Posted on 09/06/2005 5:24:35 AM PDT by Undertow
My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history. So here’s the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you won’t hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.
Let’s begin at the beginning. Rehnquist bragged about being first in his class at Stanford Law School. Today Stanford is a great law school with a diverse student body, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it discriminated against Jews and other minorities, both in the admission of students and in the selection of faculty. Justice Stephen Breyer recalled an earlier period of Stanford’s history: “When my father was at Stanford, he could not join any of the social organizations because he was Jewish, and those organizations, at that time, did not accept Jews.” Rehnquist not only benefited in his class ranking from this discrimination; he was also part of that bigotry. When he was nominated to be an associate justice in 1971, I learned from several sources who had known him as a student that he had outraged Jewish classmates by goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering with brown-shirted friends in front of a dormitory that housed the school’s few Jewish students. He also was infamous for telling racist and anti-Semitic jokes.
As a law clerk, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum for Justice Jackson while the court was considering several school desegregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquist’s memo, entitled “A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases,” defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded the Plessy “was right and should be reaffirmed.” When questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on the dead Justice, stating – under oath – that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. But Justice Jackson voted in Brown, along with a unanimous Court, to strike down school segregation. According to historian Mark Tushnet, Justice Jackson’s longtime legal secretary called Rehnquist’s Senate testimony an attempt to “smear[] the reputation of a great justice.” Rehnquist later admitted to defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks. He did not acknowledge that he committed perjury in front of the Judiciary Committee to get his job.
The young Rehnquist began his legal career as a Republican functionary by obstructing African-American and Hispanic voting at Phoenix polling locations (“Operation Eagle Eye”). As Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wrote, “[H]e helped challenge the voting qualifications of Arizona blacks and Hispanics. He was entitled to do so. But even if he did not personally harass potential voters, as witnesses allege, he clearly was a brass-knuckle partisan, someone who would deny the ballot to fellow citizens for trivial political reasons -- and who made his selection on the basis of race or ethnicity.” In a word, he started out his political career as a Republican thug.
Rehnquist later bought a home in Vermont with a restrictive covenant that barred sale of the property to ''any member of the Hebrew race.”
Rehnquist’s judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian. He sometimes moderated his views for prudential or pragmatic reasons, but his vote could almost always be predicted based on who the parties were, not what the legal issues happened to be. He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.
Rehnquist served on the Supreme Court for thirty-three years and as chief justice for nineteen. Yet no opinion comes to mind which will be remembered as brilliant, innovative, or memorable. He will be remembered not for the quality of his opinions but rather for the outcomes decided by his votes, especially Bush v. Gore, in which he accepted an Equal Protection claim that was totally inconsistent with his prior views on that clause. He will also be remembered as a Chief Justice who fought for the independence and authority of the judiciary. This is his only positive contribution to an otherwise regressive career.
Within moments of Rehnquist’s death, Fox News called and asked for my comments, presumably aware that I was a longtime critic of the late Chief Justice. After making several of these points to Alan Colmes (who was supposed to be interviewing me), Sean Hannity intruded, and when he didn’t like my answers, he cut me off and terminated the interview. Only after I was off the air and could not respond did the attack against me begin, which is typical of Hannity’s bullying ambush style. He is afraid to attack when there’s someone there to respond. Since the interview, I’ve received dozens of e-mail hate messages, some of which are overtly anti-Semitic. One writer called me “a jew prick that takes it in the a** from ruth ginzburg [sic].” Another said I am “an ignorant socialist left-wing political hack …. You’re like a little Heinrich Himmler! (even the resemblance is uncanny!).” Yet another informed me that I “personally make us all lament the defeat of the Nazis!” A more restrained viewer found me to be “a disgrace to the Law, to Harvard, and to humanity.”
All this, for refusing to put a deceptive gloss on a man who made his career undermining the rights and liberties of American citizens.
My mother would want me to remain silent, but I think my father would have wanted me to tell the truth. My father was right.
Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. His latest book is The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved (Wiley, 2005).
Mommie Sean was mean to me .I like Alan but Sean is mean !
And he told evil people to call and email me.
"After making several of these points to Alan Colmes (who was supposed to be interviewing me), Sean Hannity intruded, and when he didn’t like my answers, he cut me off and terminated the interview." What happened to Alan ?
If he thinks Sean was mean have Mathews (Tweety)
interview him ,ask Zell Miller . .
LMAO!!! Ol' Alan is just jealous. What has he EVER done that was important? He recognizes a better lawyer than himself and just chooses to tear him down, rather than confront him on the issues or execute a deep analysis. The Left are like children. And he really needs to give up the Democrap talking point of "so-and-so was against the rights of gays, black, women, ..." That Sh*t is old and played out.
I agree, give it the ZOT! I don't want to get into this mess.
Now it openly and legally discriminates against whites and Alan Dershowitz is on record approving of it, as long as it doesn't apply to Jews. This line that Rehnquist ought to be held responsible for Standford's admission policies is so weak I'm surprised even a dope like Dershowitz would take that tack. This is the same guy who publicly writes articles and books that say Jews shouldn't breed with non-Jews. He has a right to believe that, but not lecture others on the "evils of discrimination" if he does.
I learned from several sources who had known him as a student that he had outraged Jewish classmates by goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering with brown-shirted friends in front of a dormitory that housed the school’s few Jewish students. He also was infamous for telling racist and anti-Semitic jokes.
Alan Dershowitz has spent a lifetime tearing down this society because he is a white gentile hating neo-Nazi genocidal bigot. His activities, unlike the pranks of a rock-headed student, have resulted in real suffering and death (indeed the spectacle of New Orleans is an example of his and his allies handiwork). He literally and consciously has spent his lifetime working for the genocidal extermination of white gentile America. Cultural extermination and physical extermination. Rehnquist may have tastelessly played the Nazi in college but there's a difference between playing a Nazi and being a Nazi.
All this, for refusing to put a deceptive gloss on a man who made his career undermining the rights and liberties of American citizens.
Remember, this is the same fascist jerk who advocated legal torture a short while ago.
It's actually the truth. Both Robert Jackson and Stanley Reed were opposed to overruling Plessy, however they were persuaded by Chief Justice Warren. He first persuaded Jackson (who was by that time lying half-dead in the hospital) and when he finally gave in, he told Justice Reed (who already ordered his clerk to start writing a dissent): "Stan, think about what's best for this country. You're on your own in this now.". BTW, when Vinson was The Chief Justice it looked as if Plessy would be affirmed by a 5-4 vote. It was a widespread belief that apart from Vinson, Jackson and Reed also Justices Clark and Frankfurter were opposed to overruling Plessy. Vinson however died and Earl Warren arrived and Brown was reargued. Everything changed. But Rehqnquist was right. If Warren hadn't practically forced Reed and Jackson into joining the majority it would be probably a 7-2 vote.
"If you gave Alan Dershowitz a dose of Viagra, his posture would improve, he’d get a ruddy complexion, and he’d grow a few inches taller. It’s doubtful his head could swell any more."
I wasn't making any argument at all; I had no opinion about Rehnquist, and had never heard Dershowitz's allegations before. I was reacting to extremely heated rhetoric calling Dershowitz a "Jewish supremacist", which aroused suspicion partly because, whatever he may be, he isn't that. He is outspokenly pro-palestinian and pro-two-state-solution.
Now Nixon was definetly[sic] an anti-semite.
Debatable. Some of the quotes attributed to Nixon, according to Garment, are not actually found on the tapes. Those slurs he does utter are always specifically targetted at liberals--i.e., political enemies--and it can be convincingly argued that he opted to use a cheap slur out of political, rather than racial, animosity. He gave many of the highest posts in his government to (conservative) Jews, and not only came out as Israel's best friend, but personally created the rationale that forces even Bush to be nice to Israel: the notion that it is a strategic asset.
But if you look back at history you will find that the only way Israel won the 6 day war was because of Nixons' airlifts to the Jews in their times of trouble.
LBJ was president during the six-days war. You'r thinking of the Yom Kippur war.
Blame the period he grew up in , not the man .
Eeek. Denying the existence of free will... are you a Calvinist, or just a liberal?
I'd be more comfortable with your assertion of the above as facts if Mr. Dershowitz had provided sources for the comments so indicated. It's easy to make claims without a source - and it makes it almost impossible for the accused party to refute the accusations.
Especially when the accused party is dead.
"We hear of this first after Rehnquist is dead?
BULLSH!T!"
Ever the LAWYER, he simply knows that the dead can't sue for slander. What a pig !!!
More poisonous tripe from the Huffing & Puffing ComPost?
Life's jut too short.
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