Crossing a name off their list

October 31, 2005

In May, before there was even a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the White House began reaching out to far-right activists to ask who they’d like to see nominated. The Christian Legal Society, one of the groups “solicited” for their views and recommendations. The Washington Times reported that the group wrote a short list of just six names. Samuel Alito was near the top.

A month later, James Dobson’s Focus on the Family published a short list, which was distributed to the group’s membership. Two of the top three names were John Roberts and Sam Alito.

In other words, Bush hasn’t merely nominated a conservative jurist; he’s asked right-wing conservative activists for their wish lists — and then used them as a guide.

It’s almost sad to see a president so fearful of angering his political supporters that he practically has to let his base make his Supreme Court nomination for him. A few weeks ago, Bush had the nerve to make up his own mind on filling a high court vacancy, which his supporters didn’t seem to care for. Now the president seems to have given up on the pretense of being a “uniter” altogether, completely surrendering to the demands of his political base.

After Harriet Miers’ nomination was pulled last week, Tony Fabrizio, a prominent Republican pollster, said the conservative movement is “only going to be emboldened by getting Harriet Miers’ scalp. They stared down the White House and won.”

And to the victor go the spoils.

The Dem’s better stand up to this judge. All we need is a Taliban Supreme Court. Seperation of church and state? Come on guy’s. Do we really want a bunch of religous judges? NO It’s bad enough they are religous but they are also anti worker/ anti environment/ anti little guy/ pro big business. Doesn’t it seem that being religous would at least make them the opposite of the rest?

  • I certainly believe we should maintain the separation between church and state, but I would have no problem with a devout Christian serving on the Supreme Court as long as the person was a true Christian who tried to follow the teaching of the real Jesus.

    I can say that because the person would be, by definition, NOT a right-wing ideologue. True Christianity and the politics of today’s right-wing are mutually exclusive. Followers of Dobson, et. al, are NOT Christians, regardless of whether they call themselves such.

    Right-wing, evangelical “Christians” are a perversion of all the teachings of Christ. THEY are an abomination and a blight on our country.

  • FWIW, here’s the religious makeup of the new court:

    John Roberts – Catholic
    Stephen G. Breyer – Jewish
    Ruth Bader Ginsburg – Jewish
    Anthony M. Kennedy – Catholic
    Antonin Scalia – Catholic
    David H. Souter – Episcopalian
    John Paul Steven – Protestant
    Clarence Thomas – Catholic
    Samuel Alito – Catholic

    As a recovering Catholic, Ithis fact leaps out at me: five out of nine are Roman Catholic. Taliban? Nah, not from a religion which enforces priestly celibacy, obeys a foreign despot, wears medieval robes, regards women as second-class citizens, “forgave” Galileo only recently, and regards homosexuals as sinful perverts while covering up priestly pederasty. Not to worry.

  • Apparently what I just wrote above about the nomination can lead some to the conclusion that I’m anti-religious or anti-Catholic. I’m not, and I’d like to clarify what I meant.

    I grew up Catholic in small, Protestant, anti-Catholic central California town. In grammar school in the forties and fifties I saw all kinds of political handouts, cartoons, showing the Pope pulling puppet strings on American politicians. I learned to argue against such tripe, that the Church understood America’s separation of church and state, that we all pledged allegiance to the flag, that Joe DiMaggio was a Catholic, and so on. I later beamed when I watched Jack Kennedy re-affirm what I had been taught: that he would govern without reference to the preferences of his church.

    It’s only been much later, now that I’m in my sixties, that I’ve actually seen the Church try to force its peculiar doctrines on American politicians. American Bishops are on record forcefully protesting any increase in civil rights for gays. It was the current Pope who, in his previous role (which used to be called Inquisitor) ordered American bishops to deny Communion to John Kerry. I don’t know “how Catholic” all the justices will act, but Scalia and his convert Thomas make no bones about their dedication – they’re both members of Opus Dei and they both regularly attend the offshoot northern Virginia tiny parish which does its mass in Latin (the same parish that former FBI director Freeh and the traitor Hanssen attended). This isn’t actually about religion; it’s about power.

    I’m not ready to put on the tin-foil hat yet, but it certainly has been a turn-around in recent years, and this looks like a significant further move in that direction. As I’ve said here several times already, I actually would like to see Roe overturned because I don’t think it should’ve been decided by the Supremes in the first place (any more than Shrub’s election should’ve been so determined). Here in Washington state we voted in a stronger version of Roe long before Roe existed. What bothers me is that this once-great product of the Enlightenment is being governed by people whose policies flow directly, mindlessly from their religions (which, of course, makes our counter-positions sinful). It’s disgusting, and this nomination is more of the same. The new five-vote Catholic majority on the SCOTUS, given the Roman church’s public positions, makes certain decisions a foregone conclusion, and that’s not the American way, imho.

  • That they are Catholic doesn’t bother me. That they are wingnuts does.

    We probably won’t win the battle here but that doesn’t mean we can’t score big politically as a result of it.

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