October 10, 2005
THERE'S A REASON HE'S OUR BEST PUNDIT (via The Other Brother):
She's not ideal, but she'll get job done (MARK STEYN, 10/09/05, Chicago Sun-Times)
[W]hat seems to be emerging is a woman Bush responds to as a fellow cultural conservative and evangelical conservative (she's a born-again Christian), rather than as a judicial conservative -- a label Judge Bork dislikes, preferring quite correctly that we distinguish judges not as conservative or liberal but as either originalists or judicial activists. I find it hard to discuss Miers seriously in those terms, but on balance she seems likely to vote the right way for whatever reasons. She's thus another representative of Bush and Karl Rove's belief in incrementalism: that the Republican majority can be made a permanent feature of the landscape if you build it one small brick at a time. Miers is, at best, such a brick, at a time when conservatives were hoping Bush would drop a huge granite block on the court. But, given that she started out as a Democrat and has been on the receiving end of the partisan attacks on the administration for five years, she seems less likely than any detached effete legal scholar to be prone to the remorseless drift to the left that happens to Republican Supreme Court nominees.True, that's little more than a hunch on my part. In the meantime, what's left is the base's distress and the perception of weakness on the president's part. The first is real and may cause problems in 2006, though I can't see it costing the GOP its congressional majorities. As for Bush personally, he was the better of the alternatives in both 2000 and 2004, but come on, the "compassionate conservative" thing was, in its implications, far more insulting to the base than the steel tariffs or the proposed illegal immigrant amnesty or the judicial nominees. Bush, it seems ever more obvious, is the Third Wayer Clinton only pretended to be.
The Slicker reckoned that, to be electable, a Democrat had to genuflect rhetorically to some kind of sensible soccer-mom-ish center, and he was right, at least insofar as without him the Dems have been el stinko floppo three elections in a row. But Bush, for good or ill, believes in himself as the real Third Way deal: It's a remarkable achievement to get damned day in and day out as the new Hitler when 90 percent of the time you're Tony Blair with a ranch.
That's the smartest thing you'll read this year. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 10, 2005 7:44 AM
I read this yesterday and couldn't decide if Steyn was channeling OJ or vice versa. Must be something in the water up NH way.
Posted by: MB at October 10, 2005 7:54 AMI'm trying to be Good Neighbour Sam here and keep my mouth shut, but can I throw out a question that could be posed equally to liberals? Is it desirable in the long term for the Court to be composed entirely of declared ideologues who everyone knows exactly how they will vote on each issue before they even start work?
Posted by: Peter B at October 10, 2005 8:09 AMSure. What's bad about predictability?
Peter,
Or you could reverse the question and ask, why do we even have a court deciding the "issues" when the idealogies are pretty clear in which direction they lead? Which brings us to referendums on matters the courts now decide held mainly at the state level.
Posted by: Perry at October 10, 2005 8:57 AMYou'll soon have plenty of state-level "referendums" on abortion, because Roe v Wade is doomed. Maybe the precedent doesn't fall all at once, but it will be gone within five years.
Posted by: Casey Abell at October 10, 2005 10:06 AMCasey: And if the Democrats had a brain, they'd embrace that result.
Posted by: David Cohen at October 10, 2005 10:50 AMCasey: Next month the voters of CA, not exactly known as a pro-life hotbed, are going to overwhelmingly approve a parental-notification amendment to the state constitution. The day that the SC rules that there is not, in fact, a "right" for any doctor to use any method he chooses to give any female of any age an abortion at any stage of her pregnancy with no oversight permitted, is the day that the Dems can finally pull back from their blind adherence to that indefensible position...
Posted by: b at October 10, 2005 11:20 AMPeter:
Better still, a court where nobody cares which way it will vote, because it generally leaves policy to the various legislatures.
Posted by: Mike Earl at October 10, 2005 11:26 AM"...the Dems can finally pull back from their blind adherence to that indefensible position..."
No question that an overturn of Roe makes things easier for the Dems and harder for the Repubs. That's the never-to-be-expressed reason many conservative pundits don't like Miers. They're afraid she really will overturn Roe.
They're right. It won't happen all at once, but Roe is doomed. And it couldn't happen to nicer people than the Ann Coulter's of the world.
Posted by: Casey Abell at October 10, 2005 11:31 AMSaw the Steyn piece yesterday. Was surprised it took OJ so long to post it.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at October 10, 2005 11:49 AMCasey-- The repeal of Roe could make it harder for R's, but the D's won't exactly have an easy time of it. They get their money from the 20% or so of people who want abortion legal in every single case. If a few savvy Republicans start pushing through compromises, the Dems will be stuck between the majoritarian desire to restrict abortion to a point, and the demand of their moneymakers to not yield an inch of that precious right.
The question is, who will be more willing to compromise? I doubt it will be those who have gotten used to getting their way over the past 30 years.
Posted by: Timothy at October 10, 2005 1:00 PMRoe is not going to be reversed anytime soon. With Miers on the Court, the applicable standard fro Casey, "undue burden", will be applied, and no undue burden will ever be found, thus allowing any regulaiton a state can dream up (fetal pain medication, mandatory sonograms, etc.) to be upheld.
Posted by: Dan at October 10, 2005 4:49 PMTim: the Ds get a surprisingly large portion of their money from people who perform abortions, and the creepy guys who take their underage girlfriends to the clinics. "Unyielding" doesn't begin to describe the attitude.
Posted by: Mike Morley at October 10, 2005 5:59 PMIf abortion is ever made illegal, it won't affect Republicans who have the money to take their daughters to a doctor who will do the job; it won't do much for most of the Democratic constituents.
Posted by: Fred at October 10, 2005 6:08 PMOIther than stop Democrats from killing their babies.
Posted by: oj at October 10, 2005 6:17 PM