THE BRAINS BEHIND BLACKMUN

Harry Blackmun's papers reveal that, more than any justice in memory, he gave his law clerks control over his thinking and writing when he was on the Supreme Court.

HARRY A. BLACKMUN SERVED ON THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT for almost a quarter of a century, beginning in 1970 after his selection by President Richard Nixon and ending in 1994 with his retirement at age 85. When Blackmun's papers were opened to public inspection in March 2004, five years after his death, laudatory news stories highlighted his evolution toward a more compassionate jurisprudence. Those accounts contrasted sharply with coverage at the outset of Blackmun's Supreme Court career, when critics dismissed him as Chief Justice Warren Burger's "Minnesota Twin," made fun of his excessive interest in trivia, and viewed his early record on the court as anything but sensitive to society's least fortunate. Yet a far more troubling story emerges from the pages of Blackmun's papers, one that remains almost wholly unreported...

I once dated an attorney who had clerked for Blackmun. He was very proud of it. He was fun and funny, he was attractive and charming, he was rich, kind, and a very devoted father. But when I found out he had helped to write Roe, I broke up with him. It’s true that forty years ago we knew much less about embryology than we do today, but even so, the thought was intolerable. My friends tell me I was a fool.

Blackman was appointed by a Republican (Richard Nixon). Earl Warren (Eisenhower), David Souter (George H.W. Bush) and John Paul Stevens (Ford) were other Republican appointments. George W. Bush wanted to put Harriet Myers on the court and did appoint Chief Justice Roberts, the deciding vote on Obamacare.

Electing a Republican president does not necessarily mean conservatives will be appointed to the Court, just as electing a Republican Senate does not mean Republicans will block leftist appointees to the Court by a Democrat President. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was confirmed to the US Supreme Court by a vote of 96 to 3 with an overwhelming majority of Republicans voting for her despite her long term leftist activist history.

We should keep in mind that Antonin Scalia is 77 years old. Whoever appoints his replacement will have the potential to shift the balance on the Court forever. Would a President Romney, President McCain, President Christie, or President Jeb Bush appoint another Scalia or would a compromise candidate in the mold of David Souter be selected? If Barack Obama appoints the Scalia replacement his nominee will undoubtedly be in the mold of Sotamayor and Kagan. Will Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Orin Hatch, Lamar Alexander, Susan Collins, John Cornyn and others fight to keep the Supreme Court from shifting hard left in the same way the Democrats successfully fought to keep Robert Bork off the Court and almost succeeded defeating the Clarence Thomas nomination.

Once the Court goes, so goes the second amendment and likely the first.

I’m afraid I gave the wrong impression. I did not date this msn forty years ago and then break up with him and marry someone else. I got married, was divorced many years later, and dated the rich lawyer about (?) eight or ten years ago. I have not remarried, but this seems to be God’s will and I am trying with some difficulty to thank Him for it.

I will say this for the lawyer: his only child was adopted so he did not go through the usual process of fatherhood. When his daughter gave birth about six or eight years ago it seems to have hit him hard. Maybe on seeing the development of that perfect new life he had to reassess.

But he’s still an old-fashioned Democrat. I could never. Having dinner and going to the theater is one thing but giving up your principles to get along with a rich husband, however sweet, is prostitution.

The problem is not sort-of-liberal Republicans opposing Scalia-type justices, it is that they don’t oppose the wacko Democrat Party justices, like, for example, Ginsburg, who was lead attorney for the ACLU, for cryin’ out loud? It’s not that hard: “If this appointee personally is supportive abortion or homosexual marriage, that is not the issue. But if they believe all traditional rules are unconstitutional, then they don’t belong on the Court.” See? Easy.

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