Citizen Journal

Fred Barnes reminds us:

As Bush and his aides never tire of telling everyone, he came to the White House to do big things and achieve important changes. And transforming the Supreme Court into a more conservative body and shrinking the role of unelected judges in American life is one of his major goals.

Bush also prides himself on not doing the easy or politically popular thing. He could have sought minor adjustments in Social Security to improve its solvency, but he chose to promote total reform. After routing al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan, he could have stopped and gone no further, preserving his high poll rating. Instead he deposed Saddam Hussein in Iraq.

It may turn out that Bush choses the crassly political alternative Barnes discusses (tokenism in the form of a nod to Gonzalez isn’t out of the question), but I cannot imagine Bush would capitulate for fear of a “political explosion.”

More wishful thinking from Saletan:

...abortion isn't just an up-or-down issue. It's an issue of incremental restrictions. On the restrictions, the public tends to agree with Bush. And while Roe isn't directly at stake in this court appointment, some of the restrictions are.

This has been the case for a while, but N.O.W. et al. aren’t sounding the alarm over “incremental restrictions.” In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Scalia wrote that even the plurality did not

"squarely contend that Roe v. Wade was a correct application of "reasoned judgment"; merely that it must be followed, because of stare decisis. But in their exhaustive discussion of all the factors that go into the determination of when stare decisis should be observed and when disregarded, they never mention "how wrong was the decision on its face?" Surely, if "[t]he Court's power lies . . . in its legitimacy, a product of substance and perception," the "substance" part of the equation demands that plain error be acknowledged and eliminated. Roe was plainly wrong...

Let’s be clear: Even before Justice O’Connor’s retirement, a majority of the Court believes Roe is only valid by reference to stare decisis. I’ll part ways with Michelle Malkin here – O’Connor’s replacement doesn’t guarantee Roe will be overturned, but some aspects of pro-choice paranoia may not be paranoia at all.