Consistent ethic of death

Rumors are making the rounds that Justice O’Connor, rather than Rehnquist may be the next Supreme Court justice to step down and that President Bush likes the idea of a “Gonzales Court.”

I’d say Ross Douthat gets it about right:

Alberto Gonzales is, I have no doubt, an intelligent man. His resume certainly makes him more qualified for the Supreme Court than, say, Sandra Day O’Connor or Clarence Thomas prior to their confirmation hearings. But he’s also a Bush family retainer, whose record while working for the Governor-turned-President – whether in his Texas “clemency memos”, or the so-called “torture memo” – suggests a man whose primary career ambition has been to help Bush sleep a little better at night. (And I say this as someone who’s of several minds about both the death penalty and harsh interrogation techniques.)

More importantly – and our more socially liberal readership will have to pardon me while I breathe fire for a minute – there seems to be no chance – zero, zilch, nada – that a Justice Gonzales would be a reliable conservative vote on the bench . . . and no chance, more specifically, that he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Which means that if he’s nominated to replace someone like O’Connor, social conservatives should dig up their Thomas Frank and think long and hard about the terms of their support for the institutional Republican Party.