Justice O’Connor wrote convoluted prose about pragmatic issues. Check out Grutter v. Bollinger, where she tap danced around the controversy like Fred Astaire on crystal meth. But to her credit, it’s ever so much harder to be pragmatic than a textualist.
To be a textualist, you can do all the required reading over spring break and still have time for a couple of powder days. You never have to admit that the Framers gave exactly no thought to medical marijuana or third-trimester abortion. You never have to acknowledge that the Framers spent about as much time thinking about affirmative action as they did about Paris Hilton’s ring tones. When an issue comes to bar that is novel to Constitutional inquiry, you breaks out a 1789 Webster’s Dictionary and the Federalist Papers and find the answer. Or, if in the minority, you resort to sarcastic and amusing commentary (see Scalia’s dissent in Grutter). Trying to write useful law when the constitutional issue is truly novel and, therefore, probably truly pragmatic, takes a lighter touch. Which is where Sandy O did her magic.
While Supreme Court decisions are supposed to read like Russian novels (or we’d all be out of a job, right?), O'Connor had a gift for making pragmatic questions downright impenetrable. But I give her a B+ (“Works and Plays Well with Others…”) for her efforts. Not because she wrote brilliant prose, but because she always took on the tough assignments and always strived for a fair result.
And besides, that fluffy pirate shirt was hot...
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2 comments:
And how many Supreme Court justices get put into the Pop culture like when John Riggins of the Redskins called her "Sandy Baby." It is sad to see her go (she's right up there for me with Brennan and White)
That shirt thing never occured to me before. SOC is a smelly pirate hooker!:)
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