Defining Radical Down
Are Judge Diane Wood's abortion rulings truly indefensible?
By Emily Bazelon
Slate.com
Posted Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The president doesn't want a fight. The Republicans don't really, either. So it's safe to predict that there will be what looks like a fight, but in the end the nominee will take his or her seat unscathed. That about sums up the chatter about the confirmation process for Obama's choice to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. It all points to the nomination of either the unobjectionable Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or Solicitor General Elena Kagan, shortlisters who have hung out with Democrats their whole professional lives without marking themselves unmistakably as liberals. More marked, and thus less likely to be Obama's choice, is Judge Diane Wood, of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, who has actually played the part of the sort of liberal judge the president should want to appoint.
This is all very calculating and sensible. But before the left obediently backs a Kagan or Garland nomination, let's consider what it would give up by saying good-bye to Wood—and lets perhaps rethink how difficult she would really be to defend.
The Republican line of attack on Wood is obvious, as the NYT's Opinionator points out, quoting Ed Whelan of National Review:
By Emily Bazelon
Slate.com
Posted Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The president doesn't want a fight. The Republicans don't really, either. So it's safe to predict that there will be what looks like a fight, but in the end the nominee will take his or her seat unscathed. That about sums up the chatter about the confirmation process for Obama's choice to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. It all points to the nomination of either the unobjectionable Judge Merrick Garland of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or Solicitor General Elena Kagan, shortlisters who have hung out with Democrats their whole professional lives without marking themselves unmistakably as liberals. More marked, and thus less likely to be Obama's choice, is Judge Diane Wood, of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, who has actually played the part of the sort of liberal judge the president should want to appoint.
This is all very calculating and sensible. But before the left obediently backs a Kagan or Garland nomination, let's consider what it would give up by saying good-bye to Wood—and lets perhaps rethink how difficult she would really be to defend.
The Republican line of attack on Wood is obvious, as the NYT's Opinionator points out, quoting Ed Whelan of National Review:
No judge whom I'm aware of is more extreme than Wood on abortion. Her defiance of the Supreme Court's mandate in NOW v. Scheidler (and her incurring successive 8-1 and 8-0 reversals by the Court) ought alone to be disqualifying. In addition, Wood has (in dissent) voted to strike down state laws banning partial-birth abortion and (again in dissent) voted to strike down an Indiana informed-consent law that was in all material respects identical to the law upheld by the Supreme Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.(More here.)
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