Nailing Justice O'Connor to the bench

If we would just read the Constitution and follow the instructions, Sandra Day O'Connor could retire in peace.

Instead, we have the spectacle of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter suggesting on Sunday that President Bush could appoint Justice O'Connor to the post of Chief Justice should the job suddenly become open, which it is not at this time.

"I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Senator Specter told CBS's Face the Nation, "She has received so much adulation that a confirmation proceeding would be more like a coronation, and she might be willing to stay on for a year or so."

Oh, for goodness' sake, let the woman live.

We wouldn't be in this hyper-hysterical situation if we hadn't spent the last eighty years staring blankly while the U.S. Supreme Court usurped the powers of the states and the powers of the Congress and the power of the people of the United States to amend the Constitution.

If the Constitution had been amended to secure civil rights and women's rights and privacy rights, as it should have been, it wouldn't matter if the president appointed Jesse Helms to the Supreme Court.

Senator Specter's remark that Justice O'Connor's confirmation proceeding would be "more like a coronation" ought to send shivers down the spine of every American. James Madison and the rest of the framers went to a lot of trouble to make sure the president wasn't a king, they wouldn't have believed what the federal judiciary--"the least dangerous branch," Hamilton said--has become.

Read more about it in A Retirement Plan for Sandra Day O'Connor and How the First Amendment Came to Protect Topless Dancing.


Copyright 2005