Asked over the weekend whether he shared George W. Bush's admiration for
Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, John McCain
said yes and volunteered Sandra Day O'Connor as another Justice he
admires. Well, at least he didn't name David Souter — a protégé of McCain
campaign chairman Warren Rudman and the most left-wing Supreme. Justice
O'Connor votes with the conservatives on many issues, including
federalism. Home-state pride ought to be considered, too, since O'Connor
is from Arizona. Still, McCain's answer ought to worry anyone concerned
about the direction of the courts.
O'Connor, the swing vote in many cases, may be the most powerful
individual in American government. Her vote decides which racial
preferences will stand, which fall; it was her vote this spring that had
school districts across the country scrambling to come up with
sexual-harassment policies for the playground. Most of the legal briefs in
the Miranda-rights case being argued today were pitched to her.
Predictability, transparency, and impartiality are generally held to be
indispensable features of the rule of law. But O'Connor, by refusing to
announce clear principles on such matters as racial preferences and the
religion clause, leaves everyone guessing what the outcome of the next
case will be. (If O'Connor shares Chief Justice Rehnquist's concern that
the federal caseload is too large, she could reduce it by settling some
areas of law.) The public policy depends, to a remarkable extent, on one
woman's whim. The next president should try to change that. And that
requires the appointment of more judges in the mold of Scalia and Thomas,
not of more O'Connors and Souters.
A number of readers have written to protest our failure to mention Alan
Keyes in our analysis of the New Hampshire debate Thursday night. We were
trying to give some impressions, not a comprehensive summary: We didn't
give much attention to Gary Bauer or Orrin Hatch either. But we promise to
include them in our round-up of Monday night's debate.
The Hotline quotes New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg, a Bush supporter,
saying over the weekend that Steve Forbes "tends to be a little chippy."
Gregg then refers to the Bush-Forbes dust-up over Social Security: "My
sense is that if [Forbes is] going to respond to legitimate questions
about his positions with those type of chippy answers, he's not going to
improve his position very much."
Our Webster's gives three definitions of "chippy." We can discard
"chipping sparrow" and, we think, "chipmunk." The third definition?
"[Slang] a) promiscuous young woman b) a prostitute." Sounds like Gregg's
going negative.
