I was browsing the speech Giuliani was privileged (courtesy of Ted Olsen) to give to the Federalist Society. I am proud to be a member of the society. I have gone to many student and attorney events and I have generally found there are two types of Federalists. There are libertarian and there are conservative Federalists.

Interestingly enough, I found that I disagreed sometime more with libertarian Federalists than I did with some right leaning democrats. Why? Because while I thought it perfectly acceptable to pass laws through democratic processes related to social conservative issues, the libertarian members often opposed such laws. For example, while we might both agree that Roe v. Wade should be overturned as bad precedent, the libertarian was likely to oppose a state heavily restricting abortion (I realize there are libertarians who feel differently). Another example is the war on drugs. Generally, I found libertarian Federalists to oppose any drug laws where I supported them.

If Rudy Giuliani is a Federalist, he is surely a libertarian one, at best. Which is why when I was reading his speech, I wondered aloud how anyone could swallow one of the central claims of Rudy Giuliani's candidacy, that he can be trusted to appoint "conservative judges." Yes, that phrase "conservative judges" actually appears in the speech. But realize as well that Rudy has never clearly applied that label to himself.

So, I asked my search engine the magic question: "Rudy Giulaini history judges appointing." The first hit was a Politico article about Rudy's experience appointing judges in New York. Now, some people might say this is a different matter, but I think the article makes a good point of why all judicial appointments have consequences. Have a read, I think it is enlightening. And really, a bit of a shock to think that the promise to appoint a certain type of judge could possibly hold up a two legged stool.