Posted on 12/19/2012 1:00:58 PM PST by Mozilla
So Obama would have replaced Bork, unless he would have quit before Bush left office.
I had the same thought. Bork woud have had to retitre in 2005, at age 78, when O’Connor retired (at age 73 IIRC).
Yep, it's possible, but AuH2ORepublican is probably right that Bork would have retired during Bush's second term rather than risk a RAT winning the Presidency in 2008. He was 60 at the time of his nomination, one of the reasons we need to nominate younger judges. Few would anticipate a 60 year old staying on the court for 25 years, though it seems routine for Senators to stick around that long.
It would be interesting to go back and look at all the 5-4 decisions over the last 25 years where Justice Kennedy sided with the liberals, because nearly all of them would have gone the other way. This would be a very different country today. As others noted, Roe v. Wade might have been overturned in the Casey decision of 1992. (I think that ruling might have been 6-3 though).
Bork did accurately predict we were "Slouching towards Gomorrah" in 1996. Sorry, George W. Bush. Even your veep jumped on the bandwagon, at least on the gay marriage thing.
Gerald Ford actually considered Bork for a SCOTUS seat in the 70s, but concluded (accurately, unfortunately) that he was "too controversial" because of his role in Richard Nixon's firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor, and the Dems would destroy him. So Ford crossed him off the short list and we eventually ended with the horrid John Paul Stevens.
Incidentally, Specter and five other RINOs joined the Dems in opposing Bork. Yet we're always told we "have to" elect RINO Senators so we can get good judges on the courts. Poo.
Casey was 6-3 (Kennedy and O’Connor both switched to support Roe’s ridiculous holding), but once Thomas replaced Marshall the Court had 4 strong votes to overturn Roe, and had Bork been there instead of Kennedy then there would have been 5 solid votes to overturn. (Of course, a couple of years later White was replaced with Ginsburg, but by that time Roe would no longer be a binding precedent and O’Connor could cite stare decisis to uphold the precedent stating that states could ban abortion.)
I noticed just as I hit “post” that I forgot to mention that, had Bork been on the Court instead of Kennedy, O’Connor likely would have voted in Casey to overturn Roe’s central holding, since it was Kennedy signing on that gave her the courage to make that ridiculous stare decisis argument in the first place.
Great quotation!!! It belongs in an historical anthology of American political wisdom.
> Libs are like weeds. They just coming back until they take over the garden.
Libs are like weed — they just keep coming back until someone smokes them.
That's the infamous and asinine quote from the late Teddy that CNN is so happy to repeat, despite the fact that it was nothing but slanderous.
Yes, to borrow Kennedy's metaphor, federal judges do "shut the doors of the federal courts on the fingers of millions of citizens," but Kennedy and his ilk would never admit that they are more often leftist judges who commonly do exactly that to Americans who are white, male, and heterosexual (as well as others) whose rights are trampled upon by ever more powerful government - be it federal, state, or local.
LOL!!!
Tonight, a lib I know posted that Republicans want to taint the milk because they won’t sign on to some AG Bill. They are certifiable. But they never stop the insanity.
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