Federal judge likens Bush to Mussolini and Hitler

this has got to be a violation of the judicial code of conduct. wonder why the times' hasn't run a story on it yet?

http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/g...Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/06/21&ID=Ar00101

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AUDIENCE GASPS AS JUDGE LIKENS ELECTION OF BUSH TO RISE OF IL DUCE
2nd Circuit’s Calabresi Also Compares Bush’s Rise to That of Hitler

By JOSH GERSTEIN Staff Reporter of the Sun

WASHINGTON — A prominent federal judge has told a conference of liberal lawyers that President Bush’s rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler.

“In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States…somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power.That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power,” said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan.

“The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy,” Judge Calabresi continued, as the allusion drew audible gasps from some in the luncheon crowd Saturday at the annual convention of the American Constitution Society.

_“The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual,” the judge said.

Judge Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, said Mr. Bush has asserted the full prerogatives of his office, despite his lack of a compelling electoral mandate from the public.

_“When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing,” he said.

The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to their political views, expel Mr. Bush from office in order to cleanse the democratic system.

“That’s got nothing to do with the politics of it.It’s got to do with the structural reassertion of democracy,” Judge Calabresi said.

His remarks were met with rousing applause from the hundreds of lawyers and law students in attendance.

Judge Calabresi was born in Milan. His family fled Mussolini in 1939 and settled in America. In 1994, President Clinton appointed the law professor to the federal appeals court that hears cases from the states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.

_An opinion written by Judge Calabresi in 2000 rebuked Mayor Giuliani’s administration for failing to respect First Amendment rights.

“We would be ostriches if we failed to take judicial notice of the heavy stream of First Amendment litigation generated by New York in recent years,” the judge wrote. Allies of the mayor denounced the opinion as a thinly veiled political attack on Mr. Giuliani, who was then a candidate for the Senate.

Judge Calabresi made his comments from the floor during a question-andanswer period that was part of a panel discussion on the impact of the upcoming election on law and policy.

_“I’m a judge and so I’m not allowed to talk politics. So I’m not going to talk about some of the issues that were mentioned or what some have said is the extraordinary record of incompetence of this administration,” he said.

Two Republicans on the panel politely rejected Judge Calabresi’s contention that Mr. Bush has overstepped his bounds.

A White House counsel under President George H.W. Bush said Judge Calabresi suggested the war in Iraq was a bold and inappropriate use of power without noting that the president’s policy initially enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

“It was approved with a pretty solid vote from Congress,” C. Boyden Gray said. Mr. Gray said conservatives believe Mr. Bush has been too cautious on issues like Medicare reform.

_“If anything, he’s been too shy of doing things,” the attorney said.

_A top Supreme Court litigator, Jay Sekulow,said it would be unwise to place limits on Mr. Bush’s authority simply because he did not win the popular vote.

_“To say that a person who comes in under an Electoral College vote but not a majority of the popular vote and they’re somehow relegated to president-minus,I think is a very dangerous precedent,” said Mr.Sekulow,who is chief counsel for a conservative legal group,the American Center for Law and Justice.

One of the Democrats on stage endorsed Judge Calabresi’s comments.

“I absolutely obviously agree with what Judge Calabresi was trying to get at,” said a former chief of staff to Vice President Gore, Ronald Klain.

 

yes, i'm sure it's really no big deal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/25/n...0&partner=USERLAND&pagewanted=print&position=

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The New York Times
June 25, 2004
U.S. Judge Apologizes for Equating Victories of Bush and Hitler
By JULIA PRESTON

A federal appeals court judge apologized "profusely" yesterday for remarks he made last weekend at a lawyers convention comparing President Bush's election in 2000 to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

In a letter to the court, Guido Calabresi, a judge on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, acknowledged that he had given the impression he was taking a partisan position, opposing President Bush's re-election. The letter was addressed to John M. Walker Jr., the chief judge of the appeals court, who released it to the press.

"In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States, somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power," Judge Calabresi told an annual meeting of the American Constitution Society in Washington on Saturday, in remarks that were first reported by The New York Sun. "That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush v. Gore; it put somebody in power," he said, referring to the decision that cleared the way for Mr. Bush to claim victory in the election.

"The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy," he said. "That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in."

Judge Calabresi qualified his comments, adding: "I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual." The comments provoked a strong reaction this week among lawyers and judges.

In a cover letter also released yesterday, Judge Walker said, "I am pleased that Judge Calabresi has promptly recognized that his remarks could too easily be taken as partisan and hence were inappropriate." Partisan political comments by judges are a violation of the code of judicial ethics.

Judge Walker, who by coincidence is President Bush's cousin, did not suggest there would be any further action against Judge Calabresi.

Judge Calabresi said that in his off-the-cuff remarks he was trying to make "a rather complicated academic argument," but he understood that they had been taken as an attack on President Bush. In a letter that contained no less than four apologies, he said he was "truly sorry" for "any embarrassment" he might have caused the appeals court. He did not, however, renounce the views he expressed.

Judge Calabresi was appointed by President Bill Clinton in February 1994. Before that, he was dean of the Yale Law School.

 

more:

http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/g...Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/06/25&ID=Ar00103

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Calabresi Apologizes for Bush Jabs

Judge Says He’s Sorry for ‘Partisan’ Remarks

By JOSH GERSTEIN Staff Reporter of the Sun



A federal appeals court judge apologized yesterday for public comments that many viewed as a call for voters to remove Mr. Bush from office in the November election.

Judge Guido Calabresi of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said he did not intend to express a view about the president’s re-election when he compared Mr. Bush’s rise to power to that of dictators such as Hitler and Mussolini.

“Although what I was trying to do was make a rather complicated academic argument about the nature of reelections after highly contested original elections, that is not the way my words, understandably, have been taken,”Judge Calabresi wrote in a letter to the circuit’s chief judge, John Walker Jr.“I can also see why this occurred, despite my statements at the time that what I was saying should not be construed in a partisan way.”

In the one-page letter, which the court released to The New York Sun yesterday, Judge Calabresi apologized four times.

“I am truly sorry and apologize profusely for the episode and most particularly for any embarrassment my remarks may have caused you, my colleagues,and the court,”the judge wrote.

Judge Walker circulated the apology yesterday to all members of the court, along with a memorandum in which he suggested that Judge Calabresi’s comments ran afoul of ethics rules that forbid judges from entering the political fray.

“Partisan political comments, of course, are violations of the code of judicial conduct. As Judge Calabresi has acknowledged, his remarks reasonably could be — and indeed have been — so understood, whatever his intent,” Judge Walker wrote. He also warned his colleagues to avoid repeating Judge Calabresi’s mistake.

“I urge all members of the court to exercise care at all times, but especially in an election year, to refrain from any conduct or statements that could reasonably be understood as political activity or publicly endorsing or opposing a candidate for public office,” Judge Walker wrote.

In remarks to a liberal lawyers’ conference in Washington last Saturday, Judge Calabresi called the Supreme Court’s decision resolving the 2000 presidential election an “illegitimate act.” He went on to compare the way Mr. Bush arrived in office to decisions installing Mussolini and Hitler in their countries.

“It seems to me that one of the things that is at stake is the assertion by the democracy that when that has happened it is important to put that person out regardless of policies, regardless of anything else,” the judge said.

The judge’s comments were first reported Monday in the Sun. They drew criticism from several law professors and led to discussions on some law-related Internet blogs about whether the judge had violated ethical constraints.

In recent days, Judge Calabresi’s comments have been celebrated on sites maintained by strident opponents of Mr. Bush.

Critics of Judge Calabresi’s comments said yesterday they welcomed the judge’s concession that his remarks were inappropriate.

“It’s good he recognizes that,” said a

professor and legal ethics specialist at George Mason University, Ronald Rotunda. But the professor said the apology does not erase concerns about Judge Calabresi’s impartiality.

“One wonders whether anybody with a case of political significance could get a fair shake from Calabresi,” Mr. Rotunda said.

Another legal scholar who had raised concerns about the remarks said he does not think the matter should be pursued further.

“This is a very good response,” said a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, Eugene Volokh. “I don’t see anything else to be done about it.”

Mr. Volokh said he did not think Judge Calabresi would be required to recuse himself from politically sensitive cases.

In his letter yesterday,Judge Calabresi did not refer directly to the analogies he drew to Hitler and Mussolini.

“I will not take the time here to outline the non-partisan theoretical framework I was trying to develop. In retrospect, I fear that is properly the stuff only of an academic seminar,” he wrote.

Last month, Judge Calabresi’s wife joined protesters who denounced Mr. Bush as he visited Connecticut to attend a graduation party for his daughter. She told a reporter she was protesting on behalf of herself and her husband.

Judge Calabresi’s letter did not address that episode.

President Clinton appointed Judge Calabresi to the appeals court in 1994. Prior to his nomination, Mr. Calabresi was dean of Yale Law School for nine years. He was born in Italy in 1932 to a family with Catholic and Jewish roots. His family emigrated to America to escape Mussolini’s fascist regime when he was 6.