Ranger12, I told you so

[Tiger Al 0]

Ranger, I don't know if you remember or not, but, when the Roy Moore spectacle began you claimed that he was motivated strictly out of 'passion' for his cause. Maybe not your exact words, but, that was the jist. I told you then, as I have others since, that Moore, while he probably does believe in his cause, was doing his thing in a quest for power. You wouldn't have any of that. His name was hinted at as a third party (Constitution Party) candidate for president in 2004 but he turned it down. I always felt he would go for US Senate/House or Governor of Alabama. Well.....

WASHINGTON -- As Republican strategists weigh the party's prospects for 2006 and 2008, they are increasingly worried about a political confrontation with Roy S. Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who became a hero to religious conservatives when he refused to follow a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state's judicial building.

Moore, a Republican who enjoys widespread support in his home state, is poised to run against a vulnerable Republican governor. If he wins, some party strategists speculate, he could defy a federal court order again by erecting a religious monument outside the Alabama state Capitol building. With the 2008 presidential race looming, President Bush would then face a no-win decision: either call out the National Guard to enforce a court order against a religious display on state grounds or allow a fellow born-again Christian to defy the courts.

The pitched political warfare over the direction of the nation's courts has energized many GOP voters, but it has also produced a restless Christian right movement that contends Bush has been too moderate on issues ranging from gay marriage to judicial nominations to the Terri Schiavo case. These conservatives want Moore to run for president as a platform for their cause.

''Moore's a lot like George Wallace," William H. Stewart, political science professor at the University of Alabama, said in a reference to the Democratic Alabama governor who stood in a schoolhouse door to block a federal desegregation order, forcing President Kennedy to federalize and send in Alabama National Guard units.

Moore is adroitly using his newfound celebrity over the Ten Commandments controversy to build a national following. Earlier this year, he was among the Christian conservatives who angrily asserted that Governor Jeb Bush of Florida should have used his executive powers to override a string of court orders and save the life of the brain-damaged Schiavo. Some even wanted the governor to use police force to rescue her.

They also contend the president should have done more than sign legislation giving Schiavo's parents new legal recourse, and they were infuriated when he distanced himself from fellow conservatives, including the House majority leader, Tom DeLay of Texas, who said activist judges in such cases should be investigated and impeached.

Polls indicate that Moore, a 58-year-old graduate of West Point, has a good shot at beating Governor Bob Riley in next year's Republican primary. Riley angered conservatives by signing the largest tax increase in Alabama history in an effort to get the state's fiscal house in order and make the tax code more progressive. ''There's enough people in Alabama clamoring for him [Moore] to run that I don't see that he has much choice," said Baptist minister Rick Scarborough, who chairs the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration.

Meanwhile, the former state chief justice is bolstering his national standing. He has filed amicus curiae briefs in two Supreme Court cases expected to be decided this month that will determine whether displays of the Ten Commandments on public grounds in Texas and Kentucky violate the US Constitution.

On Capitol Hill, Moore is lobbying for legislation in Congress to strip federal courts, including the Supreme Court, of jurisdiction over any challenges to government agencies or officials that acknowledge ''God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."

The two-year saga over the Ten Commandments monument that led to Moore's removal from the Alabama high court made him a hero to the Christian right. A little-noticed ''Judas" in the Moore parable is William Pryor, the appeals court justice confirmed by the Senate last week and denounced by Democrats as a right-wing ideologue. As Alabama attorney general, Pryor enforced the court order requiring Moore to remove the monument from the judicial building because it was deemed an illegal religious display.

To Moore, Pryor is a symbol of what's wrong with the courts and with the Republican leadership of President Bush. GOP leaders are ''building a cistern that doesn't hold water," the guarded but intense Moore said in a recent interview.

At a recent conference of conservatives in Washington, Moore decried Pryor as one of the judges ''who say you cannot acknowledge God."

In his autobiography, ''So Help Me God: The Ten Commandments, Judicial Tyranny, and the Battle for Religious Freedom," Moore frequently casts himself as a lone man of principle battling dark forces.

When older cadets hazed him at West Point, he ''learned how to stand up to intimidation," he writes. As a company commander in Vietnam, he became a ''marked man," he says, because of his insistence on imposing strict discipline on drug-addled soldiers.

As a deputy district attorney in Etowah County in the late 1970s, he was referred for disciplinary action, he said, because he dared question spending priorities in the police budget; in the end he was not disciplined.

In 1982, he failed in his first race for circuit court judge because ''I was a threat to the system, and the system had closed ranks to defeat me."

He lost another race in 1986, this time for district attorney. ''The criminal defense bar united against me, and the opposition among political insiders was too strong to overcome," he recalled.

After a mutual friend pleaded Moore's case to Governor Guy Hunt, a Republican, Moore was appointed to fill a circuit court judge position left vacant by a death. ''God had given me something that I had not been able to obtain through my own efforts many years before," he writes in his book.

Fully aware that he would attract a lawsuit, Moore hung in his courtroom a redwood plaque of the Ten Commandments. A local ACLU attorney complained; Moore described this as ''the first time the civil rights group attempted to intimidate me."

He also began opening his court sessions with a prayer. In 1994, six months into his tenure, the ACLU recorded his prayer -- and a local star was born. The media covered the subsequent lawsuit, crowds singing ''Amazing Grace" showed up in support. A year later, Moore launched his race for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

His tenure on the circuit court had produced plenty of detractors. ''Roy was never that interested in what the law was versus what he wanted to do," said James Hedgespeth, the county's district attorney for 18 years and a Democrat who describes his personal relations with Moore as cordial. ''I always thought the code books in his office were just for decoration. He always felt he knew better than anyone else."

Moore's supporters disagree. Conservative Caucus chairman Howard Phillips said Moore, a University of Alabama law graduate, ''has a knowledge of constitutional history that is breathtaking."

In his campaign for chief justice, however, any assessments of Moore's legal mind were overwhelmed by the noise surrounding the ACLU's challenge to his public professions of religion.

After Moore won, he contracted for the construction of the 2 1/2-ton monument bearing the Ten Commandments, all the while wondering whether his fellow justices would ''be supportive or would they turn on me?"

In 2004, after the disciplinary panel had forced Moore to resign, supporters urged him to run for president, but he decided the timing was not right. Phillips compares Moore's national popularity to that of Pat Robertson, the TV evangelist whose 1988 bid for president divided the GOP, and said Moore is well-positioned to consider his own run.

''There's no question he would heighten the debate on the whole issue of religion and politics," Scarborough said. ''And nationally, there is a core following that would be faithful to him."

.....I told you so.

[channonc 466]

Tiger Al, now you know that posting from a "liberal" source gets you nowhere on this issue. Post from Fox News or townhall.com, and then maybe you will prove your point.

[Tiger Al 0]

Tiger Al, now you know that posting from a "liberal" source gets you nowhere on this issue.  Post from Fox News or townhall.com, and then maybe you will prove your point.

164046[/snapback]

How about the Decatur Daily??? I'm sure David will have you believe its slightly LEFT of Mother Jones!

[Tiger Al 0]

Tiger Al, now you know that posting from a "liberal" source gets you nowhere on this issue.  Post from Fox News or townhall.com, and then maybe you will prove your point.

164046[/snapback]

Here's another from the TimesDaily---serving NW Alabama.

LINK

[Ranger12 46]

Um...Al, where is the told you so? I never denied he may run for office one day. I think I remember saying I would back him if he did. Why does the fact that he may run for higher office mean that he was not truly passionate about his beliefs? Why does that automatically mean he had other motives? Could not the fact that he is now considering running for office be because he is so passionate about his beliefs, the he feels the need to fun for higher office to make a change?

If we go by your philisophy that anybody with any beliefs that actually takes a stand really has a selfish motive, then we would be under British rule still!!! Also that would mean that every stinking person that runs for higher office in all parties is really serving their own needs. So are you ready to say that Kerry ran for his own personal needs or for what he thought was to make America better? Same goes for all the liberal officials you support. If you are going to judge Moore on his stance and then criticize him for thinking about running because of those beliefs, then you must criticize all that run including those you support, because do not most of them run because of their beliefs and convictions just like Roy Moore?

[Piglet 0]

Beliefs and convictions are a good thing. I like having like-minded people in the government. But when I'm voting, I want to know the guy I vote for is going to follow the rules and put respect for the law and Constitutional principles above personal beliefs and convictions.

Like if someone has a deeply held belief that nobody should own any guns in the interest of public safety, are they still gonna respect the Second Amendment if elected?

[TrueBlue72 0]

TA, I have to agree with your assessment of Roy Moore. As a resident and native of Etowah County where Moore is from, I have seen his rise to power and determined a long time ago that POWER is what makes him tick.

His defiance of proper authority really does parallel that of Wallace, and unfortunately, there are still many people in this state who will be fooled by his antics and he will be a force in Alabama politics for some time.

Any of you who have read my posts know that I'm just to the right of Rush Limbaugh on most issues, BUT Moore's politics are about power, not about beliefs and what is right. And that is just as wrong when coming from someone who proclaims himself as a conservative as it is coming from a liberal. It is just wrong!!

[Auburn85 432]

I don't know what makes being the governor of alabama so appealing.

Heck, especially if you're running as a republican. Some may question who's running the state.... Riley or Hubbert?

Riley recently vetoed the education budget...didn't mater..he was overrode.

[Tiger Al 0]

TA, I have to agree with your assessment of Roy Moore.  As a resident and native of Etowah County where Moore is from, I have seen his rise to power and determined a long time ago that POWER is what makes him tick. 

His defiance of proper authority really does parallel that of Wallace, and unfortunately, there are still many people in this state who will be fooled by his antics and he will be a force in Alabama politics for some time. 

Any of you who have read my posts know that I'm just to the right of Rush Limbaugh on most issues, BUT Moore's politics are about power, not about beliefs and what is right.  And that is just as wrong when coming from someone who proclaims himself as a conservative as it is coming from a liberal.  It is just wrong!!

164098[/snapback]

According to some of the articles I posted, many believe that he'd beat Riley in the GOP primary. They say that Siegelman or Lucy Baxley may be the Democrats. If Moore beats Riley, I really have to believe that Alabamians would have more sense than to elect him and would go with Siegelman again. Like him or not, he seems to be pretty good at bringing businesses into Alabama. Maybe some others will step up, though, on both sides.

[Piglet 0]

A lot of Republicans I know hate Riley the way Democrats hate Zell, because Riley spent so long in Congress as a loyal tax-cutting Republican, and then he became Governor and suddenly he wanted a tax increase. They act like everything he did in DC was just an act to fool people until he could sneak his way to Montgomery, you know, where the real power is.

[Guest Tigrinum Major]

TA, I have to agree with your assessment of Roy Moore.  As a resident and native of Etowah County where Moore is from, I have seen his rise to power and determined a long time ago that POWER is what makes him tick. 

His defiance of proper authority really does parallel that of Wallace, and unfortunately, there are still many people in this state who will be fooled by his antics and he will be a force in Alabama politics for some time. 

Any of you who have read my posts know that I'm just to the right of Rush Limbaugh on most issues, BUT Moore's politics are about power, not about beliefs and what is right.  And that is just as wrong when coming from someone who proclaims himself as a conservative as it is coming from a liberal.  It is just wrong!!

164098[/snapback]

According to some of the articles I posted, many believe that he'd beat Riley in the GOP primary. They say that Siegelman or Lucy Baxley may be the Democrats. If Moore beats Riley, I really have to believe that Alabamians would have more sense than to elect him and would go with Siegelman again. Like him or not, he seems to be pretty good at bringing businesses into Alabama. Maybe some others will step up, though, on both sides.

164104[/snapback]

I am from nearby Blount County and have to agree with TB72. I actually had an opportunity to meet him during the construction of the new Judicial Building in Gadsden. He came across as a condesending egomaniac who thought that everyone but him was an idiot. He actually questioned the methods and techniques we were using during construction. Never mind that architects and engineers had designed the building as it was being built.

I have to agree with Al on his last point. Out of the four he mentioned, I would like to see Riley back in Montgomery than any of the other three. I just hope we have some others step up and run.

[AURainman 6]

A lot of Republicans I know hate Riley the way Democrats hate Zell, because Riley spent so long in Congress as a loyal tax-cutting Republican, and then he became Governor and suddenly he wanted a tax increase.  They act like everything he did in DC was just an act to fool people until he could sneak his way to Montgomery, you know, where the real power is.

164106[/snapback]

If a tax to support education/general funds was needed for any state in the union, it was needed for Alabama. This is one Republican who understood Riley's position. The only chance that tax had of passing was if it was proposed by a Republican. This Republican voted FOR the tax.

The only thing that would've pissed me off is if we were FORCED to eat the tax without standing up and voting on it.

More politicians should be like Gov. Riley. Responsibility, every one is for it until it shows up on your own doorstep.