Simple stuff:

when Obama says "X" (which sounds perfectly reasonable) it means "Y" (the most terrifying anti-American concept imaginable)

It's like mad libs, with an emphasis on the mad.

Well Done!

(those two words include the secret code, so secret even I don't it - as I pass it along)

Have you wondered why all credit card companies have very similar language/terms imbedded in their card "agreements". I put quotations around "agreements" because they aren't really agreements. They are boilerplate, one sided, onerous pieces of paper, written entirely by the card companies, and never signed by the card holders. Why are they all so identicall? Is there not some sort of collusion?

Yet, these "agreements" are enforced in courts of law by so-called "strict constructionist" judges who will enforce any peice of paper as if it were a negotiated instrument by equal parties. 30 years ago, most judges would have laughed such onerous "agreements" out of their courts.

You are right of course, but Hatch, et al have no interest at all in code words.

Their sole interest is in getting their message out and dominating the discussion about whoever the Supreme Court nominee will be. Thus far, they are off to a very good start. The Democrats? Not so much, but it's early yet and the ground has shifted considerably since the last such nomination.

It is of absolutley no consequence to the Republicans that they are liars and hypocrites on just about every major issue and that a larger percentage of the public realizes it than ever before. This is nothing new. They understand very well that this is what they have been doing for decades. But in purely political terms (the only ones they understand) there is no future or past to these people: only the present and they say whatever it is they think will be most likely to advance their agenda regardless of anything else. They depend upon a public with no memory of what they heard yesterday or enough common sense to figure out what they'll be hearing from the Republicans tomorrow.

This strategy has worked more or less flawlessly over the past 25-30 years for them. They (and their enablers in the media and in the Democratic Party)do not understand that the landscape has changed or that the old tactics may not be so reliable anymore. That is why we're seeing more of the same, but with added virulence. They are angry that they have been repudiated but in denial about it. Thus they have concluded if only they go turbo and do their thing even more vengefully it will restore the natural order of things and make the old methods work their magic once again.

Thank God there is one code word they all hear, even while they attempt to cover their ears: PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!!!!!!

Today I posted about the Christian Right, so I'm still kinda stuck in the meme. Is empathy a sin of some kind, because the Republicans sure are eager to condemn Obama for suggesting a judge have the capacity for empathy. How do they expect to retain the loyalties of Christians if they condemn empathy?

Oh, yeah, that's right, those Christians on the Right have an enormous capacity of their own to ignore the things that do not comport with their faith coming from the Republican Party. This should be easy enough. I do not expect a peep from them, really.

The real code words and the real threat don't see the light of day very often. The Constitution in Exile is a conservative judicial movement that is represented by Richard Epstein, who also plays a major part in the better known Law and Economics jurisprudence.

The Constitution in Exile activists want to return to the age before the New Deal, when courts routinely struck down any attempt to curtail economic competition, such as minimum wage laws.

Here are two excellent articles that detail the attempts of this movement to reach their goal. Both also feature Cass Sunstein who is rumored to be one of the President's nominees for SCOTUS.

The Unregulated Offensive, by Jeffrey Rosen (long article).

Hoover's Court Rides Again, by Cass Sunstein.

Empathy is for sissies!

I mean can't you libs understand what's it's like for us conservatives to be misunderstood and marginalized?

You missed a couple of other phrases that tends to raise my hackles when used in close proximity to each other: 1. Original Intent; 2. State's Rights. Far too often, the use of these two terms is an artful attempt to hurdle over the 13th and 14th Amendments. Original Intent should be afforded great significance by Federal Judges, but Constitutional Amendments are superseding texts, that abrogated part(s) of the Constitution's Original Intent, and cannot justifiably be ignored.

Slavery was a blight upon The Nation at its founding, and many of the Founders who were slaveholders knew it was both immoral, and antithetical to the radical concepts which brought America into being. Most contemporary criticisms regarding slaveholders who were American Founders are shallow, and fail to pierce the complexities that were a part of ending it. No matter how odious the thought, slaves were private property, and any legislation, state or Federal, which simply abolished slavery, would have also been a governmental taking of private property, and lawfully, the slaveholders would have been entitled to fair compensation for it. This is only one of the many issues that were tied into abolition of slavery. Jefferson is often criticised for being a slaveholder, yet had attempted to to ban it at the Commonwealth of Virginia's creation. He later tried unsuccessfully to get federal legislation enacted that would have assured all humans born after 1800 could not be born into slavery.

Sadly, it took a horrendous Civil War to end slavery in America, and after the war, many Americans understood that a strong States' Rights doctrine had been a primary cause for it, and needed to be weakened. This was a significant force in the enactment of the 13th and 14th Amendments.

I have read both Robert Bork and Lawrence Tribe. In my mind, Bork makes more sense with his Original Intent arguments for adjudication, than Tribe does with his judicial theory, yet Original Intent as an absolute method is itself inherently flawed. Strict adherence to Original Intent is ill suited when attempting to apply Constitutional concepts of freedom and liberty to issues emergent from advancing knowledge and new technologies. The Founders never intended the Constitution to be an unyielding framework for government. Instead it was created with flexibility, so it could survive in times of great upheaval.Original Intent tends to make the constitution rigid and brittle; unsuitable to weather the storms of change.

Lastly, Original Intent Absolutism is in reality a form of juridical sorcery. It is Divination By Nine Old Fogies With Fetishes For Black Satin Moo Moos, Auguring The Constitution's Entrails.