The World Needs More Ninjas

For as blood as this Supreme Court battle was supposed to be…there has been surprising calm. Here’s some thoughts by Stuart Taylor on what kind of justice Alito would be (only accessible at .edu computers):

Once installed in Justice O’Connor’s seat, Alito will be an exceptional justice. His rulings will probably be congenial to the broad middle of the electorate. He will be to the right of O’Connor — that is, the O’Connor of recent years, who has been markedly more liberal than she was before 1991 or so. Alito will probably be to the left of Antonin Scalia, albeit with less of a libertarian streak. He will be well to the left of Clarence Thomas, and far more respectful of precedent.

Alito will try as hard as anyone — and far harder than O’Connor — to be intellectually honest and analytically rigorous, and to keep his political preferences out of his legal rulings. He will therefore disappoint the most passionate political conservatives and horrify many liberals.

…

On abortion, Alito will probably give elected officials somewhat more power to impose restrictions, especially on late-term abortions, than has the post-1991 O’Connor. But I very much doubt that he will ever overrule Roe v. Wade or uphold any major barrier to early abortions. On religion, he will probably support greater freedom for minority sects and be more receptive to government sponsorship of nondenominational religious symbols.

He will probably make no effort to unravel established gay rights and will defer to the democratic process on whether to legalize gay marriage. On criminal justice, the former prosecutor will bring the Court more expertise than has anyone since Earl Warren, without Warren’s passion for expanding defendants’ rights.

Here’s an entertaining list that gives a step-by-step guide on how to demonize a judge:

3. If the judge was in the minority, point out how out-of-the mainstream he was because people disagreed with him. (This one also works if the judge’s opinion was reversed on appeal.) Always characterize his opinion as a “lone dissent” — as if there were another type for a circuit court judge — to make him sound even more isolated.

5. Never mention that the job of a judge is to apply the law, rather than to make policy. Treat his opinions as if they represented his policy preferences rather than the legislature’s.

8.Always assume “constitutional” or “legal” means the same thing as “a good idea.” If a judge rules that one party is permitted to do X under the constitution or law, report it as “Judge so-and-so approves of X.”

And, finally, Eleanor Clift writes that Dems should save their opposition for a possible retirement by John Paul Stevens:

Democrats shouldn’t filibuster Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court unless he really bungles the hearings. The votes aren’t there, and moderates don’t have the stomach for an all-out war over spousal notification. By a margin of nearly 3-to-1 according to a Pew Research Center poll, the public sides with the position Alito took in 1991 when he upheld as constitutional a provision in a Pennsylvania law that required women to notify their husbands before obtaining an abortion.

…

With President George W. Bush’s approval rating at 35 percent in the latest CBS poll, Democrats have finally sprung to life. That’s a good thing, but a bruising battle over cultural issues is better for Bush than for the Democrats. Rather than risk the filibuster in an unwinnable fight over Alito, Democrats should save it for when and if that awful day arrives when the most liberal member of the court, John Paul Stevens, 85, steps down while Bush is still president.