If you click around the blogosphere a bit, you'll probably find just about all the information you could possibly want to know about Bush's new Supreme Court nominee, Samuel Alito. I don't feel like linking to everything I've read, but most of the blogs on the sidebar have some good stuff on them right now.
My thoughts: Bush seems to have realized that we conservatives actually want someone who is, you know, conservative to be on the Court. Strangely enough, nominating an inexperienced unknown who just happens to oppose abortion isn't good enough. What. A. Shock.
Alito looks like solid pick. There's lots of information here about some of his opinions (although you should never trust Wikipedia as an unbiased source of info, most of it seems accurate at the moment), and a lot of what I'm reading in the 'sphere strikes me as positive, particularly the hyperventilating and doomsaying on the left.
There's nothing like watching moonbats make fools of themselves.
A lot of the negative reaction seems to revolve around Alito's dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in which he argued that a law requiring women to notify their husbands before having an abortion was constitutional.
I find the response to this hilarious for several reasons. First of all, a lot of the objections are based on the idea that Alito considers a woman's uterus to be the property of her husband, and that the law in question would be an unnecessary restriction on abortion "rights."
If the morons would actually research the damn case, they would see that the law did not, in fact, require the husband's consent in an abortion. It only required notification, which, getting to the first point, seems reasonable when you consider that the husband participated in the creation of the child who is about to be terminated.
Here's a fun lesson in categorical distinctions: A (hypothetical) law requiring a man to approve of his wife's hysterectomy gives him partial control of her uterus. A law requiring a man to know that his child is going to be killed does not.
Anyway, Patterico has plenty of info on this case that I won't try to summarize here, so go check that out if you're interested.
Misrepresentations aside, the issue at stake in this case, as mentioned before, was whether the law was constitutional, not whether it was good. Liberals seem to miss this point quite often when discussing judicial politics. Alito's opinion on the constitutionality of the law does not necessarily reflect his opinion on the law itself, and even if it does...IT'S NOT IMPORTANT.
This is one of the things that bothers me...a lot...about this whole Supreme Court nomination issue. An alarming number of people on the left (and some on the right) seem to think that judges are meant to rule in favor of laws they agree with and strike down laws they oppose, which is why we hear so much about "balance" on the Supreme Court.
But since the people in question are judges and not friggin' Jedi, "balance" should have nothing to do with it. We shouldn't even need to know if a nominee is conservative or liberal, but since one side now seems to believe that personal opinion is more important than the Constitution, that's the way it is.
I'm going to make this bold and capitalized so anyone who hasn't gotten the point can see it:
JUDGES DO NOT MAKE LAWS.
I'm sick of people arguing over whether a judge's philosophy would allow him to support certain laws. That. Should. Not. Matter. The only thing I'm concerned about is whether the nominee believes that the Constitution means what it says. All other beliefs, both personal and political, are irrelevant after that.
In addition, I find it odd that the debate always seems to revolve around Roe v. Wade and abortion in general. Since when did the judiciary become the Abortion Branch? The Constitution says nothing about abortion, so it really is amazing that it's more or less the number one issue coming up here.
What about First Amendment cases? What about Second Amendment cases? What about dealing with the abominable Kelo decision? Do all these issues pale in comparison to abortion? Does nobody care that judges make decisions about other things?
Look at the big picture, people.
So, it looks like John Roberts has been confirmed.
This seems like a good time to mention something I've been thinking about lately. A lot of liberals are worried about Bush getting to nominate new justices. The main talking point is usually that they'll "overturn Roe v. Wade," which would, of course, take away the precious right to infanticide choice.
I just have a simple question. As much as I'd like to see that travesty of a decision reversed...
HOW THE CRAP WILL IT EVER HAPPEN?!
I really don't think a lot of these people understand how the Supreme Court works. First of all, a justice can't just stand up and declare a previous decision invalid. The SCOTUS can only rule on cases brought before it. In order for Roe to be overturned, there would at least need to be a case in the Court related to the "right to privacy" that the majority inserted into the Constitution.
In addition, even if that did somehow happen, the question of abortion would be thrown back to the states. The only way for the Supreme Court to single-handedly make abortion illegal would be for it to declare abortion unconstitutional, and in order for that to happen, the plaintiff in a case would probably have to claim that his or her Constitutional rights were violated by someone else having an abortion. Until we let unborn children file lawsuits, I don't think that's going to happen.
Look, libs, I'm not going to lie to you. I, and a lot of other conservatives, hope that Roe v. Wade can be overturned someday, and we definitely support much stricter abortion laws, but you're being willfully ignorant if you believe that all it takes for that stuff to happen is a conservative majority on the SCOTUS. The judicial process is (unfortunately, in this case) a lot more complex than that.
...Why yes, I have been concentrating a lot on my Constitutional Law class lately. How did you know?
*passes out from exhaustion*
I know I haven't been doing a lot of political blogging lately, but I have to write a quick post about this:
President Bush on Tuesday picked Judge John G. Roberts Jr. to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.Roberts, 50, is a conservative who currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A former clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, his name has been floated for months as a possible Bush selection for the high court.
I'll admit that I'm surprised. I was sure Bush would pick some "moderate" judge that he was friends with at some point, but he actually went with a conservative. If you look around the blogosphere a bit, you'll see that liberals seem to hate Roberts (see the Daily "Screw Them" Kos) and conservative politicians have supported him. And he seems to believe that Roe v. Wade was a mistake, which is a huge plus.
I don't really have a lot more to say about this right now, but I wanted to give Bush the proper kudos for actually making a good choice for once. It's about time he started using that mandate.