Postman follows up on a PolitickerWA report from the Republican convention, noting Attorney General Rob McKenna’s bold prediction that Dino Rossi is dead in the water if John McCain loses Washinton state by double digits. But I think the more interesting McKenna comments came earlier in the piece.
Speaking at a WA delegation breakfast, McKenna noted the many buttons he’d seen cheering the selection of Justices Samuel Alito and John Roberts to the Supreme Court, calling the buttons “absolutely right”.
“He made two outstanding picks,” McKenna said of the president, “and it makes an enormous difference.”
The difference he referred to was the court’s typical 5-4 split with the alternating ideology of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The attorney general predicted that Justice John Paul Stevens, at age 87, was very likely to leave the court during the next president’s tenure
“You get another Alito-Roberts type in there, that ain’t gonna happen anymore”, he said of Justice Stevens’ typically liberal vote and Justice Kennedy’s swing vote altering the Court’s opinion between liberal and conservative decisions.
“In contrast, think of who Barack Obama is likely to appoint of the Supreme Court,” McKenna proposed, and when the crowd scoffed he answered, “Enough said.”
“Enough said,” indeed.
McKenna is often depicted by our local press as a moderate, even pro-choice Republican, but his comments before friendly crowds indicate that he is anything but. A McCain/Palin victory would install in the White House the most anti-choice administration in the post-Roe era… an administration intent on making abortion illegal, even in the event of rape or incest, and regardless of the health of the mother. And this is exactly what McKenna is promoting when he celebrates the appointments of Roberts and Alito.
This is in fact the platform of the Washington State Republican Party, and it is the position supported by Dino Rossi, Dave Reichert, Cathy-McMorris Rodgers and Doc Hastings. Our state Republican Party and their leaders want to outlaw abortion, under nearly any circumstance, restrict access to birth control, and teach abstinence-only sex education in our schools (which has worked out so well for Bristol Palin). They want to return us to the era of coathangers, knitting needles and back-alley abortions… yet our local press continues to let them slide away by saying “I’m not running on that issue.”
Of course they’re not running on that issue. They’re position is both immoral, and counter to the opinion of the majority of voters in Washington state.
The elevation of of Sarah Palin to the national ticket was a blatant and cynical appeal to the GOP’s right-wing fundamentalist base, and as such it is incumbent on the press to start asking the tough questions of all Republican candidates, up and down the ticket.
McKenna, to has credit, was absolutely honest with the WA delegation in St. Paul: what is at stake here is the composition of the US Supreme Court for decades to come, and whether it will allow our nation’s Christianist minority to interfere with the most personal decisions a family has to make.
Now it is time for McKenna and his fellow Republicans to be just as honest with voters back at home.
DId anyone get a paid ticket to the DNC because they impregnated a particular very young woman?
The prospect of overturning Roe v Wade is what the Publican leadership is counting on to mobilize their voter “base”.
What that leadership and its corporate sponsors are really excited about is the prospect of being able to blow away most of the Constitution (except perhaps for the second amendment) and complete the transformation of what used to be the United States of America into a fascist plutocracy.
Well http://www.cbsnews.com/stories.....6798.shtml
has it tied.
Wait a minute… Oh that’s right CBS is a libtard! Bill Burkett Typewriter organization.
@2
Were that really true, then the Second Amendment would be the very first thing they’d want to remove.
Certainly no Police State with which I am familiar has tolerated an armed populace.
There’s a chance Obama might appoint Hillary to the SCOTUS. That’s the real downside to Obama winning, but if he wins, Hillary will never be prez – and that’s a good thing!
So CBS believes it’s okay to attack Palin’s family so the Obamamaniacs can win and get SCOTUS control with the help of the libtard MSM!
CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked Heather Bruce, Palin’s sister: “There’s been a lot of talk this weekend about family, talk that family is off limits in a campaign. Yet we see your sister with her kids, introducing them, showing them on camera, and she even mentioned you in her speech last night. So the question is, is it okay to use family in a campaign when it benefits the candidate and not okay when it’s negative?”
So it really starts.
Palin Declares WAR
This appointment and her speech amount to a flat out declaration of right wing radial war. This is not just a war over who gets to hold a reception in January, it begins to smell like the “wars” of the far right and far left against each other and against the democracies in the 20s.
PALIN railed against … abortionists, educators, evolution, diplomacy, Iraq, Iran, Russia, NBC, CNN, the NY Times virtually everything she could find in spitting range.
If I had to sum up this speech in three words they would be:
Anyone have the gits to ask this smooth faced throwback what she thinks of:
the Pope
stem cells
NAFTA
immigration policy
US supremacy on the Seas
occupation of Iraq
bombing of Iran
arming of Georgia
public schools
bible reading in the public schools
prayer in the public schools (excluding Islamic)
Muslims in public office
atheism in the public schools
yada yada
What _are_ the likely sorts of justices Obama would appoint? Anyone seen any articles on this?
Exactly what kind of name is Палин anyway? Sounds a lot like Путин!
To be grammatically correct, it should be Палина.
It should be pronounced pa-leen (or pa-leen-a), not pay-lin.
SJ @ 7,
What’s a “radial” war?
I wrote a right wing radical war …
I meant right wing radical.
Bottom line she is an extremist …someone who belongs outside the center of responsibility.
They’re probably figuring on appointing Monica Goodling to replace Stevens.
FLASH ,,,,
Is Sarah Palin Michael Palin in drag?
Imagine this …
camera on Guv Palin waste up. snowy mountains in background. She is posting .. moving up and down while clicking to her horse, “Trigger,” as they look over the wilderness.
“Click, clock, … good boy, Trigger!”
She turns to the camera and says,
“Trigger and I wanted to show you the Anwar wilderness and how tiny any drilling site would be.” Hand moves down in patting motion after there is horsey sound.
“Shhh big boy, shhh.”
Let me show you the Anwar range fomr the side of Mt. Tajmikkle. Camera moves back and up, zooming firs intot he distant Anwar rang and then …
back, back until we see Sarah again, saying …
“This vast and beautiful place is deeply imbedded in my heart too.”
Camera backs off some more. As Sarah, standing on her two feet, broom with horse head between her legs, trots of down the mountain to sounds of “clippety clop, clippety clop coming from the Boys Choir of Anchorage,
as they sing Mule Train.
Clippety clop, clippety clop
Clippety cloppin’ through the wind and rain
They’ll keep goin’ till they drop, clippety clop, clippety clop
Clippety, clippety, clippety, clippety, clippety cloppin’ along
There’s a letter full of sadness trimmed with black around the border
A pair of boots for someone who had them made to order
A bible in the pack for the Reverend Mr. Black
Get along, mule! , get along
Get along, mule, get along!! (mule train)
(Hyah, hyah)
(Hyah, hyah)
FADE
The composition of the Supreme Court is at the top of my list why we can’t have 4 more years of a Republican administration. The federal bench is already heavily skewed toward the right–7 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Republicans, and that ratio is close to the same in the federal district and appellate courts. That is not healthy. Justice Stevens, who is 87 and was appointed by Ford (a lifelong Republican), is hanging on to his position out of a remarkable sense of patriotism. He has sacrificed his retirement, knowing that if a Republican like Bush or McCain gets to name his replacement, then his work on the Court has been in vain. Roe v. Wade would be just the first of innumerable civil rights decisions that would go down if McCain is elected. We need federal judges that understand the concept of civil liberties. McCain, unfamiliar with that concept, would throw the Bill of Rights into the nearest outhouse hole. Any woman who wanted Hillary as president, but now thinks she will do anything other than enthusiastically support Obama, needs to be constantly reminded what the outcome will be with regard to civil liberties if McCain is elected. And, of course, Sarah Putin is even worse than McCain. If president, she would declare a police state.
bybygoober: I guess Cindy McCain has a long resume of exceptional activities!
You are an empty suit!
Never forget that Republicans blocked over 100 of Clinton’s judicial appointments and a third of the nation’s federal judgeships were vacant when Clinton left office.
It is too bad that McKenna will be governor in 2012 0r 2016. It is really our faults tough for haveing Senn run against him thus creating an unstoppable monster