NEWS ITEM: O'Connor is worried about her "legacy"

[Bluebear]

As far as I am concerned, she will be remembered for her deciding swing vote to install George W. Bush as President and all the resulting death and despair.

When she heard that Gore won Florida, she is reported to have said "Oh, that's not good". Well, your honor, I hope you are damn proud of yourself and your "legacy".
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WASHINGTON - Her legacy not yet sealed, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor is getting an unexpected final chance to select fights for the Supreme Court to take on and to influence colleagues in abortion, capital punishment and assisted suicide cases. O'Connor's delayed retirement leaves in place - at least for a couple of months - a power broker, popular and respected among the other justices. Her trademark pragmatic questions will shape court argument sessions that begin in two weeks. Behind-the-scenes, she will help put together the court's 2006 agenda which could include a challenge to the Bush administration's planned military tribunals for terror suspects.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/US/Supreme_Court/

[gulfcoastliberal]

1. On target as always, Bluebear. Her legacy will be the 2000 coupd'etat

I heard about that comment you mentioned, too. She'll be remembered for overruling the elctorate of the USA and installing a repuke because that's what she wanted.

[goclark]

4. What a sorry excuse for a Justice!

[bemildred]

16. Bush is her legacy. Tough shit. nt

[Raster]

18. Her legacy will be as an accomplice in the gutting of the Constitution

of the United States and allowing a corporate coup d'etat to seize the Presidency. That will be her legacy. Deal with it.

[gulfcoastliberal]

21. O'Conner = traitor of the USA. Killer of democracy. Turncoat.

And a worthless POS.

[Bluebear]

22. Sing it, gcl. nt

[Deja Q]

2. Well, this is what we get when we appoint partisan hacks instead of

thoughtful, careful people to the bench.

There are many times when forgiveness and understanding is in order.

But when you side on shallow political ideology, particularly when any politician can be bought for a price, ANY judge worth his or her chair ought to know better and take the time.

She ignored the popular vote.

She ignored the scandals in Florida.

Did she even consider right-wing dealings with Nader (which is tinfoilhat stuff but some DUers think it's real and had provided links)?

Her comment you quoted sums it up all too readily. She voted * because of he, like she, has a big "R" tattooed on her covered soft parts.

She should worry about nothing. She obviously wanted things this way.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. Bush v Gore! Bush v Gore! Bush v Gore!

The bonus for her legacy will be that Bush will be seen as the worst disaster for America since the Civil War.

[Bluebear]

5. ONE woman could have stopped this disaster.

Imagine.

[pretzel4gore]

20. one good thing about bush (remembering reagan)

reagan was the one who overthrew the idea of the usa as a liberal democracy (not the fact, just the admission of the fact) by quietly transferring the national wealth to the piggy and heaping up the debt burden on the 'public'...and reagan got away with it, to some extent (airports and battleships named after the punk for example)....now with geeb (brother of john ellis bush, or 'jeb' gettit?) the true carrion quality of the rightwing dream has been uncovered for entire planet to smell (and reagn/bush never had hitler's excuse that he was driven psycho by seeing his beloved germany crushed in ww1, or stalin's mental illness possibly linked to travesties such as his grandfather having been sold like a milkcow a one fine day!)
o'connor, like all the nazipoos, knows that she has mangled her country so badly it may never walk again......she needs to be punished

[Jacobin]

14. THAT will be her legacy

the troll that helped effect the coup d'etat of the United States of America.

May she rot away slowly and painfully

[pscot]

6. Too bad we can't get her "legacy" printed on toilet paper

It would be a best seller for sure.

[NNadir]

7. Absolutely. Bush vs. Gore will stand in history as one of those horrid

cusps on which history turns.

Nothing else about O'Connor will matter much for as long as US history is studied.

[Skink]

8. Not only that she is letting them pack the court.

She should have to stay there till they pull the plug.

[punpirate]

9. She probably would have been remembered...

... as just another Republican judge (I'm trying to keep in perspective the degree of her rightward leanings on a court dominated by far-right, more forceful personalities), but for her vote in the 2000 election fiction.

That's her legacy, as it will be for that of the others. They'll all be remembered, for better or ill, for their votes on that. Stevens, for example, has been quite conservative over his many years on the court, but will be remembered for the dissent he wrote in that one decision.

All in all, she voted with the far right on the court far more frequently than she opposed them--and followed that pattern in the most crucial case before that court. That's her legacy.

[zara]

10. No O'Connor Fan Here, But Get Real...

On the court she was not Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. Her goal was not the return of US jurisprudence back to the McKinley era or Pre-Lochner. She did not hate liberals and liberalism--though she did pare us/it back significantly and undesirably on many occasions. She was generally honest, though she F***ed up Big Time with Bush v. Gore. Her Legacy in Jeopardy has more to do with Bush being a nutcake who is going to choose her successor--perhaps she realizes that? As they say, always be careful about what you wish for, because you just might get it!

[Bluebear]

11. She believed in "State's rights", except when it came to electing a Prez.

You are right, she could have been remembered as a justice who did not hate liberals and liberalism, yet that will be exactly her legacy. She could have put a stop to the Scalia/Thomas steamroller. And she didn't.

[tenshi816]

12. Worried? So she should be.

Her decision to cast her vote for the Dumbass in 2000 is what she will be remembered for most.

[peacetalksforall]

13. Any valuable vote in favor of the people was erased with her 2000

vote. Thumbs down. However, if by some miracle, she became Chief Justice and pulled off some votes for the citizens, I might not remember he with as much contempt. She and they gave us five years of destruction.

[mcscajun]

15. Quite frankly, I've never heard much about any former Supreme Court

Justice's legacy past that of the Chief Justice of any particular era.

Legacy? Too late now, lady.

:shrug:

[Lexingtonian]

17. Bill Brennan's legacy

would be something of an exception to that rule.

[mcscajun]

19. I'll concede that point.

You're absolutely right.

There's an exception to everything. :)

[kath]

23. She's a member of the Felonious Five. Never Forget.