|
|
| |
| Sat, Jul. 5, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Your time has expired, Senator Candid Monday, Jan 16, 2006 By John Brummett Last week, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on Senator Candid, Democrat from Somewhere USA, to take his turn questioning Samuel Alito, President Bush's nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. Senator Candid said, "Thanks, Arlen, you're looking good," and proceeded as follows: "Judge Alito, I don't have any questions, not that you'd answer honestly, anyway. All I really want to know is whether you'd overturn a woman's right to choose an abortion. "It's all anyone wants to know, no matter how many esoteric questions Joe Biden asks about some obscure case on employment discrimination from the early '90s. Joe has a tendency to run on a bit, as you may have observed. He has many admirers, himself among them. "Here's the deal: If I asked you about abortion, you'd reply just as you responded to Arlen a while ago - that you respect precedent and that a jurist can't possibly say what he'd do before a set of facts was put before him. You'd explain that those writings in your past about repealing Roe v. Wade were legal analyses commissioned for someone else's political advocacy, and in no way should be interpreted as signaling what you would do under the constraints of the law as a judge. "You'd be blowing smoke, but I couldn't prove it. "Anyway, the issue isn't Roe v. Wade. The issue is the Casey case from Pennsylvania. What you right-wingers want to do is see how far you can stretch Casey to allow states to put onerous restrictions on a woman's opportunity to get an abortion, so onerous that we'd be left with a country where only blue states had abortions. "About the only way a woman can get one in Mississippi right now is a one-way ticket, which, now that I think about it, is the only kind of ticket to have if you live in Mississippi. "You've made clear where you stand on these restrictions. You like them a lot. You voted alone in your circuit court of appeals that a woman ought to be made by law to talk to the drunken, abusive father of the unborn child before she could get an abortion. You said that was a good thing to require because maybe the guy would ante up for the cost of the procedure. I do not know if this means you are always out of touch with reality, or only in that case. "Look, my side keeps losing presidential elections, except for Carter, Clinton and Gore, and they stole it from Gore. So, you right-wingers get to go on the Supreme Court. "The only factors are whether we Democrats have the nerve to call a filibuster on you and whether we can hold some of those DINOs if we do. That, as you know, judge, refers to your favorite kinds of Democrats, meaning Democrats in Name Ony, like Nelson from Nebraska and that nice young boy from Arkansas, David's kid. Mike? Mark? "Then we'd see what ol' Doctor Bill Frist had to say about that, assuming we could tear him away from making medical diagnoses by videotape. "Actually, there's another factor. It looks to me like Anthony Kennedy is the new king of America. Sandra Day O'Connor, bless her heart, was the queen, casting all those swing votes to decide things 5-to-4. Now we're going to force Justice Kennedy out there into the decisive center, and we'll see what he's made of. "So, I'd like to take this televised opportunity to say something not to Judge Alito, but to Justice Kennedy. And it's this: Be kind to us, sir. "Back to you, Arlen." ------- John Brummett is an award-winning columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and author of "High Wire," a book about Bill Clinton's first year as president. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com. |
