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 ary Frances
Berry and her subordinates at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
denied Peter Kirsanow his seat on the panel this morning, even though
President Bush appointed him to the post on Wednesday and a judge
swore him in last night. "We won't stand down," insisted
Berry, the commission's chairwoman.
Kirsanow is supposed to replace Victoria Wilson, a liberal whose
term expired on November 29. But Wilson, who was chosen to fill
out the term of the late Leon Higginbotham, insists that she's entitled
to a full six-year term rather than the remainder of Higginbotham's.
This would keep her on the commission until 2006, even though her
formal paperwork says that she should have left the building
last week.
It's a bizarre reading of the law, but one that Berry chose to
accept as she and the commission's left-wing majority (including
Wilson) blocked a series of motions offered by the GOP-appointed
members on everything from seating Kirsanow to simply allowing Kirsanow
to make a statement for the record.
"What we saw today had nothing to do with this commission's
mission of promoting civil rights. It was an unvarnished defiance
of the rule of law — the very rule of law that this commission
is charged with protecting," said Republican commissioners
Jennifer Braceras, Russell Redenbaugh, and Abigail Thernstrom in
a joint statement. They went on to note that both the White House
counsel's office and career lawyers at the Department of Justice
believe Kirsanow is the rightful commissioner.
The dispute ultimately will be settled in the courts — but
Wilson's position does not appear tenable except through willful
ignorance. Early in the meeting, for instance, Berry displayed on
a projector the statute governing commissioners' terms. The section
of the law in question is precisely two sentences long. Berry, however,
showed only the first sentence and represented it as complete. Yet
it is the second sentence — the one she chose to hide from
view — which makes plain that Peter Kirsanow is the newest
member of the civil-rights commission.
"We are confident that in due course the law will be vindicated
and Mr. Kirsanow will take his rightful seat beside us," concluded
the statement by Braceras, Redenbaugh, and Thernstrom.
Mary Frances Berry's leadership of the commission was a disgrace
long before today. Now, she is trying to lead a lawless rump commission.
She is unfit for public office.
Girl
Power
Cathy Keating, Oklahoma's First Lady, is finding it harder to win
a congressional seat than many people had expected. She's running
for the seat that Steve Largent is giving up so that he can run
to succeed her husband as governor. She's got far more cash than
her two Republican rivals — the Oklahoman reported earlier
this week that she had raised $820,000, almost twice what they've
got combined. But the conventional wisdom is that she won't win
a majority in the primary next Tuesday, forcing a run-off in January.
The seat is safely Republican, so whoever wins the primary is likely
to go to Congress.
Keating's just launched a last-minute ad campaign that suggests
that voters should choose her because of her excellent set of X
chromosomes. "It's been 80 years since Oklahoma sent a woman
to Congress. After 80 years, isn't it time we elected someone who
understands our needs?"
State rep. John Sullivan, generally considered her nearest opponent,
can't match her on this front: He has only one X chromosome. He
does, however, have something she doesn't: a legislative record
of cutting taxes and protecting the unborn. He promises to replicate
that record in Washington. He deserves to win — and if Republican
women reject Keating's appeal to identity politics, he just may.
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