A Beliger- rant --Does Policy Just Come From Insurance Companies?

RANT WARNING--- RANT WARNING--- RANT WARNING--i.e., This is an Op Ed Piece by Senior Rants Editor Helena Handbaskett.

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We have previously asked: When is a law old enough to be told that it had been adopted?

Today we ask the question: When are Senators and Talking Heads mature enough to learn where policy is made?

For instance, take Senate Judiciary Committee member Jeff Sessions--please. (Credit to the late Henny Youngman). Senator Jefferson (Davis?) Beauregard Sessions III said that the Sotomayor remark about Circuit Courts of Appeal "making policy" had to be explained by her.

Here is the remark--(the short version going around the blogosphere) clearly in the context (here is the entire context) of making a joke--the very rationalization that Sessions once offered the Senate Judiciary Committee when it questioned remarks he made about civil rights lawyers during his unsuccessful confirmation hearing. "Sessions had called a white civil rights lawyer a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases. Sessions acknowledged making many of the statements attributed to him, but claimed that most of the time he had been joking, saying he was sometimes "loose with [his] tongue.""

Sessions was quoted then as saying that the Senate on occasion had been insensitive to the rights and reputation of nominees. We're sure he doesn't intend to replicate the very conduct that he excoriated the Senate Judiciary Committee for perpetrating--unless he is, unfortunately, loose with his tongue again.

By "policy" we assume that the term is not used in the sense of running a numbers racket. So
when did "policy" become a dirty word? Perhaps we shouldn't even print it? Maybe we should replace it with "p****y" instead, as long as we make sure that there are four and not three asterisks replacing characters in total. To use the wrong number of asterisks would certainly give an unintended spin to "loose with his tongue when it comes to p****y."

Would the Senators feel better if we called what the Court of Appeals made "new law" or "precedent"? If we call it a "contribution to the law" they should feel comfortable with that, because they are all fond of contributions.

If you have a case where the Federal statute or the Constitution is unclear, and there is no prior guiding precedent from the Founding Mothers and Fathers (to be inclusive), can you decide a case without making policy? A decision not to decide something on the Court of Appeals level is, in and of itself, a decision, and therefore precedent. That is, to let the decision in the trial court stand sets some guidance (We dare not use the word "p****y"), so it is deciding by not deciding. So you can you set policy by choosing not to set policy--a true conundrum. (To be safe, you should always consider using a conundrum when exploring a p****y.)

When the Senators are old enough to be told where babies come from, they ought to learn where policy comes from, too, because it may be a shock to them if they learn only the night before they're wed to---to----to some policy !