President Trump deserves a whole lot of thanks for the Dobbs decision. He got done what every Republican President since Roe v. Wade was issued promised to do, but failed to do … appoint conservative judges (definition of judicial conservative) who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
If George W. Bush had gotten his way, however, the author of the Dodds decision, Justice Alito, would NOT be on the Supreme Court.
The Bushies wanted to elevate White House counsel and Bush-insider Harriet Miers, believing that the Democrats would not go at a woman with anywhere near the ferocity they had gone after W’s first nominee John Roberts.
In other words, the Bushies wanted to preserve their political capital for matters they considered more important than the Supreme Court, such as forever-wars.
Into the breach, so to speak, stepped Robert Bork, who along with Justice Scalia … who could not speak out … was considered the intellectual leader of judicial conservatism. Bork skewered the nomination of Miers, leading the charge that eventually forced the Bushies to withdraw her nomination. A sample:
TUCKER CARLSON, MSNBC HOST: Are you impressed by the president’s choice of Harriet Miers?
JUDGE ROBERT BORK, FORMER SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: Not a bit. I think it’s a disaster on every level.
CARLSON: Why? Explain the levels on which it’s a disaster.
BORK: Well, the first one is, that this is a woman who’s undoubtedly as wonderful a person as they say she is, but so far as anyone can tell she has no experience with constitutional law whatever. Now it’s a little late to develop a constitutional philosophy or begin to work it out when you’re on the court already. So that—I’m afraid she’s likely to be influenced by factors, such as personal sympathies and so forth, that she shouldn’t be influenced by. I don’t expect that she can be, as the president says, a great justice.
But the other level is more worrisome, in a way: it’s kind of a slap in the face to the conservatives who’ve been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years. There’s all kinds of people, now, on the federal bench and some in the law schools who have worked out consistent philosophies of sticking with the original principles of the Constitution. And all of those people have been overlooked. And I think one of the messages here is, don’t write, don’t say anything controversial before you’re nominated.
Judge Bork passed away in 2012.