Dems Idea About SCOTUS: It’s All About Abortion
Over the past few months, I’ve written some unflattering things about Eleanor Clift, the ultra-lib feminist whacko. Tonight, I’ll do that again. Here’s some samplings from her latest paranoia-based article on Judge Alito joining the SCOTUS:
There is no danger whatsoever when it comes to the nominee’s confirmation. He’ll get more Democrats voting against him than Roberts, who had half the 44-member Democratic caucus voting for him, including the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary committee, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. One Hill vote-counter predicted the number of no votes on the Democratic side would be in the high 30s, no nail-biter but a sign of stormy weather ahead for the Republicans if Alito becomes the deciding vote against Roe v. Wade.
Like a typical liberal, Clift thinks of the SCOTUS as being all about Roe v. Wade. Equally typically, she thinks of everything that happens in terms of it representing a potential disaster for Republicans. What, if anything, is the basis for this ‘thinking’? Here’s a scary glimpse into the liberal mind:
The fight over Roe is not imminent. The more immediate challenge will be whether underage pregnant women will have to notify their parents of abortion plans, and extending the right of privacy to minors. “Would we have had Sandra Day O’Connor with us on that?” says the pro-choice Republican. “I’m not sure.” She expects Alito to vote to erode Roe, and then the argument will be, sometime in the not too distant future, that the ruling is a shell, and it will be overturned.
It’s a potential disaster for the GOP because the SCOTUS might rule that pregnant teenagers would have to notify their parents if they choose to have an abortion? The last I looked, this is a GOP winner, with the voting public agreeing with that position by a 70-30 margin or close to it. (I haven’t seen that question polled recently but the last time I did, it ran more than 2-1 favoring that ‘restriction’.)
Or is there another reason why Clift thinks that this will be a GOP disaster? Here’s a potential reason:
“Any activist will tell you they’d rather have the issue out there than to have it resolved,” says this pro-choice Republican, who has worked on the Hill and for various Republican interest groups. “If Roe were overturned, we’d be electing Democrats as far as the eye can see.”
But why is this a potential GOP disaster? Clift even writes that it isn’t likely that they’ll overturn Roe v. Wade anytime soon. Using that ‘logic’ is futile because that’s talking about things that might not happen, or at minimum, won’t happen for multiple political lifetimes. Hardly the thing to get worried about.
It’s also worth noting the importance that Clift puts into Roe v. Wade in her SCOTUS thinking. All other issues coming before the SCOTUS pales in comparison. Kelo v. New London? Who cares? Banning the Ten Commandments from the Kentucky courthouses? No biggie. Allowing the display of the Ten Commandments at the Austin, TX courthouse? Who cares? Throw the President something after losing those other cases.
Eleanor Clift is a high-profile writer. Unfortunately, she’s writing fiction and fantasy yarns in a news magazine. Or at least, Newsweek once was a news magazine.
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing
January 15th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
The whole abortion “issue” is nothing more than an activist red herring. So what if Roe v. Wade is overturned? It is, was and always will properly be a states’ right issue. (Let me note here that I am solidly against abortion, but again, believe it is an issue for the separate states, not the feds.)
I am much more concerned with Kelo and the Florida and Ohio cases. Individual freedoms are massively important, but the right to own property without fear of government theft (not what they call it, but close enough) is, in my humble opinion, of paramount importance because all other freedoms are of little consequence if one’s castle is not inviolate.
But to be honest, this is more an extension of the massive and intrusive land use laws that have come into favor in the past few decades than it is a new (af)front for “the greater good” laws that allow land grabs.
For as little as I could watch the Alito hearings I enjoyed seeing the Dems make asses of themselves and Alito dancing the trouble away. But I was disappointed we got little, if any, of his views on the rights of citizens to own property without the fear of having that property seized by fiat and given to some smooth-talking schmoozer that knows where to grease the wheels of (government) progress.