Well, the last thing Washington needs right now is another Supreme Court vacancy, but here it is: they just announced on TV that Chief Justice Rehnquist has died.
More on this later, as I have more time to think (I’m also working on a longer post on the whole hurricane-recriminations business, but I want to mull the issue a bit more). But a thought, tying the two strands together: what are the odds that Bush nominates Edith Brown Clement, who was apparently one of the runners-up to replace O’Connor, and who hails from New Orleans and currently sits in a court (the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals) whose main courthouse is presently abandoned to the flood?
One thought on “Rehnquist RIP”
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I have not read any of the obits yet but consistent with past practices when a major political figure dies, I would be surprised if the real Rehnquist was exposed during the post-mortem. If you read John Dean’s book about the Rehnquist nomination, you know that he was the final choice during a desperate attempt by Nixon to find a suitable candiate. Rehnquist was far from the best qualified man for the job and had made a name for himself as a radical rightist who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Only seven years later, he’s one the Court. He also penned a memo for Justice Jackson which advocated reaffirming Plessy and had a
restrictive covenant on his property, prohibiting the sale to blacks and Jews. Finally, in my view, he was on the wrong side on nearly every civil rights issue that came before the Court, and I’m not even talking about abortion and affirmative action, the only issues the media seems to be able to focus on. As a lawyer, I can see the real life consequences of Rehnquist’s rulings. The sad thing is, he was not the worst on the Court anymore; Scalia and Thomas knocked him out of first place. I think I speak for many liberals/lefists who tune in to your webpage that it is a very sorry day when a man of Bush’s low intellectual and moral caliber gets to appoint two members to the Supreme Court, which despite its faults, remains one of the only institutions in American politics for which I have respect.
(Posted by Steve and reposted by site administrator following resolution of problem with comments)