Joseph Sobran’s
Washington Watch

After O’Connor

(Reprinted from the issue of July 14, 2005)

The supposedly “radical” sixties may have been a mere early warm-up for the era that lies ahead in American politics. And this may be a good thing.

Sandra Day O’Connor has retired from the U.S. Supreme Court, and everyone expects a bitter contest over her successor. Justice O’Connor herself has been a very traditional justice, hewing to the middle ground, carving out her special niche as the Supreme Court’s “swing vote,” and avoiding the expression of anything that might be construed as a philosophy.

In 1981 she appeared to be a safe pick for Ronald Reagan. He was still new to the presidency, and still held in suspicion by the liberal media. But he knew how to disarm his enemies. He’d promised, during the 1980 campaign, to name the first woman to the Court, and though just about any woman would do for a “historic first” — remember, this was even before Geraldine Ferraro was nominated for vice president — the pickings were slim. A Republican woman, supported by Barry Goldwater, was about the best he could hope for, even if she wasn’t conspicuously conservative.

With O’Connor, Reagan got the easy confirmation he needed. A rumor had it that in return for her seat, she had to promise him to vote against abortion at least the first time the issue came before her. He couldn’t afford to have her embarrass him before his anti-abortion supporters, who were already dubious about her. But later she would become a regular pro-abortion vote. In Arizona she had been a member of Planned Parenthood.

Also remember that in 1981 Roe v. Wade was still a recent event, and everyone knew that a shift in the Court’s balance might reverse it. Liberals were determined to save it and soon began warning that Reagan must not use a “litmus test,” abortion or anything else, in choosing justices. This was the sheerest hypocrisy, since they themselves made abortion their litmus test for all prospective members of the Court, as the later confirmation battles over Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas were to show.

Today the Democrats are prepared to fight again, and they say they consider a nominee’s judicial philosophy fair grounds for opposing confirmation. If necessary, they may even filibuster. The old spirit of bipartisan courtesy is gone; it was last seen when Senate Republicans voted almost unanimously to confirm Bill Clinton’s two pro-abortion nominees to the Court, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

But this time conservatives are prepared to fight too, and they are already warning Bush against appointing another O’Connor — namely, Bush’s old crony, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Bush would like to appoint him, another “historic first,” a Hispanic who, being soft on abortion, would be easily confirmed. But as Bush and Karl Rove must know, that would anger their base. Bush’s father made that fatal mistake, so we may hope that this Bush has taken the lesson to heart.

The Democrats are right about one thing: A prospective justice’s philosophy should be considered possible grounds for rejecting him. And it should also be grounds for impeaching him even when he is on the Court, in the sense that violating the Constitution should rank among “high crimes and misdemeanors” that warrant removal from the bench.

So I say good riddance to bipartisan courtesy, the bane of American politics. The two parties should fight about philosophy. What else is really worth fighting about? Let both sides spell out their principles candidly. Then let the public decide between them.
 
What Debate Can Achieve

Even the rancorous fight over Robert Bork produced illumination. It led to a real debate over the “original intent” of the Constitution. We saw that liberal prattle about “the living document” really meant that the Court should be able to use the words of the Constitution in novel senses quite alien to their plain meaning.

The Bork battle taught many people who had paid little attention to the Court’s reasoning before then that liberalism thrives on the corruption of language. First the Court’s liberal majority had constructed an ill-defined “right of privacy” unmentioned in the Constitution; then it had proceeded, quite arbitrarily, to supply this supposed “right” with content of its own choosing, such as a “right” to abortion.

(Meanwhile, other possible privacy rights, such as the right to conceal one’s sources of income from government curiosity, never occurred to the liberals.)

By all means let’s have a vigorous debate about whomever President Bush chooses to succeed O’Connor. But let’s broaden it to a debate about the power of the Court itself — an unelected branch of government whose frequent abuses of power are nearly impossible to correct.
 
Is the Pope Roman Catholic?

A reader in Australia, English by birth, Kevin Tighe, raises a fine but thought-provoking point: Why are we called Roman Catholics? Is this a designation we should accept?

“Ever since my days at a Protestant boarding school I have always believed it reeked of Anglican arrogance,” Mr. Tighe writes. “I have never met anyone with a bias against the Church who doesn’t use it.”

Hear, hear! I’ve always found the term annoying too. It’s a relic of the Reformation, when heretics and schismatics, claiming to belong to the “one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church” of the creeds, wanted to set off “Roman” Catholics as only one type of Catholic.

But, Mr. Tighe observes, uniate Catholics, faithful to the Church, find the term annoying. And Anglicans nowadays seldom call themselves “Anglo-Catholics,” maybe because it’s awkward to insist that the Anglican Church, in its modernist eccentricity, still partakes of universality. When you ordain and consecrate open sodomites, you’ve obviously moved a long way from anything that can be plausibly called apostolic.

Still, the old bias persists, even among unbelievers. Mr. Tighe notes that the BBC, with its worldwide audience, still consistently uses “Roman Catholic.” I think it might be hard to find anyone at the BBC who could be described as a convinced Anglo-Catholic. Yet prejudices may outlive the loyalties that begot them.

Personally, I find that when I call myself a “Catholic,” I don’t cause confusion. Nobody ever asks, “Yes, but are you an Anglo- or a Roman Catholic?”

“Roman Catholic” is a slightly more polite substitute for “papist” or “Romanist,” but most journalism defers to the old prejudice. No doubt the omission of “Roman” would provoke a few angry letters to the editor protesting, “We’re Catholics too!” Though, needless to say, I’ve yet to meet an Anglican or Lutheran who calls himself a Catholic.

A curious anomaly, isn’t it? Most groups are called whatever they want to be called — “African Americans” has pretty much replaced “Negroes,” “feminists” has replaced “women’s libbers,” and so forth. We are constantly called upon to update our sensitivities.

Only Catholics call themselves “Catholics” anymore, so we should call attention to the subtle rudeness of “Roman Catholic.” We can write letters to editors too!

Thank you, Mr. Tighe.


SOBRAN’S sees some little-noticed problems with judicial review. If you have not seen my monthly newsletter yet, give my office a call at 800-513-5053 and request a free sample, or better yet, subscribe for two years for just $85. New subscribers get two gifts with their subscription. More details can be found at the Subscription page of my website.

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Joseph Sobran