Posted on 09/06/2005 5:24:35 AM PDT by Undertow
My mother always told me that when a person dies, one should not say anything bad about him. My mother was wrong. History requires truth, not puffery or silence, especially about powerful governmental figures. And obituaries are a first draft of history. So heres the truth about Chief Justice Rehnquist you wont hear on Fox News or from politicians. Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation. His rise to power speaks volumes about the current state of American values.
Lets begin at the beginning. Rehnquist bragged about being first in his class at Stanford Law School. Today Stanford is a great law school with a diverse student body, but in the late 1940s and early 1950s, it discriminated against Jews and other minorities, both in the admission of students and in the selection of faculty. Justice Stephen Breyer recalled an earlier period of Stanfords history: When my father was at Stanford, he could not join any of the social organizations because he was Jewish, and those organizations, at that time, did not accept Jews. Rehnquist not only benefited in his class ranking from this discrimination; he was also part of that bigotry. When he was nominated to be an associate justice in 1971, I learned from several sources who had known him as a student that he had outraged Jewish classmates by goose-stepping and heil-Hitlering with brown-shirted friends in front of a dormitory that housed the schools few Jewish students. He also was infamous for telling racist and anti-Semitic jokes.
As a law clerk, Rehnquist wrote a memorandum for Justice Jackson while the court was considering several school desegregation cases, including Brown v. Board of Education. Rehnquists memo, entitled A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases, defended the separate-but-equal doctrine embodied in the 1896 Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson. Rehnquist concluded the Plessy was right and should be reaffirmed. When questioned about the memos by the Senate Judiciary Committee in both 1971 and 1986, Rehnquist blamed his defense of segregation on the dead Justice, stating under oath that his memo was meant to reflect the views of Justice Jackson. But Justice Jackson voted in Brown, along with a unanimous Court, to strike down school segregation. According to historian Mark Tushnet, Justice Jacksons longtime legal secretary called Rehnquists Senate testimony an attempt to smear[] the reputation of a great justice. Rehnquist later admitted to defending Plessy in arguments with fellow law clerks. He did not acknowledge that he committed perjury in front of the Judiciary Committee to get his job.
The young Rehnquist began his legal career as a Republican functionary by obstructing African-American and Hispanic voting at Phoenix polling locations (Operation Eagle Eye). As Richard Cohen of The Washington Post wrote, [H]e helped challenge the voting qualifications of Arizona blacks and Hispanics. He was entitled to do so. But even if he did not personally harass potential voters, as witnesses allege, he clearly was a brass-knuckle partisan, someone who would deny the ballot to fellow citizens for trivial political reasons -- and who made his selection on the basis of race or ethnicity. In a word, he started out his political career as a Republican thug.
Rehnquist later bought a home in Vermont with a restrictive covenant that barred sale of the property to ''any member of the Hebrew race.
Rehnquists judicial philosophy was result-oriented, activist, and authoritarian. He sometimes moderated his views for prudential or pragmatic reasons, but his vote could almost always be predicted based on who the parties were, not what the legal issues happened to be. He generally opposed the rights of gays, women, blacks, aliens, and religious minorities. He was a friend of corporations, polluters, right wing Republicans, religious fundamentalists, homophobes, and other bigots.
Rehnquist served on the Supreme Court for thirty-three years and as chief justice for nineteen. Yet no opinion comes to mind which will be remembered as brilliant, innovative, or memorable. He will be remembered not for the quality of his opinions but rather for the outcomes decided by his votes, especially Bush v. Gore, in which he accepted an Equal Protection claim that was totally inconsistent with his prior views on that clause. He will also be remembered as a Chief Justice who fought for the independence and authority of the judiciary. This is his only positive contribution to an otherwise regressive career.
Within moments of Rehnquists death, Fox News called and asked for my comments, presumably aware that I was a longtime critic of the late Chief Justice. After making several of these points to Alan Colmes (who was supposed to be interviewing me), Sean Hannity intruded, and when he didnt like my answers, he cut me off and terminated the interview. Only after I was off the air and could not respond did the attack against me begin, which is typical of Hannitys bullying ambush style. He is afraid to attack when theres someone there to respond. Since the interview, Ive received dozens of e-mail hate messages, some of which are overtly anti-Semitic. One writer called me a jew prick that takes it in the a** from ruth ginzburg [sic]. Another said I am an ignorant socialist left-wing political hack . Youre like a little Heinrich Himmler! (even the resemblance is uncanny!). Yet another informed me that I personally make us all lament the defeat of the Nazis! A more restrained viewer found me to be a disgrace to the Law, to Harvard, and to humanity.
All this, for refusing to put a deceptive gloss on a man who made his career undermining the rights and liberties of American citizens.
My mother would want me to remain silent, but I think my father would have wanted me to tell the truth. My father was right.
Alan Dershowitz is a professor of law at Harvard. His latest book is The Case for Peace: How the Arab-Israeli Conflict Can Be Resolved (Wiley, 2005).
You were wrong, but won't admit it. You play the anti-semite card just like all the poverty-pimps. You are no better than they. Have a good life, right back at yah!
It would seem to me that the Chief Justice was mocking Nazis not Jews. These antics, if true, would indicate his disdain for people who think like Nazis.
All fair points.
We hear of this first after Rehnquist is dead?
BULLSH!T!
One claim about Dershowitz that not even he would wish to refute, but he would gladly boast.
Alan Dershowitz has no manners.
DA740
All hail! Dershowitz is dead. Long live Dearth-o-wits.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column: "Tide of Lies Swamps NY Times: Employees Riot and Steal Office Supplies"
The real question is why, in the first place, was little Alan allowed to be on T.V.? Alan's momma would wash his foul little mouth out with soap were she to hear him speak with so much vile about a dead man who cannot defend himself. I'm damned sick and tired of this kind of slander being allowed on t.v. anyway. My goodness, have we lost all sense of respect for the dead that we have to say mean, vile things about them before we even bury them? Shame on Mr. Dershowitz, and shame on anyone who allows him to poison the memories we have of a great American.
I think Mr. Dershowitz has revealed himself to be not only a race baiter, but a very jealous one. You would think if he was such a competent lawyer, he would have dealt with FACTS instead of rumor and gossip. Dershowitz was/is envious of the success of Judge Rehnquist! Being Jewish hasn't anything to do with Dershowitz not achieving the success of Judge Rehnquist...it's his lack of character, common decency, and he just plain wasn't as intelligent.
If anyone knows please tell if all this was brought up at his confirmation hearings. Was he put on the Court over the objections of all the Jewish members of the Senate?
I guess Mr. Dershowitz is saying Rehnquest is no O'Connor. I can live with that.
Lonnie Davis is an liberal Clintonite but he at least has the grace to speak well of Chief Justice
Rehnquist on Fox just now, unlike jerkowitz .Davis has a modicum of grace, he is also a rabid Liberal Howling Clinton Moonbat but with much more class than our Moonboy .
He is such an abject failure that he was dropped from the O.J. case for grandstanding on T.V..
This mans legal strategy has been cry anti-Semitism and discrimination early and often in any case he has been associated with and fly to the nearest T.V. crew for coverage and explaining
his case law.
How dare he defame such an honorable man ,for shame Harvard for allowing such a shallow fool to guide and teach your soon to graduate future legal leaders .
This country has enough problems with these bigoted, prejudiced, narrow minded, sub par
boobs of lawyers without your school flooding the market with more .
The Constitution is brilliant, innovative, and memorable. Decisions based on proper application of the Constitution need not be. It's only when a decision goes against the Constitution that flowery rhetoric is needed.
Alan Dershowitz is a sad little man.
Old $hitforwitz is still at it, huh? He's a toxic person. He and Arianna make a pair.
Check out his donation history, and which candidates he supports. I know he appears now and then on Horowitz's Frontpagemag.com, but it's a case of cognative dissonance. He talks pro-Israel, lives pro-Pali. I think it must be a pathology.
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