Justice Ginsburg’s dissent seemed to me to be an attempt to reach rhetorical heights that she couldn’t quite achieve. Justice Blackmun could be mawkish when he strove for such effects–his partial concurrence/partial dissent in Casey, in which he nattered on about “darkness” and “light,” light of course being abortion on demand–but he was better at it than she is.

As for the Republican candidates, all of them–including Giuliani, whose statement was criticized in the Corner–put out better statements than Bush did in 2000, when the Court struck down partial-birth abortion laws and all he could manage to say was that he was ”disappointed.” (It was certainly better than Giuliani’s statement during the first fight over partial-birth abortion, when he took a swipe at Pope John Paul II.) In other words, I wouldn’t read too much into how forceful or eloquent these reaction statements are.