William Saletan Just Doesn’t Get It
I recently criticized William Saletan for writing a smarmy piece mocking Judge Alito for his dissent in Casey. Aside from the incredibly annoying tone of the piece, one of the piece’s main flaws was Saletan’s conflation of rulings on constitutional law and opinions about policy. This caused Saletan to get the analysis 100% backwards.
He’s still doing it.
In his latest essay, titled Isn’t That Spousal – Alito, abortion, sexism, and the polls, Saletan poses the issue as a pure question of policy:
Fourteen years ago, Judge Samuel Alito voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that required married women to certify, prior to an abortion, that they had told their husbands they were having the procedure. A year later, the Supreme Court struck down the law. “A husband has no enforceable right to require a wife to advise him before she exercises her personal choices,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and her colleagues wrote in the court’s controlling opinion. They concluded, “A State may not give to a man the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over their children.”
Who represents the mainstream on this issue? Alito or O’Connor?
Who “represents the mainstream”?? That’s what you’re asking?
Arg.
Saletan then cites numerous polls asking people whether they support spousal notification provisions. Not one of the polls addresses the issue of whether such laws are unconstitutional. Not one of the polls asks whether the public should be allowed to decide such issues without interference from the Supreme Court. The polls deal exclusively with whether the respondents agree with spousal notification provisions, as a matter of public policy.
But, Mr. Saletan sir, Judge Alito wasn’t asked to decide whether he supported such laws. In fact, his dissent explicitly said:
Whether the legislature’s approach represents sound public policy is not a question for us to decide.
So what is the point of your essay, Mr. Saletan?
Do you even understand what judges are supposed to do in our system of government?
Patterico, have you (or anyone else) managed to get any sort of feedback/response from Mr. Saletan? He seems clueless to the highest order. Scary.
Andy (571e90) — 11/10/2005 @ 11:27 pmDemocrats have been relying on the judiciary to impliment policy for so long, they just take it as a given. The ideal of a judge just saying yay or nay on its constitutionality is something that just passes by them like some sort of small talk.
Not once have I heard the Democrats demand an impartial judge who will rule based on constitutionality. Its always been on the positions on Roe v. Wade or some such issue.
But I state the obvious.
jpm100 (06f700) — 11/11/2005 @ 3:06 amAh but he also implicitly misleads in his misleading.
Since reputable polling clearly indicates that the public supports spousal notification by around 72-26%, the answer to his question is “Alito”.
I see this sorta thing a lot, one lie buried inside another in a lefty statement like this.
I had an experience once with a guy who told me that anyone who thinks abstinence education is important is a right wing lunatic. I easily googled up an opinion study by the University of Maryland that showed 95% of the public thinks abstinence education is “Important” or “Very Important”.
So who was the wingnut, who was “out of the mainstream”? The person ageeing with 95% of the public or the person agreeing with 5%?
Dwilkers (a1687a) — 11/11/2005 @ 4:36 amDw, haven’t you heard? “The mainstream runs through France,” Ann Coulter.
Harry Arthur (40c0a6) — 11/11/2005 @ 7:24 amUmm…just be be clear I understand Patterico’s point that Alito wasn’t indicating his personal opinion on the issue, but was rendering a judgement based on the law.
I was just struck by this guy’s underlying…I guess assumption is the generous way to put it.
Dwilkers (a1687a) — 11/11/2005 @ 8:14 amDwilkers:
Whether it’s spousal notification or abstinence education, the polls swing pretty widely based on the phrasing of the question.
Which is a good if superflous agrument against relying on polls to examine a judge’s constitutional record.
I think Saletan is just charging ahead with what he’s got – and this is what he’s got.
biwah (f5ca22) — 11/11/2005 @ 8:29 am