I Give Bill Murchinson a C-

Look at these sloppy opening paragraphs (for his latest article).

The campaign for Senate confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees got serious Sunday. God took a hand.

What kind of hand we can't tell, of course, given the Lord's engaging propensity to move in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. Still, the Family Research Council's "Justice Sunday" telecast-cum-rally, featuring Senate majority leader Bill Frist and broadcast potentially to millions of church-goers, was by any reckoning an event.

OK, Mr. Murchinson perhaps you'd like to expand on your theory that God has taken a direct interest in a potential Democratic filibuster? Besides the non-evidence that some people, who claim to act in his name, held a special Sunday rally, that is. People do things in God's name all the time. So what proof do you have that God is showing his hand on the Republican Side of this issue? Apparently none whatsoever, so let's move on.

Next he presents his thesis which is that Justice Sunday is really about Brown Vs. The Board of Education.

Why Brown v. Board of Education, which proclaimed the constitutional duty to abolish public school segregation? Because Brown marked the first big occasion when Americans ceded power to the federal courts to patrol their nation's moral perimeter, a job previously reserved for the states.

Ah. Interesting. One could certainly argue that Plessy vs. Fergeson did the same thing, considerably earlier. I mean if it is patrolling the nation's moral perimeter to declare that it's wrong to segregate, wouldn't finding the opposite be more or less on the same frontier?

It's also an interesting contrast. Liberals used the courts to ensure civil rights for all Americans; and now, in recompense, Conservatives should be able to use the courts to enforce their "morality." Said morality seems to include ending legal abortion, dealing with homosexuality, and, of course, making sure corporate power remains supreme.

Murchinson does make one good, if obviously, point.

The present conflagration over lower federal court appointees is the warm-up, so to speak, for the war that will start the instant President Bush seeks to fill the first Supreme Court vacancy in a decade.

One might imagine this battle could be forestalled by Bush putting up a genuine moderate, but I doubt he will. Instead I think the right wants this battle. President Bush, in particular, needs this battle to convince the Christian Right that he and the Republican Party really are on their side. Otherwise they might notice that corporate America got their wishlist completed as quickly as possible, and President Bush only talks about the Marriage Constitutional Amendment at election time.