Harriet Miers

It doesn't get much clearer than this: Today, the Reverend Moon's publication, The Washington Times, reports that Samuel Alito clearly seems predisposed to overturn Roe:

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, wrote that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" in a 1985 document obtained by The Washington Times.

"I personally believe very strongly" in this legal position, Mr. Alito wrote on his application to become deputy assistant to Attorney General Edwin I. Meese III.

The document, which is likely to inflame liberals who oppose Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, is among many that the White House will release today from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

And it's sure to reassure the radical right wing, whose litmus test for Supreme Court justices got Harriet Miers the hook.

"It has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan's administration and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly," he wrote.

"I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

A leading Republican involved in the nomination process insisted that this does not prove Judge Alito, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, will overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that made abortion a constitutional right.

"No, it proves no such thing," said the Republican, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "In fact, if you look at some of the quotes of his former law clerks, they don't believe that he'll overturn Roe v. Wade."

And if you believe that, I have a bridge in New York I'd like to sell you.

So now we know why Samuel Alito passes the right-wing litmus test of having ideological attitudes in favor of criminalizing aborted pregnancy.

The question is why the supposedly "pro-choice" Democrats continue to mumble about no litmus test.

[via Fred Barbash, Washington Post Blog]

Jeffrey Feldman offers some clear advice on avoiding rhetorical traps from the radical right elite when it comes to the Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. Among them:

2. Reagan and Clinton Understood, Bush Does Not: This is not a Republican or Democratic Party issue. President Reagan broke the gender barrier on the Supreme court and President Clinton followed suit. Both Parties understand the importance of this issue. President Bush, by contrast, has used women as political pawns in the Supreme Court nomination process, but he does not get it. Women must be on the court.

3. More Than Wives and Mothers: This is a critical issue that must be discussed. Women in America are essential to every aspect of our way of life. They are not just wives and mothers. George W. Bush seemed to get this when he nominated Condi Rice, but when it comes to the Supreme Court, he forgot.

4. 'Freedom' Means Not Having To Ask Your Husband's Permission: Over and over again, President Bush has told the American people that we invaded Iraq so that women can be free--free to drive, free to study, free to vote, free to work--free to do whatever they want without living as second class citizens to men. Now, he nominates a judge who believes that women must be required by law to ask their husband's permission before seeking medical care. Our soldiers are dying in Iraq to overturn laws of this kind, but President Bush nominates a judge in America who supports them.

(Read the whole thing.)

Point #4 bears repeating -- often. In Alito's view, women must ask permission of their husbands to receive medical care. One might even call him Ayatollah Alito -- a fundamentalist zealot who considers women not only less than equal but, in fact, property of men.

Now we see why the radical right rulers of the GOP were so opposed to Harriet Miers. As ideologically conservative and devotedly "born again" as she was, by being female she was too "feminist" to be trusted to relegate women back to chattel status.

You can see the puppet strings in Washington. Bush is catering to the demands of the vocal arch-conservative pseudo-religious minority that runs the Republican Party and would rule the country -- by force, if necessary. Their will be done. Might makes right. Hatred is a virtue. For all the "religion" supposedly involved, one wonders where the teachings of the Bible went in all this.

In the real world (i.e., not in wignuttia), reaction to Harriet Miers' withdrawl ranges from despair ("Be careful what we wish for. This is terrible news.") to joy ("Bush was defeated on the Miers nomination by his own people. That makes the loss more devastating. And, it verifies that there is no room for compromise with the theocrats.") to nonplussed ("So they pull Harriet's name just in time to be ready to announce a new pick to suck the oxygen out of the media coverage of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation.") to snarky ("We understand, though, that the official explanaition will be that she wants to devote more time to pursuing her strange, asexual relationship with Judge Hecht.")

I just feel relief. It's one thing to have a right-wing conservative justice, but quite another to have a not-quite-up-on-the-Constitution, secretive, born-again crony in the Supreme Court. Could someone who didn't even seem to know what Griswold was about prove to be a good justice? Maybe, but unlikely.

So the question everyone is asking now -- that is, if they're not demanding -- is whether Bush will pander to his radical right-wing base, which is a minority but very vocal, especially within the GOP, or go for a unifying candidate in the face of the legal meltdown of his White House staff ... or simply nominate another crony like Gonzales.

I'm sure the temptation in the GOP is to push right. That's what they've done in the past, to great success. That's where much of their fundraising and get-out-the-vote base has been corralled. With an election coming up, they probably will want to circle the wagons, as is their wont, and start attacking Americans who disagree with them as being un-American.

But there's a flip-side here: Most Americans want Roe upheld. Most Americans are pro-choice. In fact, when you get behind the rhetoric, a large number of "pro-life" folks are pro-choice in every way but in name. (The parade of self-identified "pro-life" patients who have abortions, saying, "But for me this is an exception," is endless. Seems even "pro-life" women apply concepts of "the ownership society" to their own wombs. Surprise!)

A radical appointment now could end up motivating the progressive silent majority into large turnouts in the upcoming mid-term elections. Disgust for the GOP already is high, and the only thing saving the GOP right now is that the Democrats as a party are so incompetent. Push hard on a justice who would make women into breeder slaves of the state and establish wombs as government property, in the context of Republican corruption in the White House and both houses of Congress, and the electoral brooms could come out in force next November.

However, that is only the logical analysis, and I wouldn't expect logic from the radical right, especially when it comes to abortion. Like other wild-eyed religious zealots, reason has no place in their worldview, and they will stop at nothing to establish and hold onto their power.

So while there's no telling what Bush will do -- he's pretty bent these days -- you can expect the reinvigorated dominionist right to keep pushing for a nominee who holds the Constitution in contempt, an historical document to be interpreted according to fantasies of what the framers wanted in 1789, and who would strive ideologically to make time stand still.

What's different now from just a few months ago is that more people are paying attention, and the rhetoric of the neo-Joe McCarthys of the right wing is wearing a little thin.

Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the Supreme Court.

I don't have time to blog extensively about this, but basically, she's withdrawing because she doesn't want to give information about herself or her views. Which makes the whole situation reek of some kind of scary secret that she and BushCo don't want getting out...

She noted that members of the Senate had indicated their intention to seek documents about her service in the White House in order to judge whether to support her nomination to the Supreme Court. "I have been informed repeatedly that in lieu of records, I would be expected to testify about my service in the White House to demonstrate my experience and judicial philosophy," she wrote.

"While I believe that my lengthy career provides sufficient evidence for consideration of my nomination, I am convinced the efforts to obtain Executive Branch materials and information will continue."

Cara notes that there's good news in Missouri on the case of the woman in prison who state officials would force to carry a pregnancy to term, go through labor and give birth in ankle irons:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court under new Chief Justice John Roberts cleared the way on Monday for a pregnant Missouri prisoner to obtain an abortion, despite objections from state officials.

In a brief order without comment or recorded dissent, the high court rejected Missouri's request to put on hold a federal judge's order requiring that prison authorities transport the inmate to a St. Louis clinic for an abortion.

How Roberts would rule on abortion was a major issue in his confirmation hearings in the Senate. This was the first abortion-related case the court has acted upon since he became chief justice, but since there was no written ruling it does not necessarily signify how he would vote on the issue in future cases.

You can hear James Dobson's molars grinding right now. This is exactly what the radical dominionists don't want: a secular court recognizing civil and human rights, especially for women. They want a theocratic government, a pseudo-Christian analogue to the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the people are ruled by a government according to skewed interpretations of scripture.

And that is why those "in the know" in the right-wing ranks are pushing hard for Harriet Miers, speaking out against the skeptics on the right, and offering reassurances to those who share the vision of governmental control of wombs across the nation. Consider this essay from Lou Dubose in the LA Weekly:

What they should know is that Miers is an anti-abortion-rights zealot, who, as we say in the South, is “keeping company� with a Texas Supreme Court justice who defines anti-abortion zealotry in Texas. Miers’ love interest, Nathan Hecht, anchors the right wing of one of the nation’s most conservative high courts. He is the Texas Supreme Court’s most vocal — and at times most reckless — opponent of a woman’s right to choose. He was the midwife to Miers’ born-again experience in 1979, when the two of them fell to their knees (in prayer) in Miers’ office at the Dallas law firm where they worked. Now, on orders from White House political operative Rove, he is selling Miers to the party’s evangelical Christian base. He’s not saying much about her record.

Miers does have a record, even if it is not a public one. A highly regarded Republican Texas jurist has described Miers’ position on women’s reproductive rights as solidly anti-choice. A political consultant who ran Miers’ campaign for Dallas City Council places her on “the extreme end of the anti-choice movement.� The nondenominational evangelical Christian church Miers attends has been described by one of its former ministers as a “Bible-based congregation that is opposed to abortion.� But most importantly, as president of the Texas Bar Association, Miers campaigned very hard to end the American Bar Association’s support of a woman’s right to choose.

Now this isn't really news -- we've heard a lot about this. But a bit further down it gets even more disturbing:

Miers is a member of an extended family of anti-choice candidates moved into public office by Karl Rove. The Texas Supreme Court is loaded with them. On that court, Justice Hecht was also romantically linked to Priscilla Owen. (It was Owen’s appointment to the federal 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that almost destroyed the United States Senate last year.) Hecht and Owen were two of seven Rove candidates on the Texas court when Rove moved to Washington in 2000. Miers almost became number eight. When U.S. Senator John Cornyn left the court to run for attorney general in 1998, Bush considered appointing Miers to fill the vacant seat. “Everyone was excited about the prospect of a love triangle involving three justices,� said a lawyer working at the court....

...Karl Rove is not a Christian Ideologue. It’s likely that in his heart of hearts he doesn’t care one way or another about abortion. He is a pragmatist who cares about one thing: winning elections. Hecht is cut from different cloth. That’s why Rove has him selling Miers to the party’s evangelicals. Hecht is well-suited to the task. Besides providing a literal and a certain romantic cachet to the term “judicial activism,� Justice Hecht’s opinions on reproductive rights are considered extreme by Texas standards. Like Priscilla Owen, Hecht worked very hard to create insurmountable hurdles for minors going to court to obtain abortions. In one of the Jane Doe minor abortion cases the Texas court decided in 2000, Hecht quoted so extensively from the district-court transcripts of one girl’s case that he revealed her identity — a breach of confidentiality so great that it drew an angry opinion from a fellow Republican justice. When Hecht speaks, the evangelicals in the Republican Party would be wise to listen.

The hate and contempt this man holds for young women who would dare to make their own reproductive choices is palpable. That Hecht is barnstorming for Miers is perhaps the clearest indication of her dark heart, and highlights what her presence on the Supreme Court would mean to the lives of women in this country for many years to come.

Frankly I don't care if Hecht and Miers are literally in bed together. It's the indication that they're philosophically in bed together that scares the bejeezus out of me.