http://www.newsweek.com/id/158748Put Palin on the Supreme Court
by Dahlia Lithwick
snip....
It's not just that Palin would be great for the ever more stuffy Supreme Court. Closer scrutiny suggests that the Supreme Court might actually be a better fit for Palin.
Consider her interests: Palin has little background in national security, health care, immigration or foreign policy. Her main concerns have been the hot-button social issues that cannot be settled by fiat in the executive branch. Palin wants to do away with abortion and strongly opposes gay marriage. She supports teaching creationism in schools and believes in promoting religious free expression. These are constitutional issues on which Republican presidents have been thwarted for decades. Since the Supreme Court has often been the lone defender of the rights of women, gay couples and atheists, installing a Sarah Palin there would do far more to undo these things than getting her into the White House.
snip.....
Palin is well aware of the awesome power of the courts. That's why, when the Alaska Supreme Court struck down a controversial abortion restriction last year by a 3-2 margin, she excoriated them for "legislating from the bench," named a new justice to the court and pushed for the passage of an even harsher version of the same law, explicitly intended—said its sponsor—"to overturn
." Governor Palin understands the fundamental tediousness of constitutional checks and balances. She knows that if a court gets it wrong, you just build a better court.
snip.....
Finally, Palin has revealed, both as the mayor of Wasilla and then as the chief executive of Alaska, a style of governance that features the not-infrequent firing of dissenters. Among the growing list of those dismissed or threatened with removal on Palin's watch were Mary Ellen Emmons, the Wasilla town librarian and vociferous opponent of Palin's proposal to dabble in book banning, and John Bitney, Palin's legislative director, who was dating the not-quite-ex-wife of one of her husband's friends. Palin is also the subject of an ethics investigation for firing Walt Monegan, the Alaska Public Safety commissioner, who declined to fire the state trooper divorcing her sister. I can't help but wonder if following two years of scandals surrounding the Bush administration's decision to terminate nine U.S. attorneys for their imagined disloyalty, John McCain might be nervous about a vice president with a proclivity toward doing the same thing. If McCain puts Palin on the Supreme Court, however, she has only a trio of law clerks and a secretary to hire, and each can be vetted for ideological purity.
No fair arguing that Palin isn't experienced enough to sit on the highest court of the land. What matters—far more than experience—is one's unyielding moral certainty, relatability and gender. And Palin has these qualities in spades. Washington's old-boy problem hardly ends at the Oval Office. If ever there were a D.C. institution in dire need of a place to plug in a breast pump, it's the Supreme Court. And Palin has already proven that neither the courts, nor precedent, nor even the Constitution itself will be a match for the force of her will. America has finally found someone suited to put the "law" back into scofflaw, and it's Sarah Palin. McCain shouldn't waste her talents on state funerals.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
