Did I hear John Kerry correctly on Friday night when he staked out a position in favor of federal subsidies for the poor to exercise any right guaranteed by the Constitution? Here’s the exact quote:

[Y]ou have to afford people their constitutional rights. And that means being smart about allowing people to be fully educated, to know what their options are in life and making certain that you don’t deny a poor person the right to be able to have whatever the Constitution affords them if they can’t afford it otherwise.

I know he was talking specifically about abortion (while dancing around trying to avoid saying he’d approve federal funding for abortions), but the logical premise was based on any natural right, which presumably would include birth control (Griswold), non-commercial adult sodomy (Lawrence), free speech, free exercise of religion, travel, and a whole host of other rights.

Apparently I’m the only smart person who was completely lost when George W. Bush started talking about Dred Scott v. Sanford during Friday night’s debate. The Baseball Crank writes:

[A]nyone who pays attention to constitutional law debates understood the parallel Bush was trying to draw, however inartfully.

My constitutional law class discussed Dred Scott on Wednesday, and I’d be surprised if any of them had figured out any meaningful parallel to Roe; I certainly hadn’t, in part because Bush’s discussion of the case butchered the basis of the key holding beyond recognition, and in part because Dred Scott was essentially a textualist decision (albeit an “activist” one that struck down a federal law for only the second time in American history).

Meanwhile, Eric Muller elaborates on the “it’s all code” theory, in the process demonstrating Lawrence’s Cardinal Rule:

Surely Karl Rove had scripted some sort of moderately articulate point about the perils of judicial activism on hotly contested matters of personal freedom—something comprehensible and calculated to win over a few voters on the fence—that Bush just totally mangled.

My gut feeling is that—if this was a coded message—anyone who could have figured out the coded message already knew that Bush was committed to appointing justices who believe Roe was wrongly decided on the merits; the “code” theory assumes a remarkable level of political knowledge by the average pro-life voter to be effective, which flies in the face of everything we know about voters in general and (in particular) what Democrats think the general level of intelligence is of pro-lifers.

One Fine Jay and the Backcountry Conservative note the passing of Superman star Christopher Reeve, who died Sunday at the age of 52 after a having heart attack and falling into a coma; a full story is available from the AP.

Curiously enough, Reeve was mentioned by presidential candidate John F. Kerry during Friday night’s presidential debate in response to a question on stem cell research; at least once, Kerry accidentally referred to Reeve in the past tense.

Jon Rowe finds Clayton Cramer inveighing against bukake, admittedly something I don’t particularly see the appeal of for any of the participants. Then again, I strongly suspect it’s the sort of sexual activity (like its single-participant cousin) that only takes place with a camera in the room.

The wild-and-wacky SEC didn’t disappoint this week, not least because the previously-anemic Rebel offense went to town on South Carolina in a 31–28 win, improbably putting the Rebels in second place in the SEC West with the Vols visiting Vaught-Hemingway next Saturday evening under the lights. Also improving my mood were the continuing struggles of the Starkvegans.

BigJim has more, of course.

Nick Troester—a wannabe theorist, mind you—stakes out a rather absolutist position on the place of political theory in the discipline of political science.

Next thing you know he’ll be ranting about public law and American political development. Which just goes to show you that maybe that Michigan education didn’t go to waste after all! ☺

As James Joyner notes, the Senate approved 96–2 with two absences (guess who) their version of the 9/11 commission bill. Charles Babbington writes in the WaPo that the only two senators who opposed the measure were Robert Byrd and Fritz Hollings, “who said Congress was moving too rapidly on so complex a matter.” Who’d have thought I’d be in total agreement with the Klansman and the senator from Disney?

My colleague Bob McElvaine, a history prof, has a column in today’s Clarion-Ledger that rests on this rather incomplete definition:

The word conservative means keeping things as they are.

I’m debating between writing a 500-word rebuttal (tying it in with the “You are not X, say Y” theme) or just fisking the mercy out of the piece, though I have to say anyone who’s holding up Charley Reese as an exemplar of mainstream conservative thought in America probably deserves the latter.

I have to say that pretty much everyone over 21* I’ve met (from left-wing academics to disaffected conservatives and libertarians) who plans to vote for John Kerry fits in this group (þ: InstaPundit). Heck, I might even turn out to be one of them…

Breaking news from the Clarion-Ledger:

A Clinton-based airline pilot accused of hosting parties where teens were provided drugs and alcohol and where some were videotaped in sexual situations today was sentenced to two years in jail for contributing to the delinquency of minors.

Just in case our former president didn’t have enough bad publicity regarding young women, sex, drugs, and alcohol associated with his name.

Roger L. Simon picks up on Dick Cheney’s invocation of the ghost of Howard Dean (or, as Roger puts it, “the bizarre and enduring influence of Howard Dean on our lives”). Meanwhile, Wretchard of The Belmont Club reminds us of Turkey’s role in undermining the post-war Iraqi security situation.

The Ranting Profs and Brian J. Noggle find widespread mental illness among American youth. Despite a 402–2 vote in the House of Representatives to bury and urinate on the grave of Charles Rangel’s idiotic proposal to reinstate the draft, the issue apparently isn’t going away—because people who don’t want a draft want to talk about it some more:

“It’s not settled in the least,” [Jehmu Greene, president of Rock the Vote,] said. “We’re going to mobilize all young people to call on Congress and both presidential candidates to give this serious attention because we need an informed debate. It’s not a partisan issue.”

One suspects that Ms. Greene finds the draft boogeyman a convenient recruiting tool for her organization, which the Knight-Ridder newswire charitably describes as “a nonpartisan group that seeks to boost voter turnout among young people.” And what better way to boost voter turnout than irresponsible scaremongering.

Let me make this perfectly clear: nobody wants a draft. We don’t need to have an informed debate (as opposed to lunatic-fringe scaremongering, which is what we have now) about something that nobody wants to take place, something that nobody supports, and something that frankly demonstrates a complete and total lack of seriousness by both the Democratic Party and its enablers at Rock the Vote about actual, non-illusory, and important issues facing America.

There’s a metaphor about holes and digging that I think Jim DeMint needs to seriously consider paying attention to. Better yet, the partisan nitwits at Redstate are still backing the guy.

Spin rule in effect.

Somehow, the Rebels have avoided making ESPN.com’s Bottom 10; Sylvester Croom’s squad, however, failed to dodge that bullet—losing to Vandy will lead to things like that.

Jayson Javitz finds shocking evidence of opinion polls themselves being biased (þ: Viking Pundit). I’ll leave it to Signifying Nothing’s capable readership to identify the problems with this analysis. Free hint: Javitz has “six more examples” that didn’t fit in the limited space in the margin, or something.

Those with medical conditions may want to skip this post.

Over the last few days (perhaps, in part, prompted by this) I’ve been pondering the value of Introduction to American Government and its variants.

I handed back students’ first exams this afternoon in Intro to American Government. It was bad: μ = 66, σ = 18, n = 24. I spent almost an hour talking about the exam and (figuratively) trying to talk a few students off ledges.

A belated congratulations to the Vanderbilt Commodores on the occasion of only their second SEC win since the beginning of the 2001 season (somehow, I’d forgotten they beat Kentucky last year) and snapping a 14-game losing streak against the West. Congratulations are also due to the Mississippi State Bulldogs on living up to their reputation as “Vandy of the West,” and to Bulldog QB Kyle York on making it onto the field; apparently he got tired of admiring his pickup truck’s mud tires and decided to play for a change.

Sunday, I decided I was massively overdue for a haircut, so I decided that one of my projects of the day would be to get a trim (I also bought some groceries and a couple of books, but that’s neither here nor there). Since the only place to get a haircut on a Sunday is at a mall, that’s where I went. And that’s where the pain started.

A couple of words for my friends at Redstate: bad timing.

Gays and lesbians should not be allowed to teach in public schools, Republican Jim DeMint said Sunday in a U.S. Senate debate.

The remark came late in the first debate between DeMint and Democrat Inez Tenenbaum — a testy and acrimonious hour that broke little new ground on their positions on most issues.

DeMint, a Greenville congressman, said the government should not endorse homosexuality and “folks teaching in school need to represent our values.”

The good news is, at least someone’s patriotism was questioned in the debate. (Couldn’t have a good debate without some patriotism-questioning.)

Tenenbaum, the state education superintendent, called DeMint’s position “un-American.”

DeMint said after the debate that he would not require teachers to admit to being gay, but if they were “openly gay, I do not think that they should be teaching at public schools.”

Tenenbaum later told reporters that “the private life of our teachers should stay private. I was shocked to hear him say that.”

And we have a nominee for “bad paraphrase of the day”:

College of Charleston political scientist Bill Moore said DeMint’s position would be unconstitutional…. [I didn’t truncate the quote; the ellipses are in the original. Go figure.]

No, DeMint’s position isn’t unconstitutional. A law that implemented DeMint’s position might be—presumably, Lawrence v. Texas and Roemer v. Evans would be controlling precedent, but I don’t think the Supreme Court has ruled that employment discrimination against homosexuals is unconstitutional.

The most amazing thing about this whole situation: Congress has virtually nothing to do with the hiring practices of local school districts (which are solely state and local responsibilities, even under cooperative federalism), so why on earth was this even being debated in the first place? Sheesh.

Oh, and for the donors who contributed to DeMint’s campaign via the Redstate effort, I have three more words: ask for refunds.

From Saturday’s Washington Post:

[New stadium opponents] said that although the stadium proposal calls mainly for taxing stadium services and big business, they feared that businesses would simply pass those extra costs on to consumers. [emphasis added]

Free hint: the businesses will pass those extra costs onto consumers, either through increased prices or lower levels of customer service (i.e. reducing payroll). Or they’ll leave Washington entirely.

Again… there be spin below the fold.

Matt Stinson has some interesting commentary on both George Soros’ misleading BlogAd campaign and his distinct lack of popularity in east Asia. Matt also laments his inability to watch Meet The Press; I’d suggest some sort of P2P solution, but one suspects the popularity of Sunday talkers is a little lower than that of Buffy among the tweener and hard-up set that dominates filesharing culture.