Conservative bias

Should President Obama nominate a liberal to succeed John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court?

Why is there even a question that the answer is yes? The only question for a Republican President is whether he should nominate a strong conservative or an extreme conservative. He may screw up the choice - Souter - but a Republican's intent is always to get another ideologue onto the court, and preferably a youngish one.

For some obscure reason - couldn't be the self-forgiven hypocrisy of an overweening will to power - the Republican caucus in the Senate never holds itself to its own stated principle of an up-or-down vote if a liberal is shackled in the dock, I mean, giving testimony.

Instead, they shout, "Bork, bork, bork," like a bunch of capons with too much gravel in their gizzards. They claim that the borking of Robert Bork was the original sin of politicizing the court, never mind the Bork's subsequent role as a culture warrior on the extreme right has proven the Democrats were correct to bork him.

Last, take a look at the people CNN asked to comment on the question of a liberal on the court (oh, my, Mildred, such a scary prospect):

• Ed Rollins, a well-known Republican operative
• Douglas Kmiec, a Reagan appointee to the Justice Department (who by the way uses his paragraphs to nominate a friend of Samuel Alito's, someone who defended Alito's dishonest question-dodging to hide his extremism during his confirmation)
  
• Ilya Shapiro, from the libertarian but mostly conservative Cato Institute
• Ed Whelan, former law clerk to Antonin Scalia, the most open extreme conservative on the court

That leaves two slots that could have been filled with someone willing to answer yes. Instead, we get two prominent but not public figures who speak in platitudes and analyze the politics:

• Patricia Millett, who practices before the court and is therefore not going to say anything controversial
• Julian Zelizer, who declines to take any advocacy role at all

Liberal media? Where?

Originalist poser

Just how is it that the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court can grant the First Amendment to corporations, when the modern limited liability corporation wasn't even legal until decades after the ratification of the Bill of Rights?

Could it possibly be, as with federalism, states' rights, and especially Bush v. Gore, the right-wing activist judges who claim to be originalists are not really acting on principle at all?

I dare question the sincerity of Their High Honors the Supreme Justices! Off with me 'ead!

For anyone who thinks borking has bad connotations, check Robert Bork's further career as a rigid ideologue, willing to rationalize almost any extremity of wingnuttism (who knew that word would be in the Firefox spelling dictionary!). We Democrats and liberals should have borked Scalia, Thomas, and Alito too. The world would be a better place - and especially America would be better without ever having suffered the maladministration of Darth and Duhbya - if we has seen the importance of keeping the first two of those Republican ideologues off the court.

As for Scalito's objection to President Obama's criticism of the Court's predictable bullshit decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Alito knew the stakes, no matter how piously he may now deny it. Principle? The winner establishes principle, and they won, liberal bitches!

The origin of originalism

In the beginning, there was strict constructionism. And the righteous wing saw that it was good.

In time, however, strict constructionism was tainted by the undeniable fact that it arose in support of racism and Jim Crow segregation. The Republicans needed a new brand, and the Federalist Society obliged with originalism.

Jeffrey Toobin does me a favor to remind me of this history, now that the wingnuts are in charge of the asylum. It's a shame we liberals didn't bork at least Scalia and Alito. In their world, no Constitutional freedoms may attach to new media such as blogging.

The Crits, by the way, made their own extremist fears come true. Law today is a tool of the ruling class.