I do think Republican strategists are afraid of not having abortion as an issue. There are other issues like gay marriage and ethuanasia, but I don't think you get the same kind of traction as with abortion and Bush didn't exactly get landside victories against two of the least charismatic candidates out there.

I think Roe is a lot safer with Rehnquist off the Court. He was a man on a mission for precedents he didn't like.

Rehnquist wasn't a social opponent to Roe. He was a Constitutionalist opponent. In his mind, the right to ban/allow abortion should be rolled back to pre-Roe -- on a state by state basis. Scalia and his pubic-hair loving sockpuppet want a full-on ban with zero exception for life and health (which is a clear violation of the Constitution). Without Rehnquist, we're probably looking at politicking from the bench until Scalia dies in the saddle. I have hopes that Roberts will follow the Rehnquist model for a Chief Justice, but I'm afraid that Scalia will shove his hand up Roberts' ass the first chance he gets.

Uh, no. You give Rehnquist way, way too much credit and perhaps rely too much on his dissent in Roe. He was a supreme manipulator, one that Scalia and Thomas could never be. By the time Webster came around, he was all over overruling it, but sneakily. At conference he changed the issue to ensure that he would write the majority opinion which, in draft form, overruled Roe while explicitly claiming not to. He circulated this draft behind the backs of the liberal Justices in secret. Nevertheless, his transparently silly arguments pissed off every other Justice but Kennedy. Among other things, he thought he could ratchet abortion down to the rational review framework without anyone noticing. His opinion is an embarrassment of results-oriented jurisprudence without a scintilla of reasonable argument.

Blackmun's draft dissent pointed out how Rehnquist's opinion would mean overruling most areas of constitutional interpretation (and Scalia privately agreed with his analysis). Rehnquist lost SOC's vote and was unable to overrule in the end because of her narrowing concurrence.

What's more, he announced the decision from the bench in such a way so as to imply that SOC's defection was not a controlling opinion, forcing Blackmun to read his dissent from the bench in outrage.

When Casey came around Rehnquist relisted the case (effectively delaying it) purportedly in order to avoid deciding it before the election. He was, however, confronted by Blackmun into holding the cert vote so that argument was held in spring, rather than fall.

As in Webster, he framed the debate to ensure he would end up writing the opinion. And as in Webster, he circulated a draft where he (a) changed the standard of review to rational basis; (b) effectively overturned Roe (c) claimed not to be overturning Roe and (d) ticked off SOC enough so that she joined the Kennedy/Souter troika.

The dissent he published ultimately stated his intention to overrule Roe, and Blackmun's dissent is aimed at his previous prevarications in attempting to gut Roe.

If Rehnquist hadn't been such a manipulator, he probably could have gotten SOC onto a majority. I hope Roberts is not like Rehnquist. And I know that Scalia, while intellectually seductive, is not going to put his hand up anything.

Tom DeLay indicted. Again.

It's like a Happy New Year present.

bon brains spicy

On a completely shallow note, I'm all boggled by amych's appearance (though not by her appreciation of bon's spicy brains). I think this is the first time in over a year I've seen amych out in public with a tagline that doesn't in some way involve pasta.

I've had other tags! For whole minutes, sometimes.

Also, now I'm hungry.

Ya noodle.

I bow to you, Bon Bon. You have far better knowledge of Webster and Casey than I do.

I do remember the part about Rehnquist trying to wheedle out of deciding Casey during an election year and how they all pissed off SOC from the Blackmun tapes.

BTW, I like it that in PHP5 set_globals is on by default. I spent an afternoon cutting and pasting [$_POST over and over and over again because the university's PHP setup is still PHP4.

I am going to pound O--- on that when I meet with him in a couple of weeks. We desperately need PHP5 running on the university systems.