Professor Robert P. George, of Princeton University, was one of three panelists at the Palmetto Freedom Forum in South Carolina, on September 5, 2011. Five of the GOP hopefuls took part in the forum: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, and Ron Paul.
The above video of the question put to Newt Gingrich (and to each of the other candidates) by Professor George is worth a second look (assuming you watched the forum). Just when all the negative campaigning emphasizing the Gingrich "baggage" might have caused you to jump off his bandwagon, even after the recent endorsement of Gingrich by Thomas Sowell, someone over at Ricochet.Com posted the video yesterday and you were reminded just how strong Newt is on such important issues. The problem of an overreaching judiciary, as made clear by Gingrich, is that it transforms us from a nation under the "rule of law" to a nation under the "rule of lawyers" - and some of those lawyers have no regard for the Constitution.
Asked some time after the forum by the blogger at Ricochet about his question, Professor George said:
"Well, I wanted to know how each candidate viewed the authority and responsibilities of Congress under the 14th Amendment. That would tell me something important about the depth of each candi-date’s understanding of the constitutional division of powers be-tween the states and the national government and between the elected branches of government and the courts.
"The political culture is one in which many people have been miseducated into believing in the doctrine of judicial supremacy. Contrary to what many people suppose, this was not a doctrine embraced by the framers and ratifiers of our Constitution. It was explicitly rejected by Jefferson and by Lincoln. And so in a debate about America’s founding principles, which is what the Palmetto Freedom Forum was all about, what could be more appropriate than to ask the candidates whether they would simply accept or would challenge the doctrine of judicial supremacy?"
Further on in the post forum interview with the Ricochet blogger, Professor George contrasted the answers to his question by Gingrich (bold) and Romney (nuanced), and seemed, at least to this reader, to be more impressed by Gingrich's response (You can view Romney's answers to all three questioners HERE).
"So this (the Gingrich response) was a bold approach, a clear, straightforward rejection of judicial supremacy and an equally clear and straightforward statement of the obligation of the President to fight it directly. Compare and contrast that with Governor Romney’s nuanced position. (And by “nuance” here I don’t again mean to be commending or criticizing it. I’m just describing it. As I have said, I think both Romney and Gingrich did well.)
"Governor Romney is saying well, "okay, we’ve got a problem here. A decision like Roe is outrageous. It’s an unconstitutional decision. The Court has exceeded its powers. It has interfered in the legislative process. It’s a bad thing. To directly defy it, however, would bring on a constitutional crisis. We should do that only if there’s no other way to deal with the problem. But there is another way: As President I would be so careful in my judicial appointments that we wouldn’t get more Souters, O’Connors, and Kennedys. We’d get more justices like Scalia and Thomas. And we’d actually get rid of Roe that way without generating the constitutional crisis that direct defiance would generate."
"If Gingrich is by temperament bold, one would describe Romney as by temperament more cautious. This is not to suggest that Gingrich is rash or Romney is indecisive. But it is to notice a difference in temperament—a difference that was brought very clearly into view at the Palmetto Forum."
