Please President Obama, no "liberal Scalia"
The main hobby of the media this week will be to try and gin up more controversy in the progressive community by using President Obama's nomination of a Supreme Court Nominee as a wedge to create dissension.
Already we get the allusion to "not appointing a liberal Scalia":
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/us/politics/26court.html?hp?_r=1While there are clear political advantages to Mr. Obama if the perception is that he has avoided an ideological choice, Ms. Karlan’s absence from his list of finalists has frustrated part of the president’s base,
which hungers for a full-throated, unapologetic liberal torchbearer to counter conservatives like Justice Scalia. There are two reasons why we don't want a "liberal Scalia"
1) Scalia is an idiot. Not because he is a conservative, he simply is not that bright of a guy. Just because far right ideologues think that is bright doesn't really mean anything. During his tenure on the court he has not established any insightful principle that invokes his intellectual leadership.
He is an "origanlist" who believes that federal power can be used beyond its original intention if you use it "wisely":
"as Hamilton would have urged you—to keep in mind that the federal government is not bad but good. The trick is to use it wisely".
Please, as a judicial philosophy that is just silly.
Moreover he is not an ideologue at all but an opportunist which was shown ing Gore v Bush
" No one familiar with the jurisprudence of Justices Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas could possibly have imagined that they would vote to invalidate the Florida recount process on the basis of their own well-developed and oft-invoked approach to the Equal Protection Clause
And also in his opinion of 'Stare decisis'
That Scalia would uphold some and overrule other precedents that contradict his judicial philosophy is an apparent inconsistency
2)
Scalia is not intellectually influential. More to the point Scalia doesn't have much impact on majority opinions.
The next Supreme Court Nominee should be someone who is able to have an impact on the court to secure majority opinons. Having a 'Liberal Scalia' or more to the point a reincarnated Justice Douglas would not be helpful.
Justice Douglas did not get along well with the other Justices, even liberal Justices found him irritating. He did set a record for the number of dissenting opinions. We don't need another
Great Dissenter, we need majority opinions.
Until we have 5 firm votes on the Supreme Court we need justices who are not only progressive but also able to influence other people to form progressive majorities. We don't need 'full throated' dissents. When we have 5 firm votes then I would love to see another firebrand like Justice Douglas, until then appoint someone with the persuasive powers of Chief Justice Warren.
In any case we don't want a 'liberal Scalia', as it gives him credit for being somebody whose intellect we admire. Beyond that the media's interest is not in what we think or believe, or the agenda we want to achieve, but in creating internal disagreements on meaningless tactical moves. Quotes taken from Scalia's Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia