Great Democratic Strategy -- That is Bad Policy, and Will Backfire PoliticallyThis is vintage Democrat strategy: If we pass a bad bill that the right hates (which, in this instance, they actually have good reasons, unlike most of the reasons expressed when the idea was first introduced early last year) and many moderates and several noted Liberals also hate, it will help us!

"Unfortunately, neither Democratic nor Republican senators will decry the post-New Deal rulings that transformed our constitutional order from what Princeton professor Stephen Macedo has called "islands of [government] powers in a sea of rights" to "islands of rights in a sea of [government] powers."

So we hope that this Georgetown Law Professor, penning this today in the Wall Street Journal, was an outspoken critic of the Bush Administration impositions upon the 1st (the anticipation of enormous nets of surveillance potentially chilling, embarrassing, political or otherwise private speech) the 4th ("...to be secure in one's person's, houses, papers and effects.......no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause"), the 5th (due process), or the 9th (the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution "shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people") Amendments to the Constitution.

He must be particularly outraged by a Congress that a few years ago passed the UIGEA which effectively banned the ability to fund online poker -- telling people what games of short term chance, long term skill, they can and can't play from the privacy of their own home with their own funds, as well as other notible infringements upon individuals in what should otherwise be private matters.

He's probably horrified by the idea of indefinite detention for detainees -- detainees about whom we are not certain are guilty of any crime (more notes here).

Or does "inherent right" largely mean the right to produce any product whatsover, completely unregulated, and in so doing, pollute the very air that you, I and others breathe, even to the point of unduly, and collectively, effecting the health, and even, quite significantly, the mortality rate, of everyone who lives under the same skies? That seems to be what it is often confused with, when hears constitutional rhetoric these days. Not necessarily always by Georgetown Law professors, however (to say the least), so we don't know.

A google search, for now, didn't indicate much, in one direction or the other. More later.