Roe-Hopenol

Whither Roe?

For many months, we PUMAs heard that the main reason people were voting for Obama was the Supreme Court. NOW and NARAL endorsed him without qualifications, so Obama must be pro-choice, right? Hey, ladies, what’s yer problem? Barack Obama will preserve Roe v. Wade forever, won’t be too mean when you’re periodically down, and will even give you a kiss, sweetie!

Well, now that a majority of women believed this Supreme Court Roe-Hopenol and voted for Obama, let’s see how realistic that whole relentless campaign was, shall we?

For example, who among the four “liberal” justices is planning to retire? Justice Stevens seems to be the most likely, since he is already 88 years old.

Or, maybe not.

GAINESVILLE, Fla., Nov. 18 (UPI) — U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, at 88, isn’t showing any signs he’s considering retiring from the bench, observers say.

Stevens, who leads the high court’s aging liberal wing, remains vigorous, still plays tennis, swims in the ocean and says he doesn’t consider the Supreme Court’s workload to be overly taxing, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) reported Tuesday.

A prime motivation for some voters in backing the campaign of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama was to ensure a Democratic president would be in a position to replace Stevens and fellow Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75, and David Souter, 69, with other liberals. But none of them, especially Stevens, has indicated any plans to retire soon, the newspaper said.

Huh. Stevens, Ginsburg and Souter are not planning to retire anytime soon. Ooooops!

Well, what about Justice Anthony Kennedy, who is not a liberal, but who is often a key swing vote for the liberal wing of the Court? Kennedy is 72, but despite repeated searches on Teh Google, I cannot find any stories that quote him about his intentions to retire before 2012. The most I’ve seen is a lot of wishful thinking from Obama supporters based on his age and health. Oooooops!

Okay, but what about Stevens standing before The Ultimate Judge in the next four years? It’s entirely possible that the 88-year-old (Gawd forbid) could pass away anytime. (Of course, so could any of the Justices, so I’m a bit dubious regarding the wisdom of basing one’s electoral strategy on when the Grim Reaper will strike). Assuming this sad event does in fact occur, who, oh who, will Barack Obama place in his stead?

If you read through the list linked in this Salon article (Salon being an extremely Obama-friendly press outlet), you will see a diverse mixture of men, women, moderates, liberals and nods to various ethnicities. Sounds great at first.

But do you notice anything about the summaries next to the candidates’ names? Not one of them mentions Roe v. Wade.

Oooooops!

Are we now supposed to pretend that Obama has no responsibility to live up to the expectations of his female voters? Are we women, and the men who support us, supposed to forget that his campaign scared us for months about McCain and Palin and their extreme anti-choice views leading to the overturn of Roe v. Wade? Now, we don’t even merit a mention, as if Obama does not even have to consider Roe v. Wade in his possible judicial appointments?