William Rehnquist, Supreme Court justice for 33 years, chief justice for 19 years, died Saturday night a month short of his eighty-first birthday. Rehnquist sought to bring the court from an age when justices read their own whim into law into an age when justices read the law as the law reads. Whether the Court enters this age or not will determine if Rehnquist is regarded as an aberration or a truly transitional figure. No matter his replacement, Chief Justice Rehnquist will be missed. Read his sensible Roe v. Wade dissent here, and consider how lonely Rehnquist's voice of common sense was three decades ago.

A good man and a good Judge. May he rest in peace.

Amen!

In the wake of Rehnquist's death and in anticipation of Tuesday's Senate Confirmation hearings I presume, CSPAN's "America and the Courts" program is airing selected televised exchanges between past Supreme Court nominees.

Watching CSPAN's excerpts of the the Scalia proceedings of '86, I noticed two things in the Senate hearing room that I found odd and won't likely be seen during the Roberts hearings. One oddity was that people were smoking in the Senate hearing room and Scalia in particular was smoking a pipe on Live TV while being questioned by the Senators. The other oddity was a Hartford Whalers polo shirt worn by an observer of the proceedings, perhaps a reporter. I was young back then so seeing anyone now smoking live on TV or paraphernalia from the now defunct Hartford Whalers is odd to me. And a third thing that was most notable was the level of relatively respectful dialogue and lack of political grandstanding by the Senators toward the nominee. I doubt Senators Leahy, Kennedy, Schumer, and Durbin will be as reserved over the next few weeks.

RedState.org has a good breakdown on "The Ginsburg Precedent" found here: http://www.redstate.org/story/2005/7/20/162950/166

RIP, Justice Rehnquist.

I for one shead no tears for C.J. Rehnquist. He was a theocrat of the highest order and used his position to impose his personal beliefs as "law." He was in the truest sense an activist judge. Now Adolf Bush wants to replace him with someone equally as activist and zealous to replace "decided law" with his brand of bibilically-base rulings. And it's jackass morons like you Mr. Flynn and your ilk that think that's a good thing. You're nothing but a Nazi/Klansman/racist/bigot hiding behind religion. Like those Islamic radicals that supposedly want to kill us.

Everyone: Please excuse Ga Liberal for his/her comments. This person is obviously on crack or some other mind-altering drug.

Ga: Who should we compare you to? Great communists, such as Lennon or Marx? Or a great socialist, who broke up the black family, such as Lyndon Johnson? Or perhaps a great crack addict such as Marion Berry? Or an all-American "uniter" such as a poverty pimp like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton?

You're pitiful.

hopefully rehnquist's former clerk judge roberts will serve the law as nobly and faithfully as chief justice rehnquist did.

Can anyone speculate as to why Rehnquist chose to die on the Job. Why didn't he step down?

I for one shead no tears for C.J. Rehnquist. He was a theocrat of the highest order and used his position to impose his personal beliefs as "law." He was in the truest sense an activist judge. Now Adolf Bush wants to replace him with someone equally as activist and zealous to replace "decided law" with his brand of bibilically-base rulings. And it's jackass morons like you Mr. Flynn and your ilk that think that's a good thing. You're nothing but a Nazi/Klansman/racist/bigot hiding behind religion. Like those Islamic radicals that supposedly want to kill us.
Posted by Ga Liberal at September 5, 2005 10:41 PM

I would ask you to support any of your assertions.

But I know that would be a waste of time.