The good Samuel Alito (who reminds me of Sandy Stern from the Scott Turow novels) will win confirmation without as much difficulty as many expect.
The O'Connor seat is not the crucial seat. Even if we have Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts, the other team has Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer, and Mr. "Sweet Mystery of Life" Kennedy. This seat is not the one that changes the balance. It makes the middle depend almost entirely on Kennedy, that's all.
Where it's going to get ugly is if a Republican gets a chance to nominate Stevens' replacement.
4 comments:
See, I think it's interesting that you're framing the issue on one sole case: abortion. Even if Roe is overturned, the situation will be no more substantively worse for the pro-choice versus anti-choice debate - it will merely shift to the states and I predict would cost the Republicans big time. That's a good way to alienate the moderates.
Now where I'm really interested to see this go is "Scalito's" (what a great name for a conservative activist judge) views on privacy, states' rights, and affirmative action. Those are cases much more likely to be 5-4 votes where the balance on the Court could be severely changed with his successful appointment.
James, I'm not framing it solely on abortion, although there are many left-wing groups that are claiming this appointment would alter the balance. They forget that Ginsburg replaced White, who voted more often than not with the conservative group.
Kennedy has drifted left over the years. One thinks of Lawrence, for instance.
The whole idea that the Court needs some abstract balance is a ruse to subvert the process.
Here's how it works: people vote for Presidents who get to choose Justices when there's an opening. You get exactly as much balance in your Justices as you do in your Presidents.
Also, Jay, in your rush to condescend you kind of left out the whole democratically elected Senate confirmation thing.
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