Scarlatti already dealt with some of your other obfuscations, but I'm afraid you missed my point entirely here:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by alphamale
Breyer was the appointee of Clinton, infamous for his liberal appointments.
|
First of all, no. Clinton disappointed liberal interest groups by appointing very moderate consensus candidates to both the circuit courts and the Supreme Court. Breyer in particular has been the quintessential pragmatist, e.g. stepping into Justice O'Connor's shoes at the end of last term and splitting the baby in the Ten Commandments cases. See
McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, 03-1693, in which Breyer was the deciding vote in favor of removing two Decalogue displays in front of county courthouses on the basis of the county's purpose in authorizing the displays, and
Van Orden v. Perry, 03-1500, in which Breyer switched sides and voted to uphold a Ten Commandments display on the grounds of the Texas state capitol due to the context of other exhibits at the capitol. Breyer also joined a conservative (or moderate, perhaps) bloc in
Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), voting with the plurality to allow for a reduced form of due process to be applied to American citizens whom the President designates as "enemy combatants."
So, my point wasn't showing how all these Justices turned out to liberals. My point was that all these Justices ended up disappointing the Presidents/parties who seated them. Your feeble rebuttals notwithstanding, the point stands--political realities or inaccurate assessments of character or evolution on the bench of whatever: something always seems to intervene to prevent the Court from swinging too far in one direction or the other. You can gloat about having reinvented the judicial nomination wheel for now, but Court watchers will be having the last laugh a couple decades down the road when conservatives are still bitching about how nothing's changed with the liberal judiciary.
Looking forward to it.
