Don Surber may be reached at donsurber@dailymail.com.Posted on 07/24/2005 11:47:09 AM PDT by SmithL
Judicial nominee deserves some respect
My sister, Sharon, seldom talks about politics but I remember a conversation she had with my eldest niece, Robin, back in 1972.
I said I was voting for George McGovern. My sister surprised me by saying she preferred the incumbent, Richard Nixon. Robin, all of 8, asked why.
Because if McGovern is elected you'll have to go to school on Saturday.
I laughed then and I laugh now. One explains politics to an 8-year-old in a manner she can understand.
Now we come to this business of replacing Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.
Throughout the last campaign, liberal groups and some conservatives said the presidential election was all about the Supreme Court.
If George Bush were re-elected, the liberals said, he would appoint justices who would roll back time, put women back in the kitchen, and make you go to school on Saturday.
Well, that was cool with 62 million people and we re-elected Bush. The clock has been reset for 1905. Women are in the kitchen. Children go to school six days a week.
Oh wait, that hasn't happened yet. First Bush has to appoint a justice or three. So the first opening pops up and what do liberals say? Oh no, Bush cannot do that.
Less than a summer later, the talk about the presidential election being about who decides who sits on the court is abandoned.
Well, that is not very nice of them to try to change the rules after the contest has been decided.
The American Civil Liberties Union expressed "deep concerns" about Bush's nominee.
"People for the American Way is extremely disappointed," according to its press release. Ditto the National Abortion Rights Action League, the Sierra Club and Move On.
Well, too bad. The two justices that Bill Clinton picked disappointed conservatives. The Senate confirmed Ruth Ginsburg 96-3. Stephen Breyer passed 89-7.
Republicans may not have agreed with their positions, but Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said it best in 1994.
"This is an honest man," Hatch said of Breyer. "He's a man of immense qualifications. He's a man of immense integrity. He is a person who has a tremendous judicial and legal mind. He is a person who is fair and open. He is a person who I think will have an appropriate temperament for the court."
That should be the standard.
Sadly, liberals may once again ignore the rules of civility, decorum and precedent and try to ruin a good man.
I hope not. I hope they play nice. I hope they show some respect for America's political process.
Way back in 1857, a young lawyer from Illinois spoke forcefully against the dreadful Dred Scott decision. For the next three years, Abraham Lincoln campaigned against it.
But he did so with a respect for the court as an institution and the justices as individuals. He showed a confidence in his position that would lead to his election in 1860.
The stakes today are much smaller. Peanuts. No one is going to school on Saturday. Let us quit acting like 8-year-olds.
Don Surber may be reached at donsurber@dailymail.com.
And kitchen work:')
Like McGovern (or any Dem) would have made the teachers' unions work 6 days a week.
I went to school on several Saturdays in the late '80s. (Too many snow and flu days, we all had to go 4 Saturdays.)
Less than a summer later, the talk about the presidential election being about who decides who sits on the court is abandoned.
Wouldn't that be a good por Richards commercial.
McGovern would not have endorsed school on Saturdays. He'd have endorsed free A's for Saturdays. And if Dems had had their way after that, we'd now have teachers handing out extra unearned grades on THREE days a week.
And at least Wednesday would be renamed because nobody could spell it anymore.
In fact probably all the days would be renamed by now. It's a revolutionary thing.
Folks who look like him should not include vanity shots when posting their columns.
And you survived!
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