sometimes the dagger is so slender that you hardly feel it going in, and only makes itself known when twisted.

What will Ms. Lopez from NRO who is pro-life say about what she and her comrades did to Ms. Miers?

That's what she gets for not being Catholic.

Bob: "Better a well written, Ivy League caliber vote to affirm Roe than an awkwardly written, SMU educated vote to overturn."

b:

Now that's funny.

Bob: That well-written majority opinion upholding the shell of RvW while cutting the heart out of it, say, by upholding an ultrasound counselling session, will save a lot more babies than a brain-dead dissent in favor of reversing it.

If Alito disappoints, those who trashed Miers will simply sidestep their recent musings about the latest nominee and simply put the onus on Bush for not selecting Luttig, Brown, Jones, etc., instead of doing any introspection about their efforts to dump Miers.

Lou Gots:

Wrong answer. It was an abysmal decision. Overturn it.

If you really want to cut the heart out, then cut the heart out.

Matt
Admire your feisty recommendation that a LOWER court make useless gestures at overturning a HIGHER court ruling. (by the process of violating the oath of office that the LOWER court judge swore to). Let us assume that eventually Roe v Wade is overturned by a reconstituted Supreme Court. Your recommendation is that lower courts can continually reinstate Roe v Wade requiring endless Supreme Court reversals. I fail to see the point of that.

To read a right to privacy into the Constitution is to violate your oath to uphold it, regardless of which court you're on.

I could go either way, on this argument. Alito, giving him the benefit of doubt, was operating under the assumption that his duty was to apply presently prevailing interpretations of the constitution.

But yes, you are correct, he could operate under a different assumption that he was duty bound to ignore higher court rulings and judge the case on it's own merits against a "true" interpretation of the constitution and disregard contra rulings of a higher court.

First assumption is simple and clear. Second assumption is (or can be) complex and confusing to parties of the lawsuit and ultimately pointless. I don't think either is morally superior to the other.

"presently prevailing"? There must be a more relativist concept, but hard to think of one.

Lou: Alito will never vote like you think. He is too much a slave to precedent--he wants too much to be a "good" judge, "good" judges will never overturn Roe nor cut the heart out of it. I know you supported Miers but those who oppose abortion and prefer Alito to Miers are just fooling themselves.

oj : for a lower court, the Constitution is what the Sup. Ct. has said it is. Where the Sup. Ct. has been silent or fuzzy, that's where you have room to run. Whenever Alito has had any room to run whatsoever, he has run well to the right.

For Alito to flout clear Sup. Ct. precedent as a lower-court judge would be to violate his oath.

And to end his career. Normally, you are savvy about pragmatics.

rds:

That's not the oath he swore.

h-man:

For the record, I was speaking only about the Supreme Court and not lower courts.