Not a freaking chance.
Harvard University law Professor Laurence Tribe, when asked by NBC's Brian Williams of his reaction to O'Connor's retirement:
Professor Tribe: "My reaction is that we've (on the left) been hit by a tsunami. She was central to the court not only because she was a centrist, but because her doctrines and her contributions, in terms of principle, as opposed to affirmative action decisions and decisions about religion, and to decisions about the role of the states in the national-state division of power. All of those contributions have been absolutely seminal."
See? They're scared ....REAL SCARED!
In tomorrow's Washington Post, Linda Ross Meyer also tries to persuade us that we need another Justice O'Connor. In her article she describes Justice O'Connor as the "Snow White of the Seven Dwarfs!" Or maybe Julie Andrews in the "Sound of Music" - I'm not sure which. You decide:
"Will the Supreme Court be different without Sandra Day O'Connor? You bet. But it will be different not only because she provided crucial votes for a right to privacy, against race-based redistricting, against state endorsement of religion and for affirmative action, etc. The court will be different without her because, if President Bush nominates a replacement on the basis of that person's position on constitutional theory, there will be no one to take the court on an outing from its ivory tower.
Justice O'Connor is known in court circles for organizing field trips for her clerks. She was determined to pry us clerks from behind our computers and from under our piles of briefs, and scoot us into the whirl of working Washington. Getting out into the real world, talking with real people, was a trial for some of her library-carrel-reared clerks, but these outings were not just matters of tourism. They gave us the foundational experience for understanding O'Connor's approach to jurisprudence and her place on the court. And they taught us what the court will lack when O'Connor leaves.
She would troop us around the District, taking in exhibits, touring postal facilities or wandering about historic ships, all the while peppering every docent or captain or postal worker with her questions and characteristic energy and enthusiasm. "Isn't this interesting!" she would exclaim over the concept of self-adhering postal stamps or machinery for dredging clams from the muck of Chesapeake Bay. We bleary-eyed bookworms would dutifully agree."
Yeah, I'm getting bleary-eyed....
Keep reading, Linda let's us know "The Rest of the Story"...which is her true point:
"At the court itself, it seemed to us as if O'Connor kept her feet on the ground in a place often dominated by Grand Constitutional Theory -- a combination of theoretical absolutes and scholarly minutiae of the kind that law professors love. Justice Stephen Breyer's opinions, for example, often sound as though they came directly from the policy wonks at the nonprofit Rand Corp., complete with appendices and concordances. Justice Clarence Thomas, meanwhile, believes his job is to return the court to the constitutional law of the 18th century, according to the Framers' intent, and his opinions usually contain long historical discourses about the state of law in 1790, as capital defendants dance on the head of an historical pin.
Justice Antonin Scalia, likewise, believes in theoretical absolutes. The court should expunge all rights not explicitly articulated in the text. It should never look at legislative history. And it should establish neat, clear, interlocking rules that can be applied consistently for all areas of law (and without further judgment by presumably less-competent trial courts). "What distinguishes the rule of law from the dictatorship of a shifting Supreme Court majority is the absolutely indispensable requirement that judicial opinions be grounded in consistently applied principle," Scalia wrote in his dissent to last week's court decision limiting the display of the Ten Commandments on government property.
But O'Connor believed that judging is not policy analysis or scholarship or ideology. Justice doesn't come from a book"
So.....this is what it's all about. It's not about the "Pesky Constitution"; that "old and tired document".
"Justice doesn't come from a book."
Then where does Justice come from Linda? From our hearts? Our heads? Or do we just pull it out of our "you know where"?
How about Justices Ginsberg, Stevens, Kennedy? You left them out of your "magic equasion". How did Justice O'Connor keep them in check? How did she balance them? Oh, I see, that wasn't necessary!
According to Linda Good ole Justice O'Connor did the Nation a great service by keeping them bad old, worn-out, stodgy, traditionalist, in check. She just waved her "magic opinion" and melted their evil.
Linda...you've killed your argument - one which only the moonbats at DailyKos could love.
No, sorry, we don't need a Mary Poppins or a Snow White at the bench. We don't care if the a Supreme Court judge takes their clerks to Chucky Cheese or Disney World. We need a Supreme Court Justice who judges on the basis of what the Constitution says, not what they would wish it to mean. We don't need yet another Justice who "fills in the blanks" or simply makes it up as they go along.
Simply put....
Yeah we need another O'Connor....like Rove needs a massage from Howard Dean.
Thanks for the memories...but no thanks!
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