Why Koh Matters

Conn Carroll / April 07, 2009

On the plus side, the New York Times chose to write a story about the opposition former Clinton administration official Harold Koh is facing from conservatives over his appointment as State Department legal adviser. Unfortunately the NYT then completely ignored Koh’s most controversial legal beliefs in support of legal transnationalism. As National Review’s Ed Whelan explains, transnationalism is not an epithet created by conservatives, it is how Koh describes his own beliefs.

Also at National Review, Andy McCarthy explains why the fight over Koh’s nomination matters:

This is an argument about policy, not personality, honesty, or qualifications. The mainstream media did not vet President Obama. His transnational progressive positions were not scrutinized — and even though the president is even now on an important trip, crafting new global regulatory arrangements with other heads of state, we still have not gotten anything approximating an examination of Obama’s views. Bluntly, the public has been better informed about Gov. Sarah Palin’s handling of the Alaska State Police than about their President’s fondness for international redistribution of wealth, international treaties, and the transfer of national sovereignty to transnational bureaucracies and tribunals. (more…)