Cato Daily Dispatch for October 16, 2002
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Bush Signs Iraq Resolution TodaySenate Blockage of Judicial Appointees Becomes Election Issue
Fast Food Chastised for Unhealthy Menus
Bush Signs Iraq Resolution Today
The Associated Press reports that President Bush summoned about 100 supportive lawmakers to the White House to join him today as he signed into law the newly passed resolution authorizing the use of force. A senior administration official said Bush would use a speech at the East Room ceremony to press the U.N. to adopt a new resolution compelling Iraq to submit to unconditional weapons inspections.
The president's message came on a day when the U.N. Security Council is holding its first day of open debate on Iraq at the behest of the dozens of non-Security Council nations who oppose an attack on Baghdad. The debate is mostly designed to take the administration to task on its Iraq policies, and White House officials expected sharp criticism throughout the day.
Last week, the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to allow Bush to use military action against Iraq.
Cato Institute foreign policy and defense experts Ted Galen Carpenter and Ivan Eland released a statement regarding the congressional resolution: "Congress has overwhelmingly passed a resolution authorizing the president to use force against Iraq. Despite this outpouring of overt support, many in Congress are privately squeamish about an invasion of Iraq. For good reason. A conflict with Iraq will subvert the much more important war against the enemy at the gates: al-Qaeda. And an unprovoked invasion of another nation state will undermine the principle of national sovereignty that has undergirded the international system for more than 350 years. A war against Saddam Hussein could actually reduce U.S. security. According to a recently declassified CIA analysis, Hussein is likely to be deterred from perpetrating or assisting in terrorist attacks against the United States with conventional, biological, or chemical weapons unless the United States backs him into a corner by threatening his survival with an invasion."
Senate Blockage of Judicial Appointees Becomes Election Issue
President Bush's ability to shape the federal bench, at stake in the November election, is heating up this year's election campaigns, reports The New York Times.
Frustrated by Senate Democrats' blocking of conservative judicial candidates, Bush is putting the issue at the core of his efforts on behalf of Republican candidates, hoping to use it to put the Senate back in his party's control.
The Senate has confirmed more than 80 of Bush's judicial appointees, with 14 for the appeals courts, the level just below the Supreme Court. But with the congressional session winding down, it seems evident that the Democrats who control the Senate Judiciary Committee by one vote have succeeded in defeating or delaying action on several candidates, all widely regarded as staunch conservatives.
In "How Constitutional Corruption Has Led to Ideological Litmus Tests for Judicial Nominees," Cato Vice President for Legal Affairs Roger Pilon writes, "The battle between politics and law takes place at many points in the American system of government, but in recent years it has become especially intense over judicial nominations. That is because judges today set national policy far more than they used to--and far more than the Constitution contemplates. Because the original constitutional design has been corrupted, especially as it relates to the constraints the Constitution places on politics, we have come to ideological litmus tests for judges."
Fast Food Chastised for Unhealthy Menus
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson told representatives of the fast-food industry yesterday that they should offer and aggressively advertise more fruits and vegetables, reexamine their "supersize" portions and generally offer more healthful food, according to The Washington Post.
"I want more choices and healthier choices on their menus, and advertising campaigns to eat healthy," Thompson said after the meeting. "We are too fat and don't exercise, and I invited them to be part of the solution."
Concerned about the increasing number of Americans who are overweight and obese, Thompson said the meeting was one of many he will have with industries and groups involved with food, nutrition and physical exercise.
At least two lawsuits have been filed this year against fast-food chains by obese plaintiffs, who argue that the chains' food is responsible for their being overweight.
In "Fat City for Trial Lawyers," Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Bob Levy writes about the absurdity of a lawsuit filed against major fast food chains in July by Caesar Barber, a 272-pound New Yorker: "If a corpulent plaintiff can prove that he was defrauded, that he relied on deceptive advertising despite an avalanche of contrary nutritional information, and that fatty foods caused his weight-related problems, then he might have a chance in court. But time-honored principles of tort law suggest that these lawsuits are frivolous, shamelessly designed to blackmail deep-pocketed companies."
Jonathan Block, editor, jblock@cato.org
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