Comments on: Rogering the Constitution

By: James Hanley

James Hanley — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:23:25 +0000

Very nice rogering of Roger. I’m a big fan of Cato–I use their policy briefs in my classes quite a bit–but Pilon has not just gone off the reservation here, he’s gone off his rocker. Your addendum perfectly clarifies why–expecting secrecy to be politically accountable is pathetically inane. And he’s so amped on separation of powers that he’s forgotten about checks and balances. Some constitutional scholar. He should head off to the Discovery Institute and start working on “legal arguments” for teaching creationism in the public schools.

By: Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:38:58 +0000

That *is* confusingly written; I’ll fix it. And the House did, in fact, pass an excellent bill in that period of time. The Intel and Judiciary committees, for their part, both spent that time knocking out bills of their own. And the Senate made their choice as between those, but the full base bill has only JUST come before the Senate. Surely for the most sweeping reform of our intel framework in three decades, it would be prudent to let the full body consider a variety of reasonable amendments so they know which safeguards might be included before they approve something?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:01:25 +0000

The clock is “ticking” because the White House and its proxies in the Senate sought at every turn to block temporary extensions of the PAA so that a proper debate of a significant reform to foreign intel law could be conducted.

This is very confusingly written, but eventually I figured out that the the claim here is that “temporary extensions” are necessary to have a proper debate. To which my question is, why didn’t the period from last summer to February 1 provide the opportunity for a proper debate?

By: Thoreau

Thoreau — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:59:27 +0000

Julian-

Does Cato have anything equivalent to tenure for senior scholars? I wouldn’t think so, except I’ve run across scholars with tenure (or something similar) in other places that aren’t really academic institutions but expect their scholars to produce peer-reviewed works. I ask because I’m curious how much review senior Cato scholars are subject to.

By: jbd

jbd — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:12:06 +0000

This just baffles me. Roger Pilon has always been a good guy. But the WSJ article is a disgrace.

Some folks are saying that this just shows that Cato values intellectual freedom. But the article gets its entire punch from the fact that it’s written by a Cato guy. There’s nothing clever or original in it. The WSJ probably wouldn’t have bothered to publish it if it had been submitted by someone from AEI.

It’s fine for Cato to let their folks go off the reservation. But they should not have allowed their name to be used on this.

By: Christopher Monnier

Christopher Monnier — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:59:52 +0000

Tim Lee (of the Cato Institute) disagrees with Pilon here.