The Supreme Rock Star of the Court

So me and about 600 (mostly gushing Reaganites) heard Justice Sandra Day O'Connor speak for about 45 minutes at a new auditorium at the Reagan Library. She had a canned speech about how the justice system works and checks and balances and how extraordinary it was for President Reagan to appoint her and how great he was at advancing women and how great he was anyway. (I guess everyone forgets that he singlehandedly killed the Equal Rights Amendment so now he's getting credit for doing all the stuff to prove that we didn't need an equal rights amendment.) Then she took some questions from the audience--quite a rude audience I thought (stupid republicans don't even realize that she's a staunch conservative republican. She votes her mind and won't overturn Roe v. Wade so they think she's a trader and they're mean to her)--wanted to know why Judges think that they're allowed to make laws and isn't it all political--didn't the Supreme court basically appoint President Bush. She handled the questions really cool. I mean I'm kind of in the camp that thinks the SC went out of its way to rule in Bush's favor, but she said very straightforwardly (and I believe that she believes it) that the Gore case was a distinct set of facts and law that the Supreme Court analyzed and found that different counties applied the same state law in a different way--deciding how and when to do a recount--that is a clear violation of due process. Gee when you put it that way. Then she gave a little civics lesson on what it means to be a common law system (that's us) and how when Judges interpret laws, their interpretion becomes part of the law and so they are supposed to make laws--that's their job. She was so cool. I was like a teeny bopper at a rock concert. She ended with an ironical joke. She said a good friend of her's was watching Reagan's funeral on tv with her five year old granddaughters and pointed out Sandra Day O'Connor on tv and said to the girls, we know her, she's a very famous person in government and the five year old said, who is she, George Washington's wife? She has the grey hair that looks like George Washington's wig, but that is just sad. Every girl should know her--she's pretty damn brave to be the fifth vote on so many cases. I shudder to think what might have happened if she hadn't been so independent. She really is a very conservative republican, but she's not a sheep.