- On April 9, Justice John Paul Stevens delivered a letter
to President Obama stating:
-
- "Having concluded that it would be in the best interests
of the Court to have my successor appointed and confirmed well in advance
of the commencement of the Court's next Term, I shall retire from regular
active service as an Associate Justice."
-
- NBC anchor Brian Williams called him a "liberal
lion," a "lawyer's lawyer." UPI's Michael Kirkland said
he led the Court's "four-member liberal bloc." AP's Mark Sherman
and Calvin Woodward said he "carved a liberal legacy on the high court."
Clinton's acting Solicitor General, Walter Dellinger, called him "the
Chief Justice of the Liberal Supreme Court." Writing in The New Yorker,
Jeffrey Toobin said he was a "liberal leader (who's) views suggest
a sensibility more than a philosophy."
-
- Others remember him both ways:
-
- -- voting to reinstate the death penalty in 1976 and
against "affirmative" preferences in the 1978 Bakke case; and
-
- -- for his scathing 2000 Bush v. Gore dissent, support
for reproductive rights, and the separation of church and state, among
his other liberal and conservative decisions.
-
- In a 2007 interview, Stevens told journalist Jeffrey
Rosen he hasn't changed much since his 1975 appointment, saying:
-
- "I don't think of myself as a liberal at all. I
think as part of my general politics, I'm pretty darn conservative."
His judicial hero is Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, Republican centrist
and fellow "judicial conservative."
-
- Potential Successor Candidates
-
- Some observers believe Solicitor General Elena Kagan
is the leading contender. Educated at Harvard Law School, she then clerked
for Justice Thurgood Marshall, followed by several years in private practice
after which she taught law at the University of Chicago. In 1995, she became
Clinton's associate counsel, then deputy assistant for domestic policy
and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council. Clinton nominated her
to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but no
confirmation hearing followed. In 1999, she taught at Harvard Law School,
then, in 2003, university President Larry Summers appointed her dean, a
position she held until confirmed Solicitor General in 2009.
-
- As the president's chief lawyer before the High Court,
she's well known as the "Tenth Justice." In 2009, she was a finalist
to replace Justice David Souter, leading some to believe she's top choice
now to succeed Stevens.
-
- On April 12, University of Illinois Law Professor Francis
Boyle said the following:
-
- "As dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan hired
Bush's outgoing director of the Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith,
as a law professor. Goldsmith is regarded by myself and many others in
the field as a war criminal. He wrote some of the memos that attempted
to make violations of the Geneva Conventions appear legal. Kagan actually
bragged about 'how proud' she was to have hired Goldsmith after one of
his criminal Department of Justice memoranda was written up in the Washington
Post."
-
- Boyle added more:
-
- -- her endorsement of Bush's "bogus category 'enemy
combatant,' whose implementation has been a war crime in its own right;"
-
- -- as Solicitor General, she supports illegal/unconstitutional
positions in federal litigation, including before the Supreme Court;
-
- -- she's quoted saying, "I love the Federalist Society,"
an extremist right wing group against democracy; for rolling back civil
liberties and human rights protections; supporting imperial wars, torture,
and corporatism; ending New Deal social policies; opposing reproductive
rights, government regulations, organized labor, and environmental protections;
and subverting justice in defense of privilege.
-
- Five current Supreme Court justices are Federalist Society
members: Chief Justice John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, Anthony
Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas.
-
- During her Solicitor General confirmation hearing, she
supported the Bush administration's world as a "battlefield"
notion, war a proper legal framework for dealing with terrorism, and indefinitely
detaining anyone called an "enemy combatant," no matter its violation
of constitutional and international law protections, or as Boyle explained
in his June 8, 2007 article titled, ''Unlawful Enemy Combatants and the
International Criminal Court:"
-
- This "World War II era legal category of dubious
provenance....is long-defunct," yet Bush and Obama still use it -
the term changed to "unprivileged enemy belligerents" under Section
1031 (the 2009 Military Commissions Act) of the FY 2010 Defense Authorization
Act.
-
- For Boyle, it's a "quasi-category to create an anti-matter
universe of legal nihilism where human beings (including US citizens) can
be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and
regular courts, tried by kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated
and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism,"
all of which the current High Court, Congress, Obama administration, and
both major parties endorse.
-
- No wonder Texas A & M's Bush School of Government
and Public Service Professor William F. West called Kagan "a fan of
presidential power," the "unitary executive" kind under
Bush and now Obama.
-
- Himself a Harvard Law grad and Ph.D in political science,
Boyle wrote twice about "Harvard's Gitmo Kangaroo Law School: The
School for Torturers," most recently on April 1. At least five of
its professors advocate torture and war crimes, including:
-
- -- Detlev Vagts "who supported abusing" Saddam
Hussein despite his prisoner of war protections under Third Geneva and
the UN Convention against Torture;
-
- -- Alan Dershowitz, a notorious bigot and advocate for
murder and torture;
-
- -- Richard Parker Boyle calls a "neo-con law non-entity;"
-
- -- Phil Heymann, former Deputy Attorney General under
Janet Reno, "the Butcher of Waco;" Heymann ordered the cover-up;
and
-
- --Jack Goldsmith, complicit in the Bush administration's
crimes of war and against humanity for "designing, justifying and
approving the hideous (post-9/11) human rights atrocities" - along
with co-conspirator John Yoo and others; these men are no different than
"Nazi Law Professor Carl Schmitt, who justified every hideous atrocity
that Hitler and the Nazis inflicted" throughout Europe, including
horrifically against Slavs, Jews, and everyone opposing their ideology.
-
- In his June 17, 2008 version of the above article, Boyle
accused Harvard law professors and deans of "no longer (being) fit
to educate Lawyers, Members of the Bar, and Officers of the Court....Harvard
is to Law School as Torture is to Law. The Harvard Law School Faculty and
Deans torture the Law. Do not send your children or students to Harvard
Law School where they will grow up to become racist war criminals! Harvard
Law School is a Neo-Con cesspool."
-
- And now perhaps one of their own, former professor and
dean Elena Kagan, may replace John Paul Stevens, shifting the Court further
to the right by subverting justice and democratic freedoms in favor of
privilege.
-
- Court Over Constitution
-
- On February 27, this writer's article, titled "America's
Supremes: Court Over Constitution" said the following:
-
- In all three branches of government, "America was
always ruled by men, not laws, who lie, connive, misinterpret, and pretty
much do what they want for their own self-interest and powerful constituents.
(Like today), In 1787, "the people" who mattered most were elitists.
The American revolution substituted new management for old. Everything
changed but stayed the same under:"
-
- -- an illusory democracy;
-
- -- a powerful president; a virtual dictator in times
of war;
-
- -- a corrupted Congress representing privilege, not people;
and
-
- -- a separate judiciary able (through "judicial
review") to overrule Congress and the Executive, but most often goes
along; power supports power, the kind today heading America toward tyranny,
already well advanced with obliging High Court help.
-
- Other Potential Choices
-
- Merrick B. Garland, Judge on the US Circuit Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Harvard Law grad. He then
clerked for Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, briefly served as a
Special Assistant US Attorney General before entering private practice,
during which time he also worked as an Assistant US Attorney for the District
of Columbia. In 1993, he became Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the
DOJ's criminal division, and in 1994 principal Associate Deputy US Attorney
General.
-
- Called a moderate, he wasn't a finalist in 2009 to replace
Souter. Conservatives may support him. Liberals may object, but both sides
have other preferred choices. In their April 10 Slate.com article headlined,
"Who Should Replace Justice Stevens," Emily Bazelon and Dahlia
Lithwick named Garland, Kagan and Judge Diane Wood as the frontrunners,
then listed other possibilities, some familiar, others less known.
-
- In his April 10 article titled, "Justice John Paul
Stevens announces his retirement from the Supreme Court," Washington
Post writer Robert Barnes quoted Alliance for Justice's Nan Aron saying:
-
- "Republicans will oppose any nominee sent up by
the president. This is already a court that's tilted in favor of large
corporations and special interests. Justice Stevens' replacement ought
to be a person who understands how decisions affect the rights of everyday
Americans."
-
- On April 9, the Alliance for Justice web site praised
Stevens' "Historic Legacy of Championing Constitutional Values....his
distinctive voice will be greatly missed," and not likely replaced
by his successor.
-
- Diane P. Wood, Judge on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals
in Chicago and University of Texas School of Law grad. She then clerked
for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, worked as a lawyer-advisor in
the State Department's Office of Legal Advisor before entering private
practice. She also taught law at Georgetown University and the University
of Chicago where she was also associate dean. During the Reagan administration,
she served as special assistant to the Associate Attorney General, and
as the Antitrust Division's Deputy Assistant Attorney General for international,
appellate and policy matters under Clinton before becoming a federal judge.
-
- In his May 2009 New Republic article headlined, "Good
Wood," Jeffrey Rosen called her "The second coming of Ruth Bader
Ginsburg," quoting University of Chicago's "libertarian scholar"
Richard Epstein saying:
-
- "She has an ideal judicial temperament," admired
by "her colleagues, her clerks, and the lawyers who practice before
her....open to argument on all questions, and the lawyers who appear before
her know they will get a respectful hearing. She is theoretically rigorous
but nondogmatic. I think that her nomination should be greeted with acclamation
by Democrats and Republicans alike."
-
- Perhaps the former, not the latter if the National Review's
Ed Whelan ("bench memos," May 22, 2009) comment is indicative,
calling Wood "a hard-Left judicial activist and aggressor on culture-war
issues." More saying she's "ready to invent a constitutional
right to same-sex marriage....believes (including) 'under God' in the Pledge
of Allegiance violates" the Constitution's Establishment Clause, (stating
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"),
is "more extreme" than other judges on abortion, and aggressively
pursues "her ideological agenda."
-
- Other Names Mentioned
-
- -- Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, wasn't a finalist
in 2009, unlikely to be now;
-
- -- Harold Koh, former Yale Law School dean and current
State Department legal advisor, a man Glenn Greenwald calls "genuinely
liberal," for sure why Republicans will strongly oppose him;
-
- -- Greenwald also calls Diane Wood and Stanford Law Professor
Pam Karlan superior choices, compared to Kagan who'll shift the Court further
to the right;
-
- -- Cass Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School visiting
professor, (on leave) Harvard Law professor, current White House Office
of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator, and another candidate
Greenwald opposes in his March 26 article titled, "The Horrible Prospect
of Supreme Court Justice Cass Sunstein," saying:
-
- "From the beginning of the War on Terror, Cass Sunstein
turned himself into the most reliable Democratic cheerleader for Bush/Cheney
radicalism and their assault on the Constitution and the rule of law."
He also supports military commissions, illegal surveillance, and "mock(ed)
the notion that Bush had committed crimes while in office." Given
those credentials, he's as dangerous as Kagan and other suggested right
wing possibilities.
-
- -- DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano for one, a 2009 finalist,
hard line in her present position, militantly anti-immigrant, and was earlier
accused of corrupt cronyism as Arizona governor;
-
- -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a hard line, neoliberal
hawk, who once told ABC's Good Morning America (during the 2008 campaign)
that if Iran attacked Israel (implausible on its face), America would respond
by "obliterating" the country; in other words, incinerate its
entire population in a nuclear holocaust;
-
- -- Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, a personal friend
of Obama and fellow Harvard Law grad;
-
- -- Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow, confirmed by
an anonymous White House source as one of at least 10 contenders; Slate
writer Emily Bazelon calls her "a great dark horse....a star legal
academic....and a leading expert on family law; she's also close to Obama,
having mentored him as a law student, and her father, former FCC Commissioner
Newton Minow gave him his first legal job as a summer law firm associate;
and
-
- -- numerous other names mentioned in various High Court
sweepstakes opinion pieces, most unfamiliar to the public.
-
- America needs no more Scalias, Alitos or Kennedys. It
needs another Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan or William O. Douglas,
more then to follow. Instead, Obama will likely shift today's extremist
Court even further to the right, for sure if Elena Kagan is appointed or
others with similar credentials.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
|
