O'Dear, O'Connor is Out

This is a dark day in American History. Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her retirement from the Supreme Court. While on the bench, she was never an advocate of The Left, she was a swinger. O'Connor was the switch hitter among the 9 justices. But I don't give a hoot about how she voted in the 2000 election decision or what she thinks about 'No Child Left Behind.' I am terrified at the thought of her vacating her seat, allowing G.W. to pick first in Constitutional kick ball.

What's the big frikkin' deal? Well, Sandy wasn't exactly a N.O.W. flag waiver. Her appointment to the Court was one of Reagan's 26 lucid Presidential decisions. Nobody in their left mind thought that she'd storm into chambers, whip her bra off and install a glass ceiling just to prove a point. Hell, she bent over backwards for years insisting that her mind won out in any ethical/moral/legal dilemma she faced, not her hoo-ha. She also posessed that honest-to-God humility we know to exist yet rarely do we witness. (Arthur Ashe comes to mind.) As the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, she talked of being overwhelmed by the its significance and the role she played in the major step forward Americans felt that the country had taken in terms of women's equality. She proved that we could do anything. Women everywhere, of any age, race or creed, proudly watched as she ascended her "throne," and settled into her spot on The Supreme Court. Effectively, the Constiution, and every existing law of the land, rests with the authority of 9 judges. The ultimate law-making body in the United States had acknowledged her, and she'd truly earned her place. I think of it as an amazing event which can be boiled down to this: There sat a girl. Finally, a girl! A girl with all that power, all those brains, all that sophistication, and the beautiful, unaffected manner in which she carried herself.

But today, in this instance, she's devastated us. The worried shudder and cold tingle that I can't seem to shake belies the fact she is no longer our Abortion Lady. No matter how we viewed her as a judge in terms of her opinion on anything from commercial zoning law or whether it was legally feasible that the bottom half of Florida could secede from the top half based on the arguement that the latter was a hideous stain on the state itself, she was the one who'd let you get an abortion. Thus the title, Abortion Lady. I could word it all fancy, but the basic fact is that she held the freedom of every American woman's uterus in her gavel. She was the swing vote, and she always swung with her hoo-ha when it came to protecting Roe v. Wade. "Go Abortion Lady!" is now "Abortion Lady Go."

George Bush is sitting in the Oval Office right now, unable to discern between his joy and his ability to recall how eenie, meenie, minie, moe goes. Carl Rove has given birth to his first decent bowel movement since the 2000 election and he's ready to rage. Cheney is closely monitoring heart palpitations as he gestures "I'm not home" to his wife because Mary, their demmanding dyke daughter, is on the phone and wants to talk business. Tucker Carlson just blew a giant load. I am near tears.

One, last thing: the news keeps talking about how the potential nominees will be coming from this "circuit" and that "circuit." Tell me they're kidding. The circuit?