Scott Walker—Unintimidated Veers into Uninformed and Unprepared

Questions abound if Scott Walker is actually smart enough to run for president

Katie Glueck in The Politico reports from the campaign trail, citing Republicans speaking on background, ripping Scott Walker as a lightweight.

Glueck's sources offer ugly comments from Republicans for Governor Meltdown.

Writes Glueck:

'[Walker] can't seem to find his way on any given issue with a handheld GPS,' an Iowa Republican said of Walker. "He's been on all three sides of every two-sided issue. For the last two months hasn't made a single policy pronouncement that he or his staff hasn't had to clarify or clear up within two hours. When you're reduced to saying 'yeah' doesn't mean 'yes,' you're in trouble. 'Unintimidated' has given way to 'uninformed' and 'unprepared.'" ...

The GOP insiders' criticism of Walker was rooted in the sense that his positions on a number of policy issues, from immigration to abortion, have shifted repeatedly, and that he has recently attempted to pander to Donald Trump voters.

'[That] plunge [in the polls] has come as a result of his inability to articulate where he stands on a single issue,' an Iowa Republican said. 'Authenticity matters in Iowa. Big time. In fact, it's the only thing that matters. Scott Walker advocated building a wall between the U.S. and Canada. How do you NOT lose the summer with a statement like that?' ...

Walker [also] left Granite Staters unimpressed.

'He's lost his lead in the make or break Iowa caucuses. He has alienated donors with his pandering to the base of the party. He is woefully unprepared in interviews. He has cemented his reputation as a shameless flip-flopper, and worst of all he has raised questions about if he is actually smart enough to run for president,' said a New Hampshire Republican.

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Running for home on rightwing radio, Walker answered the question if he were actually smart enough to run for president. He's not.

Writes Trip Gabriel in the New York Times:

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin appeared less clear on his position [on a Kentucky clerk defying the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal judge on marriage equity]. Asked by the radio host Laura Ingraham on Thursday if Ms. Davis should be compelled to issue marriage licenses, Mr. Walker said:

'It’s a balance that you’ve got to have in America between the laws that are out there, but ultimately ensuring the Constitution is upheld. I read that the Constitution is very clear, that people have the freedom of religion. That means you have the freedom to practice your religious beliefs out there.' 

In Walker's jurisprudence, any public official can practice his or her religious beliefs in refusing performance of civic duties—denying due process and equal protection to individuals because, for example, a county clerk's religion does not allow for blacks and whites to marry, same-sex couples to marry, Jews and Gentiles—Walker reads in the Unites States Constitution.

That the United States Supreme Court has ruled definitively in June "that no longer may this liberty [to marry] be denied" in direct opposition to Davis and Walker's position is of no consequence "out there."

For Scott Walker's edification, Justice Kennedy delivered the opinion of the Court:

"No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

Scott Walker Implies He'll Try to Repeal Fourteenth Amendment

Even as couples cheer the historic Supreme Court win for marriage equality (Opoien, the Capital Times), Gov. Scott Walker said he's calling for a Constitutional Amendment that would repeal the right to marry acclaimed by the Court yesterday.

"The states are the proper place for these decisions to be made, and as we have seen repeatedly over the last few days, we will need a conservative president who will appoint men and women to the Court who will faithfully interpret the Constitution and laws of our land without injecting their own political agendas," Walker said in a statement. "As a result of this decision, the only alternative left for the American people is to support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to reaffirm the ability of states to continue to define marriage." (Opoien, The Capital Times)

The statement provides more evidence that Scott Walker knows virtually nothing about the United States Constitution, an interesting state of affairs for a man who wants to be president.

The claims of equality by marriage equity advocates are so overwhelmingly supported by the Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, it is inescapable that the right to marry is now a fundamental liberty. (It was before.)

Scott Walker or anyone else cannot now wish away the fundamental liberties of marriage protected by the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, cited by Justice Kennedy, without repealing the Fourteenth Amendment, a protector of individuals' rights against bigoted state government.

Walker's Constitutional Amendment would of course never pass.

But Walker's animus towards gays is the very irrational societal and state force from which Obergefell v. Hodges protects individuals' liberty.

Walker's proposed Constitutional Amendment, (I would love to read the language), is posturing for the bigoted vote, but Walker's proposal also reveals him as a rube on the eve of his announcement for his run for the Republican Party's nomination for the presidency

Such an Amendment would have to repeal the protections in the Fourteenth Amendment, namely the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses that as noted shield individuals from states and bigoted forces that would ban interracial unions and same-sex marriages. In fact, whole sections of the Constitution would have to be rewritten for Walker to achieve his stated objective to take away citizens' liberty and give it to the states.

"A first premise of the Court’s relevant precedents is that the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy. This abiding connection between marriage and liberty is why Loving invalidated interracial marriage bans under the Due Process Clause," writes Kennedy.

Its no accident Justice Kennedy cited Loving v. Virginia (1967) numerous times throughout Obergefell.

In the sweeping win in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses cited by Justice Kennedy make clear that the Constitution's fundamental rights apply with equal force to same-sex couples as for different-sex couples.

This fundamental right to marry cannot be destroyed by a state because political interests in the state hate gays, anymore than racists can anymore stop black folks from marrying.

"No longer may this liberty be denied," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the historic decision. "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were." (Liptak, New York Times)

Don't look for Scott Walker's idea of a Constitutional Amendment to advance, but Walker did manage to reveal himself an ignoramus from Wisconsin.

Justices' Remarks on Same-Sex Marriage Are Foolish and Ahistorical

American University students at Court, part
of #SCOTUSmarriage! (Freedom to Marry)

Update II: See Hiltzik, Same-sex marriage: Supreme Court Justices don't know much about history.

Update: See Judge Richard Posner's opinion: on "Mindless Tradition," and "Bigotry" that struck down Wisconsin and Indiana's same sex marriage bans.
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"This definition [of traditional marriage] has been with us for millennia," [Justice Anthony Kennedy] said. "And it’s very difficult for the court to say, 'Oh, well, we know better.'" (Barnes, Barbash, Washington Post) (Baker, New York Times)

The NYT's Baker notes that several justices echoed Kennedy's expressed concerns in oral argument of Obergefell v. Hodge (Question 1, Oral transcript).

What is troubling is that none of the four statist justices—Scalia, Alito, Thomas and Roberts—expected to rule in favor of states' power to discriminate against individuals' right to simple equality in marriage have a subtle understanding of history on the matter. Thomas was silent during orals, but has demonstrated his abiding hostility towards minorities.

Marriage has changed through history, and across societies. Eighteen counties today have approved the freedom of individuals to marry. (Freedom to Marry) Criminalization of gay marriage "includes most Muslim-majority countries and much of sub-Saharan Africa," (Fisher, Washington Post) and is a mark of authoritarian and totalitarian states.

In the United States "Marriage today is not what it was under the common law tradition, under the civil law tradition. Marriage was a relationship of a dominant male to a subordinate female. That ended as a result of this Court's decision in 1982 when Louisiana's Head and Master Rule was struck down. And no State was allowed to have such a -- such a marriage anymore.  Would that be a choice that a State should be allowed to have?" chided Justice Ginsburg. (pp. 70,71)

In the Dark Ages and Nazi Germany the state sought to abolish gays, citing the unclean nature of gays and lack of usefulness to the state:

"On April 4, 1938, the Gestapo issued a directive indicating that men convicted of homosexuality could be incarcerated in concentration camps. Between 1933 and 1945 the police arrested an estimated 100,000 men as homosexuals. Most of the 50,000 men sentenced by the courts spent time in regular prisons, and between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps. ... The Nazis interned some homosexuals in concentration camps immediately after the seizure of power in January 1933. Those interned came from all areas of German society, and often had only the cause of their imprisonment in common. Some homosexuals were interned under other categories by mistake, and the Nazis purposefully miscategorized some political prisoners as homosexuals. Prisoners marked by pink triangles to signify homosexuality were treated harshly in the camps. According to many survivor accounts, homosexuals were among the most abused groups in the camps." (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

As the Dark Ages and Nazi Germany present extreme examples of animus and ignorance, one wonders if those justices foolishly using the universe of all societies through millennia as a justification for not protecting the rights of minorities mean to exclude these nonsensical and obscene states. How about Russia today?

Norman Cohn wrote of the totalitarian phenomenon as "the urge to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil."

When Kennedy asked, "well, we know better," the answer is clear: 'Yes, we do.' Well, most of us do.

Kennedy's confusion is apparent as he is expected to rule in June for the right of Americans to marry because there is no rational basis for the state to deprive Americans from marrying another of the same sex. (Denniston, SCOTUSBlog)

There is only nonsensical hostility and injurious treatment.

Why Kennedy finds this difficult for the Court to state is mystifying.