> > John Roberts may be like Sandra Day O'Connor, but Samuel Alito
> may be
> > more like Clarence Thomas than like Antonin Scalia or William
> Rehnquist
> > on the question of presidential power. If movements were actually
> > powerful, even Bush would have come up with a more moderate nominee
> > than Alito, but he thinks that he can get away with Alito, and
> he will.
>
> I really don't care who is a member of the Supreme Court. That
> stupid institution should have been abolished long ago. But taking
> your argument at face value, I think that Bush picked Alito because
> he is living in a bubble. I'll bet Alito and other powers in the
> GOP understand that they can't just overturn Roe V. Wade without
> suffering huge losses at the polls
I don't know about the fate of Roe v. Wade, but I'm more worried about Alito's stance on presidential power than his stance on Roe.
I mentioned Bush trending up again.
The New York Times, after having sat on the story of Bush's NSA wiretapping without warrants for about a year, finally came out with it in mid-December. Far from getting embarrassed, the White House went on the offensive, having the Justice Department investigate the leak and claiming that "Congress implicitly authorized the NSA program when it enacted the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) against al-Qaeda, Pub. L. No. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001)" (at <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18650>). If that's not a moment that makes citizens worry about a creeping police state (especially considering Bush's Alito nomination), what is? But if there is any huge outcry among activists about this, I missed it. Also, this is precisely the moment when Bush began to climb back out of the hole.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>