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Jewish World Review Feb. 8, 2001 / 15 Shevat, 5761

Ann Coulter

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Eight more Clarence Thomases

http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- AFTER repeatedly accusing John Ashcroft of essentially belonging to the Klan and harboring a secret desire to take away women's right to vote and to murder them personally in back-alley abortions, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee made it clear that there would be no more Mr. Nice Guy when President Bush sends up his first Supreme Court nominee.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post seems to have brought it's old Kremlinologists out of retirement to predict the next vacancy on the Supreme Court. The paper recently noted that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor "has hired law clerks for the terms beginning next October and in October 2002." But on the other hand she's "said to miss (her) friends and family back home in Arizona," she's had cancer, and at 70, she certainly isn't getting any younger.

It seems safe to predict that President Bush's first Supreme Court nominee is going to set off World War III.

A lot is at stake for liberals with the court. If they lose a liberal vote, they will be forced to fight political battles through a messy little system known as "democracy." Somewhat disappointingly, it's impossible for conservative judges to wreck the country for liberals like liberal judges wrecked it for us. Liberals are just being hysterical when they moan about Roe vs. Wade and should be ignored.

There is really no such thing as a judicial activist on the right since the whole point of being a strict constructionist is that you don't hallucinate when reading the Constitution -- and the Constitution simply doesn't say anything at all about most things anyone could possibly care about. Conservatives always knew they had to win at the ballot box; liberals prefer to skip voting and win by judicial fiat.

Notwithstanding the claims of addled feminists, for example, when Roe vs. Wade is finally overturned, abortion won't be illegal. All that will happen is the court will abandon the preposterous fiction that the Constitution says anything at all about abortion. Abortion just won't be a constitutional right anymore, and you people can do what you like in your own states.

Since liberals can't just say that they hate democracy because democracy requires persuasion and compromise rather than brute political force, they accuse any potential "strict constructionists" of being closet slavery supporters. Ludicrous ad hominem attacks on conservative nominees are then used as a basis for the respectable press to refer to the nominee as "divisive." You are "divisive" if you have been the victim of McCarthyite slanders from the left.

On the basis of historical precedent, the odds that Bush will appoint a strict constructionist -- or someone who doesn't hallucinate when reading the Constitution -- are less than 50/50. Not because there is anything the matter with Bush, but because our judges go bad and theirs never do.

Presidents Reagan and Bush had five shots to appoint Supreme Court justices who did not have visions of an imaginary penumbras and emanations clause, and you can see how well that's worked out.

Last term, a majority of justices discovered a novel constitutional right to stick a fork in a baby's head. You can read the Constitution for yourself -- it's not very long -- and see that there is nothing about abortion, suction devices or brains.

The reason our judges go bad and theirs don't is that it apparently takes an obsessive devotion to the Constitution to actually read it before issuing opinions. Judges are essentially government bureaucrats, and the natural tendency of all government bureaucrats everywhere is to continually arrogate more and more power to themselves.

That's why the framers gave very little power to judges, sharply limiting the topics on which the judiciary is permitted to rule. That is also why judges are forever coming up with stratagems to ignore those limits.

Inventing preposterous constitutional rights is evidently more fun than doing what judges are supposed to do, which is deciding tedious Railroad Act cases.

There are, consequently, any number of ways the Supreme Court will wreck the country if Bush appoints another David Hackett Souter rather than another Clarence Thomas. Superb a justice as he is, it would be virtually impossible for another eight Clarence Thomases to wreck the country for liberals.

But it's definitely worth trying. Bush ought to find eight more just like Thomas. For one thing, it would be really cool to have an all-black Supreme Court. But mostly it would be nice to go back to living in a democracy again.


JWR contributor Ann Coulter is the author of High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton. You may visit the Ann Coulter Fan Club by clicking here.


Up

02/01/01: This just in: Price controls cause shortages
01/25/01: People United for Swindles and Hucksterism
01/18/01: Ashcroft and the blowhard discuss desegregation
01/11/01: TWO WEEKS TILL INDICTMENT!
01/04/01: Liberal pimps for Clintonism
01/02/01: Kwanzaa: Holiday from the FBI
12/28/00: If Americans support abortion, let's vote
12/26/00: Gore, him and her
12/21/00: Channeling Jackie O
12/14/00: My Court is bigger than your Court
12/11/00: HANG IN THERE, AL!
12/07/00: National Lampoon's Florida Supreme Court Vacation
12/04/00: It's past time for GOPers to quit being good at losing
11/30/00: Things only a Dem will say with a straight face
11/27/00: Certify the electors, then the judges
11/23/00: Kangaroo coup
11/20/00: This is what the Electoral College is supposed to prevent
11/16/00: The liar next time
11/09/00: JUST GO!
11/06/00: Hail Mary past
11/02/00: As the nose grows: The scripture according to Gore
10/30/00: Clinton sure can pick 'em
10/26/00: Gore's 'Nam flashbacks
10/23/00: Courting George Orwell
10/20/00: The three faces of Al
10/17/00: Must Christian conservatives be fascists?
10/13/00: Oil good; Dems bad
10/10/00: Al Gore: Serial fibber
10/06/00: Sigh of the crook
10/03/00: So who's the 'dumb guy' now?
09/29/00: Don't do drug legalization
09/26/00: I'd burn down my neighbor's house
09/22/00: Democrats worship the money shot
09/19/00: Other film footage we'd like to see
09/15/00: Bush can name the **^%*
09/12/00: The Supreme Court ratchet
09/08/00: Our mistake -- keep polluting
09/05/00: Bubba protects and serves
09/01/00: AlGore's 'going out of business!' tax plan
08/29/00: Bush's compassionate conservatism
08/25/00: Space alien tells funny jokes in bathtub
08/22/00: Dems view world only in black and white, not in color
08/18/00: Another Damascus Road conversion
08/15/00: The viagra cotillion
08/11/00: The hand-wringing Hamlet from Hartford
08/07/00: The Democratic party's white face
08/04/00: Hillary's potty mouth
08/01/00: The hole in the story
07/28/00: Cheney's detractors can't get their story straight
07/25/00: AlGore: Elmer Blandry
07/21/00: The tyranny of non-objectivity
07/18/00: The state's religion
07/14/00: Reform it back
07/11/00: Keating for veep
07/07/00: Gore invented 'Clueless'
07/04/00: The stupidity litmus test
06/30/00: O.J. was 'proved innocent' too
06/27/00: The last guys 'proved innocent'
06/23/00: Serious Republican candidates don't get serious press
06/19/00: They weren't overzealous this time
06/16/00: Evolution of the strumpet
06/13/00: Actual journalistic malpractice
06/09/00: I did not have sexual
relations with that ... man!
06/06/00: IRS turns Bubba's screw
05/30/00: Too corrupt to be an Arkansas lawyer
05/26/00: Choose liberalism
05/24/00: Violence against coherence
05/22/00: Developmentally disabled Republicans
05/16/00: For womb the bell tolls
05/12/00: Asylum from Georgetown
05/10/00: The truth is out there, even for the clueless
05/08/00: Barbie is a liberal Democrat
05/02/00: Moving the goalpost
04/28/00: The bastardization of justice
04/25/00: How Monica Lewinsky saved the constitution
04/24/00: It's sunny today, so we need gun control
04/19/00: No shadow of a doubt -- liberal women are worthless
04/14/00: It takes a Communist dictator to raise a child
04/11/00: The verdict is in on Hillary
04/07/00: Vast Concoctions III
04/04/00: 'Horrifying' free speech in New York
03/31/00: Check-Off Box For Pimp Suits
03/28/00: All the news that fits -- we print!
03/24/00: Net losses all around
03/20/00: To protect, serve --- and be spat on
03/16/00: Thank Heaven for the consigliere
03/13/00: Vast concoctions II
03/09/00: The bluebloods voted against you
03/07/00: The Tower of Babble
03/03/00: Vast concoction
03/02/00: Hillary's sartorial lies
02/28/00: You have to break a few eggs to make a joke
02/22/00: I've seen enough killing to support abortion
02/18/00: A liberal lynching
02/15/00: McCain and the flag
02/11/00: The Shakedown Express
02/08/00: To mock a mockingbird
02/05/00: Summing up Campaign 2000: 'Oh, puh-leeze!'
02/01/00: A Confederacy of Dunces
01/28/00: Dollar Bill's racist smear
01/24/00: How high is your freedom quotient?
01/21/00: Numismadness
01/18/00: How dare you attack my wife!
01/14/00: The Gore Buggernaut
01/10/00: The paradox of discrimination law

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