Supreme Court Justice David Souter will retire at the end of court's term in June. Normally, such news would be cause for celebration. Given the broader context of who will appoint Souter's successor, mourning, rather than celebrating, is the proper emotional outlet. The last nineteen years have been a missed opportunity on the Supreme Court.

Souter falls in a long line of Republican-appointed justices--Earl Warren (Eisenhower), Harry Blackmun (Nixon), John Paul Stevens (Ford), Anthony Kennedy (Reagan)--who practiced judicial activism on behalf of a radical social agenda. Souter fooled many at his confirmation hearings in 1990, including the left-wing of the Democratic Party (Senators Cranston, Kennedy, and Bradley voted against the New Hampshire jurist) who believed him to be the key vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.

But he didn't fool everyone. In 1990, Howard Phillips testified before the United States Senate. He documented Souter's role on the board of a New Hampshire hospitals that performs abortions. Just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, Souter issued his own ruling along with the other board members of Concord Hospital for that institution to kill children in the womb in exchange for money. Additionally, the hospital associated with Dartmouth Medical School, of which Souter was an overseer, housed an abortuary during Souter's time overseeing it.

"If, during his years of responsibility at Concord Hospital and Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital, Mr. Souter believed each fetus to be a human person, and failed to act against the performance of abortion, he was morally delinquent," Phillips eloquently declared to the Senate. "If, on the other hand, he justified himself by denying the human qualities of the unborn child, then he placed himself in the ambit of those who have argued against the very philosophy which his sponsor, President George Bush, purported to embrace during his 1988 presidential candidacy."

It's hard to imagine Republicans reflexively opposing Obama's nominee in a manner akin to Senators Kerry, Mikulski, and Kennedy's mindless opposition to Justice Souter. It's even harder to imagine a Democratic President nominating a justice whose position on abortion doesn't closely approximate his own. Some might argue that it wasn't until his second Supreme Court nomination that George H.W. Bush, an election-year convert to the pro-life position, failed to appoint a justice whose philosophy on Roe v. Wade didn't mirror his own. That's something for pro-lifers to think about before pulling the lever for Mitt Romney, Kay Bailey Hutchison, or any other Republican presidential aspirant whose position on abortion has evolved.

Souter was bad but it's scary to think with his track record so far who Obama will nominate to replace him. He has demonstrated incompetence picking and maintaining candidates for his cabinet and now something as long term serious as nominating a SCJ is in the balance. Scarier still is that Ginsberg is likely next.

Elections certainly do have consequences. Lord help us all.

McCain would've nominated someone no different from Souter. On the abortion issue, McCain, like Obama, is pro-choice. He's just not as open about it. Here's some proof.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_199909/ai_n8855062/

If you don't believe McCain is pro-choice, let me ask you: can you name a single pro-lifer who has ever called abortion "necessary" or who has ever said that Roe v. Wade should never be overturned because if it were overturned then we'd have lots of women getting dangerous illegal abortions?

No, you can't. Because people who are pro-life don't speak that way.

If the GOP had nominated a conservative last year, THEN I'd be mourning that it's the Democrat instead of the Republican who's choosing Souter's replacement, because THEN it would make a difference who won. (Of course, if the Republican had won, Souter wouldn't have retired now. He's in great health, and he didn't want to retire while a Republican was in office. He'd wait until a Democrat won the presidency.)

Knowing what we who were paying attention knew about what kind of individual Obama was and seeing proof every day as he demonstrates himself to be what was expected in his first 100+ days, I'm not sure what people are thinking when they use the broad brush to say that McCain would have been like Obama.

On some issues, yes, he is philosophically with him. But McCain in no way has the comtempt for America and our systems or our way of life as Obama has shown he has and where Obama has made it clear that he has little use for the Constitution, there was no evidence that McCain would not have adhered to or at least marginally respected the laws of the land.

I have to agree with Alan, McCain would have given us another Souter most likely. But even so, Obama is going to give us another Ginsburg.

asfd, McCain is pro-choice on abortion, pro-campaign-finance-reform, pro-illegal-immigration, pro-affirmative-action (until mid-2008, when he supposedly changed his position, in a performance almost as unconvincing as that of Hayden Christensen playing Darth Vader). You can invoke McCain's patriotism all you want, but paying any amount of attention to his positions shows that the odds of his nominating someone different from Souter or Ginsburg are about as high as the odds that Blanchard Ryan will divorce her husband and come looking for me. (For those who don't know, Blanchard Ryan is the star of "Open Water," and she's hotter than a firecracker.)

Why would it be better to have a Republican appoint a Souter than to have a Democrat appoint a Ginsburg? I don't see much of a difference, do you?

Oh, I forgot to mention the other liberal policies McCain favors... But I think the point has been made.

I don't disupute what you've written here. McCain does suck and might as well flip all the cards and follow Specter out of the GOP.

In fact, his Patriotism and apparent love for his country might be the biggest difference between him and the One. But for me, this time around, that enough to at least not have to watch my country and it's sovereignty disintegrate.

Still, we'll never know for sure how McCain would have reacted and it irks me when people say McCain would have done this or Bush would have done that. Who knows?

What we do know is that Obama will get to nominate not one but two Ginsbergs or worse. with O's track record, very likely worse.

At least with Obama we'll know for certain the result and that it won't be pretty.

And best of luck with Mrs./Ms. Ryan. I'm sure she is pining for you as we write. ;-)

I suppose the more outrageous the nominee Obama puts forward, the more likely that people will wake up to what he and the Democratic Party are perpetrating. I hope he nominates a patently anti-constitutional judge so that it overtly reflects his true sentiments regarding the law and the Constitution. That will suit me down to the ground.

This being an occasion for bad spirits (as the torch will pass from one black-robed political activist to another), maybe we should buck the moment and reminisce about what limited good there's been in respect of this subject during our lifetimes. Favorite judicial opinions, perhaps?

I think the most important (in a beneficial way) Supreme Court nomination of the last hundred years was that of William Rehnquist. He may not have been perfect, but he was a constitutionalist. He tapped America on the shoulder to remind us of the long-forgotten Tenth Amendment, and helped bring constitutional law ever so slightly back to the Constitution. He was a respectable force for judicial restraint in those areas the Constitution left to the political branches of government. For almost all of his career (I'm excepting the Dickerson case) he did what he could to push back the Court's activist, and indeed anarchist, jurisprudence on criminal procedure. He energetically fought the Court's campaign to abolish capital punishment by judicial fiat. The force of his dissenting arguments in Steelworkers v. Weber discredited (though they could not prevent) the Court's liberal twisting of the Civil Rights Act to allow discrimination against whites while protecting everybody else. The list could go on, but I'm not writing it well, so I'll just conclude by giving my opinion that William Rehnquist was one of the very few decent justices of the 20th century.

Ha Ha Ha!!! Got to love liberals.

The good well-to-do folks in Dover Mass. vote for moonbats to run their town, and then are shocked, SHOCKED (!!!) when the town fathers want to institute a ban on alcohol in private homes.

Again, it ain't the right wing Bible thumpers that are looking to take away freedoms and rights. That would be the liberal do gooders who just know they know what's best for everybody else. And typically epitomize what is known as fascism.

Again, it ain't the right wing Bible thumpers that are looking to take away freedoms and rights.

No, the last thing for that group was a decision to have the superindent of schools to read a 4-paragraph statement about why kids would be tested on Evolution, that mentioned an non-curricular ID book. Which somehow entangled some religion (I'm not sure which) with the state--as well as trampled on the rights of the subject of Evolution, singled out for "special treatment". (Which is an odd way of Jones arguing that it is unconstitutional for an official of the state to be responsive to the a somewhat popular dissent against an official school subject.)