Republicans appointed six of the seven judges that found in California's constitution a right to same-sex marriage. Roe, Kelo, and so many other outrageous U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the last forty years were authored by Republican appointees. Read my article in TakiMag that wonders if automatically rewarding the GOP with votes to curb the judicial activism of the courts they have shaped does not in fact invite such courthouse affronts against the people and the constitution.

Fantastic piece, Dan. I read this last night when I saw it at Taki's.

You have given much meat to what I have been asserting for some time: Voting GOP b/c of the judges issue does not (or should not, actually) have appeal to true conservatives. History suggests that good judges are hardly guaranteed. And in the case of McCain, does anyone really think he would nominate someone to the bench that would overturn his attack on political speech under McCain-Feingold? Hardly. And any judge worth having would overturn that in a second.

Further, and what wasn't the focus of your letter, having constitutionalists on the bench is at most 1/3d of the battle. We need them in the Executive and Legislative branches, as well. Will McCain return all the unjust power Bush has arrogated to the Executive, in complete disregard of constitutional checks and balances? I think not.

Let's not paint with too broad a brush. It is California, after all. Let's just take the Supreme Court. The Republican appointed judges of the last 40 years have been a mixed bag. For every Scalia and Thomas, there's an O'Conner and Souter. However, Republicans have given us Scalia and Thomas (and we'll see about Roberts and Alito). Who have the Democrats ever appointed that we could say, 'Now there's a good justice'? So let's not get carried away with nonsense like: 'With respect to judicial appointments, Republicans are as bad as Democrats.'

I agree that they are not as bad as democrats. However, are they better than the Democrats to the degree that they should be given an express path to the votes of conservatives? The answer to that question is much less clear.