Rumors, Signs, and Portents

Frodo Failed - Bush Has the Ring and he will use it to remake society via the supreme court in his religious right neocon image.

As the media buzz reaches a crescendo over the appointment of a successor for Sandra Day O'Connor, we have growing speculation about the impending retirement of William Rehnquist.

...

The Supreme Court pulsed with retirement speculation Friday, with rumors focusing first on the ailing chief justice, then the oldest member, and even the tiniest justice.

The buzz came one week after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's decision to step down, giving the court its first vacancy in more than a decade.

The 80-year-old chief, William H. Rehnquist, has thyroid cancer. And though he's been working full-time at the court, he's noticeably frailer and it's widely thought he will step down.

Many court observers believed that because of O'Connor's announcement he would wait until this week to make the announcement. Speculation intensified as the week wore on.

TV news crews and an Associated Press photographer waited in pelting rain for three hours Friday morning for Rehnquist to emerge from his suburban Virginia town house. He eventually did, wishing reporters a good morning. When asked about retirement rumors, he answered: "That's for me to know and you to find out," before getting into a waiting car.

Even our own, Attaturk has speculated on this and related matters albeit with a family penchant for funky guesses. Although, hey what do I know? My grandparents went against Truman. Personally, I do not expect Rehnny to announce his retirement until after the violent storm surrounding the O'Connor replacement.

That will allow Bush to appoint a conservative or neoconservative to replace O'Connor and then the Bush regime will move for an arch conservative or neocon operative to replace Rehnquist. They will do this under the auspices of that is a fair exchange of a conservative for another conservative. Dems who will more than likely be sore over losing the fight over O'Connor's replacement will do what they do most times -- cave in.

And that is why we must apply pressure to the democrats, people of good conscience, and policy makers. We must not allow the dems to give in when the stakes are so damn high.

Let's think about the short and long term consequences of such a situation for a moment. That hard of a move to the conservative side of the justices would so strengthen the right wing bloc on the supreme court that many of the most cherished right wing issues on their agenda can be furthered without restraint.

A court with a strong far right consensus can begin dismantling what few abortion rights are left, give the ability to control medical rights to HMOs under the auspices of state's rights, decrease the right to privacy, deconstruct due process, take away what's left of affirmative action, create increases in the Patrot Act, further broaden police powers, lower the standards for clean air and water with such nonesense as restraint of trade concerns, increase the power of corporate oligarchies by expanding the citizen rights of corporations, create expanded right-to-work laws again under a state's rights mantra, and establish a more powerful religious right through the judicial protection of from our highest court because of two more justices in the Scalia-Thomas mold... Do I really need to keep going?

Why aren't we speculating on these possibilities? Or is it that our politics have become so corrupted we are like deer caught in the headlights trying to handicap the next big political race? Without fully considering the consequences for us and our children who will truly have to live in Bush Country.

What little protection and coverage the supreme court affords the liberal (heaven forbid we think of the progressive) elements in our culture would vanish like heat from a wet roadway.

And that, my friends, keeps me up at night.