The Discerning Texan

I do not like to spend a lot of time ragging on President Bush because it is one hell of a tough job, and because I greatly admire him for standing up and doing the right thing by not abandoning the Iraqis--when it seemed like almost everyone else on Planet Earth wanted him to. He has fought hard for tax cuts and he has fought for the right to protect us from those who want us all dead. In many ways, I greatly admire the man. Hell, I went to his first inauguration...

Which makes days like this particularly painful for me.

Whan a President of the United States--any President--has the audacity to send the people's lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court, that an extra-Constitutional "International Court of Justice" has jurisdiction over an American state (or over anyone in any American state, for that matter); especially when that state is simply operating according to the very Constitution that the President himself has sworn to uphold...well a day like that is a shameful day in American history.

To call it disgraceful would be to do a disservice to the word "disgrace". I have thought many things about President Bush, but I never thought I would see the day when he would so openly espouse the betrayal of American sovereignty. It appears as if the assimilation of the Presidency into the "Borg" that is the State Department and our seditious Intelligence Community--is now completed. What an enormous departure from the Bush that addressed the nation after that terrible day in 2001--and what an utter tragedy.

Fortunately, the President did have the good sense to appoint a couple of Justices to the Supreme Court--without whom our country could have suffered an enormous setback today. And this does underscore the importance of keeping a Democrat out of the White House. But I nevertheless am very sober and saddened today.

From where I sit, this is a betrayal: of my State and of the Constitution of the United States. I expected more from this President.

Michelle has more here, including this great quote:

Andy McCarthy summed up the bottom line on this case last fall:

At bottom, the case is about the freedom of Texans to govern themselves, to put sadistic murderers to death if that is what they choose democratically to do, as long as they adhere to American constitutional procedures in carrying out that policy choice. Sure, it offends Mexicans, Europeans, international law professors, and a motley collection of jurists who see themselves as a supra-sovereign tribunal. But that is not a basis for the President to interfere.

The administration has made a great show of promoting democracy. Democracy, however, begins at home.

Don’t you forget it.

This quote too, from the same post, is telling:

An international court ruled in 2004 that the convictions of Medellin and 50 other Mexicans on death row around the United States violated the 1963 Vienna Convention, which provides that people arrested abroad should have access to their home country’s consular officials. The International Court of Justice, also known as the world court, said the Mexican prisoners should have new court hearings to determine whether the violation affected their cases.

Bush, who oversaw 152 executions as Texas governor, disagreed with the decision. But he said it must be carried out by state courts because the United States had agreed to abide by the world court’s rulings in such cases. The administration argued that the president’s declaration is reason enough for Texas to grant Medellin a new hearing.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, disagreed. Roberts said the international court decision cannot be forced upon the states.

The president may not “establish binding rules of decision that pre-empt contrary state law,” Roberts said.

That is why we have a Constitution. That is why our fighting men and women swear an oath not to the United States--but to the Constitution of the United States. Somewhere along the line our President seems to have forgotten about that document. Perhaps he's been seeing a bit too much of Condi lately...

This just in from the world of bloodsport:
US Federalism - 1
Pretentious World "Governing" Bodies - 0.

Score one for the good guys for a change. This is a guy who raped and killed two little girls while he was here in our country illegally. Children.

Must suck to be him.

(Oh, well...)

UPDATE: This, from yet another Malkin post:

Phyllis Schlafly connects the dots between the Medellin case and the Law of the Sea Treaty:

Just this week, the United States Supreme Court gave us an important look into what kind of global power grabs we face if the Senate ratifies the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). On October 10, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Jose Medellin, an illegal alien rapist-murderer now on death row in Texas. Medellin, a citizen of Mexico who lived illegally in the United States, was convicted and sentenced to death after he confessed in 1993 to the brutal rape and murder of two teenage girls in Houston.

Long after Medellin had received the full due process of the American legal system, in 2003 the Mexican government sued the United States in the International Court of Justice (known as the “World Court”), an agency of the United Nations which sits at The Hague in The Netherlands.

In 2004 the World Court ruled in favor of Mexico and ordered the United States to give Medellin another hearing, or perhaps another trial, at which he could receive the assistance of Mexican consular employees.

A 1963 treaty known as the Vienna Convention, which both the United States and Mexico have signed and ratified, provides that aliens who are accused of crimes in a foreign country are entitled to request the assistance of consular officials of their home country. Medellin never requested such assistance until long after he was tried, convicted and sentenced, and after all his appeals were denied.

Of course, Medellin did receive the assistance of competent American legal defense lawyers throughout the process, and there is no reason to think that the presence of a Mexican consul could have made any difference in the outcome.

Incredibly, the Bush Administration has knuckled under to the World Court and tried to order the Texas courts to give Medellin another hearing. The Texas courts properly refused to honor this unconstitutional interference, and the Texas decision was upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

This case shows why the U.S. Senate should not agree to diminish American sovereignty by ratifying another UN treaty called the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)…

As I mentioned, the White House supports LOST, too.

A wholly fitting acronym…

It appears so. And I feel like a big ol' knife has been firmly planted in my back.