Damage likely to be permanent

Gunga has a legitimate concern (one that I share). I hated the 6 years of republican rule and I think there are some repurcussions that we'll feel for decades.

I am equally worried about a democratic rule. We all should be.

For 6 years all of the democrats on this board, and myself, were asking for some checks/balances. I have a feeling that republicans will be saying the same thing for at least the next 4.

I am afraid.

The Professor has already telegraphed that he will throw the Constitution out the window in favor of judges who are empathetic and compassionate. Of all the nutty notions the Professor has come up with, that one is the most dangerous.

We need for the Republican party to pull its head out of its ass and rebuild itself around a solid core of principles and to kick the neocons to the curb before they can return to power in any form.

I agree.

If republicans return to being fiscal conservatives (which you can be sure they will act like with Obama's policies), agree to stay out of everyone's bedrooms, and fight for personal freedoms......they'll have me voting for them.

It seems to me that he would have to dig the Constitution out of the White House's dumpster before he could throw it out the window.

I'm not trying to be snotty but I am curious as to how you think he "telegraphed" this?

Speaking at the Planned Parenthood conference in DC this afternoon, Barack Obama leveled harsh words at conservative Supreme Court justices, and he offered his own intention to appoint justices with "empathy." Obama hinted that the court's recent decision in Gonzales v. Carhart -- which upheld a ban on partial-birth abortion -- was part of "a concerted effort to steadily roll back" access to abortions. . . .

Obama also won a laugh at the expense of Chief Justice John Roberts, saying that judgments of Roberts' character during his confirmation hearings were largely superficial. "He loves his wife. He's good to his dog," he joked, adding that judicial philosophy should be weighted more seriously than such evaluations. "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/17/274143.aspx

SEN. OBAMA: I would not appoint somebody who doesn't believe in the right to privacy. But you're right, Wolf, I taught constitutional law for 10 years, and I -- when you look at what makes a great Supreme Court justice, it's not just the particular issue and how they rule, but it's their conception of the court. And part of the role of the court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don't have a lot of clout.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/15/us/politics/15debate-transcript.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=39&oref=slogin

Now there’’s going to be those 5 percent of cases or 1 percent of cases where the law isn’’t clear. And the judge then has to bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings. And in those circumstances, what I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can’’t have access to political power and as a consequence can’’t protect themselves from being —— from being dealt with sometimes unfairly. That the courts become a refuge for justice. That’’s been its historic role. That was its role in Brown v. Board of Education.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0807/25/sitroom.03.html

Obama's answer was even more revealing. He quickly named Justice Clarence Thomas, which at first glance isn't such a shock. Obama is the liberal candidate, after all, and he needs to signal his support for abortion rights whenever the subject of the Court comes up. And Thomas has held that Roe v. Wade (1973) should be overturned. But that wasn't how Obama justified his choice. Instead, he essentially described Thomas as an affirmative action case, telling Warren, "I don't think that he...was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation."
http://www.reason.com/news/show/128245.html