Supreme Court Showdown

Here we go. With George Bush nominating the extreme right wing Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court we are headed toward the ‘great confrontation’ that we didn’t get with either Roberts or Miers. Roberts was obviously quailfied and hard to resist because he was conservative, but not necessarily extreme. Miers we didn’t have to resist because the hard right activists screamed about her lack of quailfication and non-existent views. Alito is different. He is well qualified as a lawyer, but is extreme in his politics. He has made it clear he is opposed to Roe v Wade; and more sweepingly he has voiced loud opposition to legislation based on the Interstate Commerce clause in the Constitution. This latter point makes him a dangerously extreme choice. Much of the New Deal and later progressive legislation depends for its legitimacy on an expansive interpretation of the this clause [i.e. the areas into which the Federal Government can ‘intrude’ into States Rights]. A majority on the Supreme Court voting along these lines would cause whole swathes of legislation to be vulnerable: especially environmental and social legislation [e.g. much racial integration legislation was legitimized by the Interstate Commerce clause]. Bush has thrown some red meat to his supporters and shown us who he really is: he cannot pretend to be governing from the center anymore. He is an extremist too. He is trying to bail himself out from the disasters of Miers, Katrina, and Libby in one fell swoop. The Alito nomination will animate his supporters, but it will also animate his opposition. So the fight is on! This should be fun.