Praise and Prayer
Jul. 1st, 2005 07:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaMy thanks go to the Honorable Justice Sandra Day O'Connor for her long, distinguished, and above all principled service to the United States of America. Time and time again, she has stood as a bulwark of sanity in the face of irresponsible, ill-advised, or simply wrong judicial thinking, from neocons and the uninformed alike. She is a true moderate conservative, and while I have not agreed with her on everything, I thank her for using her skill, her energies, and her formidable intellectual presence in our service. I wish she were not choosing to retire in these interesting times, but that is purely her decision to make.
Oh Juno Justicus, send us another like her! Let her place be taken by one who wields the Sword and the Scales in right measure, who weighs both sides evenly, who is familiar with the scrolls of Law and the tenets of Mercy!
And so is the Shrub once again caught flat-footed. He and Cheney and Rove have a short-list of possible appointees for a Supreme Court vacancy . . . to replace Rehnquist. And because they're fucktards, the list to replace him is not at all the same as the list they'd need to replace her! Of course, it shouldn't matter, right? A qualified nominee is a qualified nominee, right? But no. Their list for Rehnquist appears to be old crusty white men and Gonzales. Now they have to *gasp* consider possible female nominees! Good gods! Quelle disgusting.
For everyone who is panicking . . . well, yeah, okay, go ahead and panic. This is pretty distressing. But bear in mind that O'Connor was a Reagan appointment. Sometimes justices get to the Supreme Court and discover that things look a little different from the high bench. If Shrub thinks that political pressure requires that he nominate a woman, and if he doesn't have any on his short list, that increases the chances that he'll pick someone who is not a Dominionist.
Moreover, if he sends up someone who is a Dominionist . . . remember that a majority of the population is still in favor of abortion being legal, at least in the first trimester and later when the life and health of the mother are threatened. If this ends up being a fight about that, especially if it spills over into birth control issues (as it appears to be growing more and more possible it will), then it is highly likely that the Rad Right Repubs are gonna end up looking pretty bad come the 2006 congressional elections. This could be the beginning of a legislative shift if the Dems don't screw up.
Oh, and if he sends up someone who isn't a Dominionist and this becomes public early in the process, the Rad Righters on the ground are going to have a major hissy over being "betrayed," even if he has a Dominionist in the pipe to send up for Rehnquist's position. Which could result in their not showing up to the polls in Nov. 2006, although that's a long shot. The more likely possibility is the further fragmentation of the Republican party - the paleocons, the big-money plutocrats, the libertarians-who-don't-have-the-huevos-to-vote-their-true-party, and the unholy alliance of Rad-Righters and neocons (neither of which are actually conservative) simply can't all fit in that tent any longer, and something is going to have to give. The question is when.
Oh Juno Justicus, send us another like her! Let her place be taken by one who wields the Sword and the Scales in right measure, who weighs both sides evenly, who is familiar with the scrolls of Law and the tenets of Mercy!
And so is the Shrub once again caught flat-footed. He and Cheney and Rove have a short-list of possible appointees for a Supreme Court vacancy . . . to replace Rehnquist. And because they're fucktards, the list to replace him is not at all the same as the list they'd need to replace her! Of course, it shouldn't matter, right? A qualified nominee is a qualified nominee, right? But no. Their list for Rehnquist appears to be old crusty white men and Gonzales. Now they have to *gasp* consider possible female nominees! Good gods! Quelle disgusting.
For everyone who is panicking . . . well, yeah, okay, go ahead and panic. This is pretty distressing. But bear in mind that O'Connor was a Reagan appointment. Sometimes justices get to the Supreme Court and discover that things look a little different from the high bench. If Shrub thinks that political pressure requires that he nominate a woman, and if he doesn't have any on his short list, that increases the chances that he'll pick someone who is not a Dominionist.
Moreover, if he sends up someone who is a Dominionist . . . remember that a majority of the population is still in favor of abortion being legal, at least in the first trimester and later when the life and health of the mother are threatened. If this ends up being a fight about that, especially if it spills over into birth control issues (as it appears to be growing more and more possible it will), then it is highly likely that the Rad Right Repubs are gonna end up looking pretty bad come the 2006 congressional elections. This could be the beginning of a legislative shift if the Dems don't screw up.
Oh, and if he sends up someone who isn't a Dominionist and this becomes public early in the process, the Rad Righters on the ground are going to have a major hissy over being "betrayed," even if he has a Dominionist in the pipe to send up for Rehnquist's position. Which could result in their not showing up to the polls in Nov. 2006, although that's a long shot. The more likely possibility is the further fragmentation of the Republican party - the paleocons, the big-money plutocrats, the libertarians-who-don't-have-the-huevos-to-vote-their-true-party, and the unholy alliance of Rad-Righters and neocons (neither of which are actually conservative) simply can't all fit in that tent any longer, and something is going to have to give. The question is when.
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no subject
Date: 2005-07-02 12:39 am (UTC)If you tested O'Connor based on looking back at original intent or literal wording of the Constitution, though, she flunks just as consistently and drastically as the other eight justices.
Whoever gets appointed, they won't be any better.
And I guarantee you Bush will nominate absolutely nobody who has not made it painfully clear that they will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-02 02:50 am (UTC)And Roe is a stand-in for me for all the various issues on ownership of one's own body and access to appropriate treatment, not just abortion itself - although that is fairly important to me in its own right.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-03 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-02 02:02 am (UTC)So, while yeah, she was a Reagan appointment, it was as different a GOP administration as, oh, I don't know, LBJ and Clinton were different Democratic adminstrations.
But yeah. I'm panicked as hell. And I have no doubt that the deciding issue, or at least a major deciding issue, will be choice/birth control/(sex education).
Goddess help us all (or at least those of us with wombs).
no subject
Date: 2005-07-02 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-02 05:53 am (UTC)Some days, however, it seems that at least the men in power don't give a shit about their own daughters' welfare, and it worries me a lot.
But here's to good men, who love women!