Posted on 03/23/2004 12:57:27 PM PST by TradicalRC
CURRENT ISSUE | SUBSCRIBE | CHRONICLES EXTRA | AUDIO | EVENTSMarch 6, 2004 DEPLORABLE SUPREME COURT "MODERATES"
March 4 should be a memorable date for Americans, but it is not—and with good reason. It was on March 4, 1789, that, by congressional enactment, the first government of the United States took office under the Constitution. Two hundred and fifteen years later to the day, American legal correspondents began commenting on the revelations of Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun whose private notes and tape-recorded memoirs were for the first time made available to the public.
From the passages that have been quoted, the most striking thing to emerge is the essential silliness and triviality of the justices and the entire want of moral and judicial principle that has underlaid some of the most important decisions. Chief Justice Burger writes the young Blackmun notes about the blonde babe who has been showing up since he was sworn in; justices swap notes on ball scores and petty politics; one justice (Blackmun himself) writes an unnecessarily nasty opinion accusing another justice of rabble-rousing, and the other justice (Kennedy) responds in a passive-aggressive letter whining about the implications. A mature man might go mad in such an environment.
Blackmun and Kennedy are also involved in the incident that has attracted the most attention from the press, including an endless series of chortling (though highly informative) comments from NPR’s legal correspondent Nina Totenberg: the 1992 decision (in Planned Parenthood v. Casey) to reaffirm the unconstitutional and immoral decision in Roe v. Wade. Blackmun had drafted the original decision—and a poor job he made of it, even by liberal pro-infanticide standards, a revelation of his judicial incompetence in all its glory—and he was alarmed by the looming prospect of a reversal.
With Clarence Thomas on the court, the Republican conservatives had a clear majority: Chief Justice Rehnquist, backed up by Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O’Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and Thomas. Rehnquist, knowing that he had the votes, went so far as to circulate a draft majority opinion that would have restored the rights of the states to regulate abortion while nominally upholding Roe v. Wade. Blackmun was appalled. Imagine, the people in the states would once again be free to interfere in a woman’s most precious right—the right to kill her unborn child.
Blackmun soon found cause for hope. The dimwitted and over-sensitive Anthony Kennedy was obviously afraid to rock the liberal boat, and, although he feared a backlash from his fellow-Catholics, he feared liberal opinion even more. After meeting with Kennedy, Blackmun scribbled a note: “RC agony and traitor.” Traitor, yes; agony, well hardly. Before long, he was having heart-to-hearts with that other Republican legal genius, Sandy O’Connor, and the pair of them conspired with the confirmed bachelor David Souter to uphold Roe.
What does this have to do with March 4, 1789? Everything: 215 years ago, a government took office, based on the rule of law established in a Constitution ratified by the states with a soon-to-be guarantee of the rights of the ratifying states; 215 years later, we are painfully reminded that American justice—and the Constitution itself—is manufactured every day by ignorant and weak-willed Supreme Court justices who have a reckless disregard for the principles of logic, the Constitution, and common decency.
Journalists are full of praise for the centrist “troika” of O’Connor, Souter, and Kennedy, but what are they really? A dizzy feminist who turned her back on her mentor, William Rehnquist; an effeminate and irresolute male who is intimidated by women; a renegade Catholic who defies the most important moral insight of Christianity—respect for innocent life. Conservatives will come away from these documents with a heightened respect for Justices Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas and a deep and abiding loathing, not so much for Blackmun and the other leftists as for the Republican opportunists and the Republican Presidents who put them on the Supreme Court.
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