Hunker Down

Well, its finally come. Its been 11 years since Stephen Breyer was confirmed, eleven years without a vacancy on the Supreme Court. Now, the court's first woman has retired, setting the stage for the biggest pitch battle of the summer.

I've told this story often, but it bears repeating today. I road on the Metro in Washington DC with Sandra Day O'Connor once. It was fairly innocuous, I just sort of glanced at the woman next to me and then realized it was Sandra Day O'Connor. This illustrates lots of things. One, the difference between Washington and other places, because here I am getting getting fan-boyish about a Supreme Court Justice, Second, the kind-of down to earth person O'Connor is, that here she is riding the Metro (with a senior discount fare card), and third, how anonymous the members of the Supreme Court are to much of America. Probably 90% of Americans couldn't give you even the names of the nine justices, let alone tell you what they look like or recognize them.

This is going to be the story of the summer. If Rehnquist follows soon, you'll have the kind of political bloodbath that we haven't seen in a long time. A lot of people will talk in the next few days how this will be Bush's opportunity to reach back to the center, and they'd be right. He has to believe he'll be able to put up a more conservative justice to replace Rehnquist, if he went with a moderate now, he'd be seen as showing restraint, the kind he hasn't shown in a long time. The White House has been on the defensive since the State of the Union. Social Security was a non-starter, they continue to get bad news in Iraq, there's the controversy about Gitmo, and the party has suffered defeat in the court of public opinion in the Schaivo case. They got some tort and bankruptcy "reform" so far, that's all. But my guess is that he'll appoint a red-meat conservative that'll tear apart Washington for weeks. There are a lot of things that conservatives dislike his father for, and one of them is the appointment of David Souter, who seemed a conservative and then became a liberal once on the court. For a man who desperately has wanted to avoid the mistakes his father made, this will be the test. If the right will only except someone who'll overturn Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas and environmental reforms, well, we're in for a fight. Democrats should demand a moderate, someone who will swing but will also respect precedent in cases like those above. I really think you would need a judge to go to over turn Roe v. Wade (meaning a third justice would have to go) because Kennedy is loathe to overturn cases like that, and I would expect he would join Breyer, Souter, Ginsburg and Stevens in protecting a woman's right to choose.

Just as I was about to write about Natalie Holloway, this happens, but I'll mention it anyway. Its all over cable news, but especially Fox. It has all the ingredients- young and pretty white (emphasis on the white) girl disappears and shady business follows. Realize that no one has ever been charged in the murder of Jon-Benet Ramsey or Chandra Levy, sometimes in these difficult crimes, it takes a long time to find the body. Yet Fox is essentially trying to persuade people that the government of Aruba is somehow complicit in her disappearance. While I have nothing but sympathy for her family, they have to understand something. Sometimes justice isn't swift. If she's dead, and at this point, with no ransom demand, its a pretty good assumption she is, it will take time to find a body, let alone find suspects. If she was a tourist and only natives seem to be suspects, you have to find motive you have to do due diligence. Fox "correspondents" like Greta Van Susteren, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity seem to be trying to do to Aruba what William Randolph Hearst did to Spain and Cuba a century ago.

On a far lighter and totally not serious note, I am really starting to see some of the negatives in some of the "Sports Kids Moms and Dads" gang. Craig, as you see in this week's episode, seems to be at a loss for what to do sometimes when Trenton is playing, especially when his daughter needs attention (By the way, their opening scene was the two of them drafting a letter of interest to Lloyd Carr to let him know Trenton would like to play for Michigan, in 10 years. I think Lloyd should encourage Trenton to come to the football camp to test himself against other kids, and tell Craig to stay home when he does). Kim and Bryce are just as insane as ever, though I also get the feeling that Bryce cares a lot more about the peripheral stuff related to skating than the actual skating itself, and also wants to see how far up the wall this drives his mother. TJ and Lindsey continue there battle over boys and academics, TJ having reason to fear from personal experience, and Lindsey showing the problem with having great talent as a teenager (She's incredibly easily distracted). Sharon is still incredibly insane, trying to push Sarah to do everything perfectly and rarely, if ever, giving encouragement. But the most interesting dynamic if the one between Karen and Karli, the equestrian rider. Originally, I saw Karli as really whiny, but now, I see it as the opposite. Karen essentially tried to sell her daughter's horse behind her back, then showed up an hour late to pick up her kids from the train station. Karli works at the stables to board Disco, and also works at a Mexican restaurant most nights. Karli's grades don't seem to be a priority, and while she can't stop whining about the sacrifices she has to make, Karen still goes to yoga three or four days a week, which she says she needs. I am now fully on the side of the kids in this family because their mother is just incredibly selfish.