andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
>
> 2) Nonetheless it matters a lot who's on the bench.
> Never mind the difference between Warren, Brennan
> Marshall, Black, Goldberg, Fortas, and Douglas (the
> core of the Warren Court of the 60s) and Rehnquist,
> Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, and O'Connor -- the core of
> the Rehnquist Court. The difference between O'Connor
> and Scalia, between a moderate conservative and a
> stone reactionary, is immense in practical terms.
I wouldn't argue with this as an abstract statement -- but the difficulty is that, however undesirable Alito (or any other justice) may be, leftists simply can't do anything about it. And given the political stance of the DP leadership, we aren't going to be able to do anything about it. Hence while we can wish for a friendly court, or at least a friendly justice or two, that wish falls in the category of if pigs had wings.
That is my grounds for saying that we should turn our attention elsewhere -- towards creating the kind of political atmosphere where (a) we can make gains regardless of the courts and (b) in which it would be in fact more likely for the courts to be friendly. The argument is essentially the same as in my series of posts on "Bush as diversion."
Carrol