fromtheright

Okay, AIF, you guys love to ask your critics for their cites. So, where are they?

Hezekiah, if you're talking about his silence during oral questioning, I am puzzled myself but I've read some of his decisions and I don't see him as a mediocrity. The best one I've read was his term limits opinion.

Toto

Gore's campaign did a very good job of publicizing this quote among people who knew what it meant. Unfortunately, there was a counter compaign by the Greens and Ralph Nader which kept pounding the assertion that Bush's appointments to the Texas bench were not that bad or that's just scaremongering. Bush himself was trying to sound like a moderate.

I'm still waiting for Nader to apologize.

MarkW

fromtheright:

Check out the recent book Narrowing the Nation's Power for a compelling critique of the radical activism of the Rehnquist/Scalia court. It is written by a conservative federal judge, John Noonan, who is appalled at the direction the current court is taking in many areas of law.

As regards Clarence Thomas, I've been convinced since his confirmation hearings that he is in way, way over his head intellectually on the Court. I particularly recall a question put to him by Senator Leahy which asked him, more or less, "Judge Thomas, since Brown v. Board, and other than Roe v. Wade (which Thomas refused to discuss throughout the hearings), what do you consider to be the most important Supreme Court cases?"

Now, that's the sort of question any minimally competent could answer quite easily. A second-year law student could answer it easily. I'd bet that you could come up with a pretty good answer, given your stated interest in constitutional law. I know I could answer it pretty well.

Thomas, however, couldn't connect with this big, fat softball question that would have done Larry King proud. His answer was, more or less, "Senator, I'd have to go back and give that question some thought." Pathetic.

Mark

{edited by Toto for formatting - extra line feed}

Toto

The Great Mentioner continues to mention Gonzalez as a prime candidate, since the anti-affirmative action president still wants to gain favor with Hispanic voters. But the religious right thinks he might <gasp> push the court to the left if he replaces Rehnquist as Chief Justice.

Bush Ally is Top Contender for Supreme Court

Toto

Narrowing the Nation's Power by John Noonan

Layman

You are aware that what historians (and other educated folk) mean when they refer to FDR's attempt to "pack" the Court, are you not?

It had nothing to do with filling upcoming vacancies with judges you found more philosophically in tune with your own administration. FDR actually attempted to add several seats to the Supreme Court so he could simply appoint NEW justices that he liked.

Bush, as far as I know, has proposed nothing of the kind. Unless you have evidence to the contrary.

copernicus

Yes, Layman, I am well aware of FDR's attempt to add new Justices. That effort failed, but the Court weakened FDR's proposal by reversing itself on one law and approving several others that Roosevelt favored. That was when Justice Owen Roberts made "the switch in time that saved nine". Before the end of his term, Roosevelt had managed to appoint 8 of the 9 judges, thus packing the court with liberal justices.

Bush is poised to create a similar shift, but in a conservative direction. He has made no secret of his desire to appoint ideologues like Scalia and Thomas.

Layman

There is no similarity between Bush's plan to appoint Justices he agrees with philosophically and Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Court. So far, Bush has done what ever President tries to do with the courts. Replace retiring judges and justices with judges more in line with his own philosophy.

The comparison fails. In fact, its so misleading as to be dishonest.

GaryP

Speaking of dishonesty, didn't Bush run as a moderate, "compassionate" conservative? Reaching out across the aisle and all that?

Toto

Not "every" President - only the Presidents since Reagan. And even then, previous presidents have at least paid lip service to the ideal of an independent judiciary chosen from the best qualified, and have in fact ended up appointing justices who did not vote along party lines.

Bush, however, no longer seeks the ABA rating for his judicial appointments, and is seeking out young, ideologically committed conservatives who can be trusted to follow the party line. The comparison with Roosevelt is not exact. Roosevelt had actually won an election, and felt he had a mandate to do something about a national emergency, and only some hidebound justices with an antiquated view of government power were twarting the democratic will. Still, even liberal scholars who value the ideal of an independent judiciary can fault him for his heavy handedness.

Bush, on the other hand, gained the presidency through a very partisan and legally dispreputable Supreme Court decision. He is using his position to reconfigure the judicial philosophy of the Supreme Court, not in response to an emergency or the will of the majority, but for his own ideological ends. He has been aided in this by Senate Republicans who held up large numbers of Clinton's appointments, creating a lot of vacancies for him to fill (and who then whined about Democrats holding up Bush's appointments.)

So the comparison is not exact, but for you to label it "so misleading as to be dishonest" shows a lack of imagination on your part.