hardly resembles what their parents remember.  How families are adapting to the challenge of commuting,  increasing academic requirements, the reach and danger of the internet, the constant external pressures on child safety, policing the ever- present and invasive mass media, and balancing family time, family values, and family security, may be the true rubrics we should be using as we measure our success as working parents and breadwinners.

Let’s roll out those studies.

A WA

If Polanski was an ordinary Roman, and not an award-winning film director, we wouldn’t be having this debate. There is sympathy for him because he’s considered a great artiste. The Hollywood elite wouldn’t give Polanski the plumber the time of day if he had sexually assaulted an underage girl. And that suggests to me a stunning double standard.

As Glenn Reynolds asks, “Suggests?”

Then there’s this from Megan McArdle:

You would think we’d busted him for unpaid parking tickets. The guy drugged a thirteen year old girl in order to rape her. Perhaps the French have some sophisticated, European point of view on these things that I, with my puritan ancestry, simply cannot rise to.

And here’s my personal favorite:

If his unspeakable deed doesn’t meet the standard, what exactly would Roman Polanski have to do in order to become a pariah in this town … I mean, besides vote for Sarah Palin?

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE:   A paragraph from scathing post by Kate Harding at Salon:

The point is not to keep 76-year-old Polanski off the streets or help his victim feel safe. The point is that drugging and raping a child, then leaving the country before you can be sentenced for it, is behavior our society should not — and at least in theory, does not — tolerate, no matter how famous, wealthy or well-connected you are, no matter how old you were when you finally got caught, no matter what your victim says about it now, no matter how mature she looked at 13, no matter how pushy her mother was, and no matter how many really swell movies you’ve made.

Again, the whole thing must be read to be appreciated.

Fox Commentator Glenn Beck

First, I have met Glenn Beck in person, and he exudes kindness, class, and warmth.  You can’t help but like that man.

But the man I see on television is not that Glenn Beck.  That man’s an entertainer, playing to an audience – not always a perceptive political analyst.  I find myself agreeing with Beck on substance most of the time, but wincing at his style.  Can’t we do a better job of talking about important issues — without all that yelling?

And sometimes I think Beck carries the “I am a conservative” banner into places he should not go.  For example, in an interview with Katie Couric, Beck said that as much as he disagrees with Obama, “I think John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama.”

Excuse me?  Everyone knows  I am no McCain fan – that man often drives me up the nearest wall – but how can any conservative say what Beck did?  Listen to this Mark Levin audio and see if you agree.  I do.  Levin has some comments about Ron Paul as well.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney continues to sound like one of the only adults in the discussion about the country’s future.   Jennifer Rubin, who is a solid thinker and writer with impeccable conservative credentials, wrote at Commentary’s Contentions blog:

Former governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney was the lunch speaker at the Foreign Policy Initiative conference. In a conversational interview with FPI board member Dan Senor, he appeared more relaxed and fluent than he had on the campaign trail. Without a fixed script (or any notes), he was able to demonstrate some impressive grasp of details while setting forth his big-picture critique of the Obama foreign policy. He gave credit to the president for his willingness to stick to a winning strategy in Iraq and for not “yanking all the troops out,” as he had promised during the campaign. But that is where his praise ended. . . .

It was in many ways a surprising outing for Romney, demonstrating more depth and verve than many in the room could recall from the campaign. Whether that message resonates outside the room, with the larger conservative community and with elected leaders, remains to be seen. But certainly we will hear more from him in the future.

Read the whole thing.  That is interesting praise from a tough-minded critic.  I look forward to more of Mitt Romney and maybe a little less of Glenn Beck.  Oh yes, and a lot less of Ron Paul.

My friend Hugh Hewitt writes today about Obama’s desperate attempt to rally the nation by rallying his loyalists in the media.  (Note in particular Hugh’s photo montage of the interviews – not something you’ll ever see in the New York or Los Angeles Times.)  An excerpt:

The reason behind President Obama’s frantic retail television yesterday has to be that every debate over Obamacare everywhere in the country has to be going just as mine did.  Proponents of Obamacare from the president down to Obamacare advocate in a two person discussion on a park bench are not just losing the argument.  They have lost it.  Decisively.  And no series of interviews, no matter how gentle the questions or advantageous the setting, are going to persuade anything close to a majority of Americans that it makes sense to trade in their health care for whatever it is that the president, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have behind Door Number 3.

Syndicated Radio Commentator Hugh Hewitt

Never before has a President of the United States so obviously tried to “work the media” as President Obama has on health care.  He began with an “Evening at the White House,” when Charlie Gibson was allowed to actually broadcast the ABC Evening News live from within the White House in exchange for an exclusive ABC “town hall” on health care that same evening.   This weekend, each major Sunday news program gladly welcomed the President — simultaneously!   His message was the same to each:  He was stumping to raise the deficit another trillion dollars to fund his vision of health care in America.

Hugh also sees through this broadcast blitz, and focuses on the growing urgency of Afghanistan in today’s post.  Take a look.

The headline on the story about a new CBS News/New York Times survey was interesting: “Poll: Support for Gay Marriage Dips.” How fast and how far had support for gay marriage had to drop before a mainstream-media headline acknowledged it, even as a “dip”?

Here’s the answer: 9 percentage points.

That’s right: In just a few short months, support for gay marriage in this poll plunged 9 percentage points, from its all-time high of 42 percent to 33 percent. . . .

Culture consists of ideas. Ideas, like civilizations, can die out. They die when no one is willing to defend them out loud. Gay-marriage advocates are like the Borg: Resistance is futile, they repeatedly say. This is an ambitious and psychologically sophisticated strategy: If they say it often enough, maybe Americans will believe it. If Americans start to believe it, then it will be true. Despair is gay-marriage advocates’ most powerful weapon, especially when it is fed by social conservatives’ failure to create solid strategies of hope.

In the marketplace of ideas, not all Americans are equal. Culture is created by elites. And gay-marriage advocates have decided that victory requires winning over not only liberal and Democratic elites, as powerful as they are, but conservative and Republican elites as well.

When does a war end? When one side’s will to fight is broken. This is true in culture wars, too. A culture shift is complete only when an idea becomes uncontested (and uncontestable) by good, decent, law-abiding, “normal” citizens.

Gay-marriage advocates tried very hard to engineer such a moment in the past few months. I’ve had a front-row seat, fighting marriage battles deep in blue states — battles I didn’t ask for and don’t want, battles that gay-marriage advocates decided to fight right now in the middle of a looming recession, with budget craters opening up and service cuts or tax increases looming. Does this make sense? Why now?

Please read the article, bookmark it,  and ask everyone you know to do the same.

First, this BBC video shows an amazing clash between Iranian police and a large crowd of street protesters.  Start paying close attenttion at about 1:45.

Second (and swinging all the way back to the other side of the world), Sonja Schmidt at Pajamas TV offers a scathing wrap-up to the David Letterman – Willow Palin disgrace, and throws in some pointed comments about Guy Cimbalo, the Playboy on-line editor who fantasized about assaulting specific conservative women.  Video here.

(HT: Instapundit.)

The photo below captures a disturbing trend that is beginning to affect US wildlife.

Animals that were formerly self-sufficient are now  showing signs of belonging to the Democratic  Party… as they have apparently learned to just sit and wait for the  government to step in and provide for their care and sustenance. 

This photo is of a Democrat black bear in Montana nicknamed Bearack Obearma.

And our selected weekend cartoons follow . . . .

Under Bush, we had 100 left-leaning, rabidly anti-administration media outlets that were trying to get the President impeached and members of his staff thrown in jail. Against that, we had a single media outlet giving him generally favorable coverage.

Now, under Obama, we have 100 left-leaning media outlets trying to ram the President’s agenda through while working at having his likeness chiseled on Mount Rushmore. Against that, we have a single media outlet playing watchdog.

(HT: Instapundit.)