New York Times Says You Can’t Use Any Contrary Argument In A Debate

The New York Times wrote a hit piece on Laurence Tribe, based on the idea that he must be wrong and corrupt because he uses arguments the New York Times doesn’t like.

WASHINGTON — Laurence H. Tribe, the highly regarded liberal scholar of constitutional law, still speaks of President Obama as a proud teacher would of a star student. “He was one of the most amazing research assistants I’ve ever had,” Mr. Tribe said in a recent interview. Mr. Obama worked for him at Harvard Law School, where Mr. Tribe has taught for four decades.

Mr. Tribe went on to serve in the Justice Department during Mr. Obama’s first term and has argued in favor of the legal standing of Mr. Obama’s signature health care law and executive orders on immigration.

Which is why so many in the Obama administration and at Harvard are bewildered and angry that Mr. Tribe, who argued on behalf of Al Gore in the 2000 Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case, has emerged as the leading legal opponent of Mr. Obama’s ambitious efforts to fight global warming.

The Obama administration is always angry at anyone who disagrees with them, because they are trying to run a autocracy, not a democracy. Tribe is arguing that Obama’s activities are illegal.

Mr. Tribe, 73, has been retained to represent Peabody Energy, the nation’s largest coal company, in its legal quest to block an Environmental Protection Agency regulation that would cut carbon dioxide emissions from the nation’s coal-fired power plants — the heart of Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda.

“I feel very comfortable with my relationship with Peabody,” he added. “Somebody wanted my help and it happened to coincide with what I believe.”

But a number of legal scholars and current and former members of the Obama administration say that Mr. Tribe has eroded his credibility by using his platform as a scholar to promote a corporate agenda — specifically, the mining and burning of coal.

In addition to the brief, Mr. Tribe wrote a lengthy public comment on the climate rules that Peabody submitted to the E.P.A. Mr. Tribe’s critics note that his comment, which he echoed in an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal in December, includes several references to the virtues of coal, calling it “a bedrock component of our economy.”

The comment also has phrases frequently used by the coal industry. The use of such language, Ms. Freeman and Mr. Lazarus suggested, is typical of paid industry advocates but not of impartial scholars.

Anyone who disagrees with the White House is necessarily corrupt

“The best way to evaluate his claims is to treat them as advocacy and not scholarship,” Ms. Freeman and Mr. Lazarus wrote.

Any arguments which disagree with the White House must be thrown out.

Anger from within the Obama administration about Mr. Tribe’s actions is particularly fierce, although officials declined to comment on the record for fear of escalating the situation.

“Whether he intended it or not, Tribe has been weaponized by the Republican Party in an orchestrated takedown of the president’s climate plan,” said one former administration official.

The White House views democracy, Congress and the US Constitution as a weapon against their regime.

Laurence Tribe Fights Climate Case Against Star Pupil From Harvard, President Obama – NYTimes.com

The New York Times doesn’t present any evidence that Tribe’s viewpoint or arguments are incorrect. Their claim is that because he represents someone they don’t like and goes up against the White House, he must be corrupt and evil. The whole point of the Constitution is to protect the rights of those who are unpopular or in the minority.

Power companies should shut down electricity to the New York Times, and let them find out for themselves if Tribe’s argument is correct. Here is my comment, which of course was censored.

The author’s argument boils down to – “any argument made by the opposition is automatically null, void and evil”

This authors’ mentality is straight out of the darkest periods of human history.

Here are a few good ones they let slip through though.

I find it telling the number of people arguing the destructiveness of coal–as if this has anything to do with whether the EPA regulation is constitutional.

Anyone who fights administrative overreach on the basis of the Constitution deserves our admiration and support. Go, Laurence!

It is not surprising that he is attacked personally, since this seems to be the way things are done now but a more specifically responsive discussion of his opinion would have been a lot more interesting and might have been convincing. The attacks limited to personal attacks tend to suggest he may be right.

This will get laughs amongst left winger sheep, “He’s about to be banned from a lot of cocktail parties.” It does not amuse me. I’d prefer the rebel at my parties, much better conversation when there is challenge and controversy.

I’m a left winger, too. But I treasure honest interpretation of the rule of law more than I treasure all the goals of the left if they have to be met by running over that law. This story, you will notice, does not present Mr Tribe’s case, it plays social politics instead. This is laughable, because a simple statement of how Mr Tribe has it wrong would be more powerful than all the outrage over loyalty shifts and innuendo re who he agrees with. That’s the beauty of an ironclad legal argument; it stands above the clamor.

Lacking the specifics I suspect Mr Tribe is probably correct, based on integrity and the social cowing used here as storyline.

This article is a perfect example of how far liberals in this country have gone off the tracks. And, I’m not talking about the intellectually honest liberal law professor who actually has the integrity and courage to challenge the massive liberal power block in control of the executive branch, most government bureaucracies, academia and the media. America is starving for intellectually honest liberals like Professor Tribe.

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20 Responses to New York Times Says You Can’t Use Any Contrary Argument In A Debate

  1. Coal can’t shut electricity to the NY Times. Con Edison gets a lot of it’s electricity from Niagara Falls and Cohoes Falls, and the power generators in NYC switched to natural gas years ago,

  2. Hugh K says:

    Mr. Obama has eroded his credibility by using his platform as a scholar to promote a corporate agenda — specifically, the undermining of health insurance.

    • Brian H says:

      As a scholar? An associate from his Illinois univ. days said that Obama’s primary skill was his ability to emulate the mannerisms of a scholar. Apparently you and the NYT were thoroughly taken in.

  3. higley7 says:

    Typical Liberal approach, denigrate and attack the character of the opponent and also claim they had to be bribed to say what they want to say in the discussion. They are even pretending that coal does not have any good features. I have always been amazed at how the warmists claim that EVERY ASPECT or EFFECT of global warming HAS TO BE BAD, ignoring that all of our most successful civilizations have occurred during warm periods.

  4. Elaine Supkis says:

    testing

  5. Elaine Supkis says:

    Across the political spectrum, everyone wants to shut down debates. This is nearly universal.

    Open debate is healthy no matter what the topic.

  6. FTOP_T says:

    Maybe Professor Tribe is concerned about the lives that will be hurt by the EPA’s draconian measures. Obviously, the POTUS and NYT don’t care.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/article17610074.html

  7. gator69 says:

    The Gods of the Copybook Headings

    AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
    I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
    Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

    We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
    That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
    But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
    So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

    We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
    Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
    But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
    That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

    With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
    They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
    They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
    So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

    When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
    They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
    But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

    On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
    (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
    Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

    In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
    By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
    But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

    Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
    And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
    That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
    And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

    As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
    There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
    That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
    And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

    And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
    When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
    As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
    The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

    – Rudyard Kipling, 1919

    Progressives never learn.

  8. Pathway says:

    I wonder when Mr. Tribe will be indited?

  9. Beale says:

    Advocacy instead of scholarship? Well, yes, advocacy is what lawyers do. As the commenters pointed out, the Times carefully avoided the question whether Tribe is right or wrong; but that’s logical because in its view the important question is not right or wrong, but with us or against us.

  10. “America is starving for intellectually honest liberals like Professor Tribe.” America should rejoice when anyone in any part of its political spectrum is honest, objective, and rational.

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