Another thing conservatives should be thankful for is that White House Counsel Harriet Miers withdrew her Supreme Court nomination. Each new document that emerges from Judge Samuel Alito’s time in the Reagan Justice Department indicates that it would have been almost impossible for President Bush to have picked a better candidate to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
Last week, the National Archives released a memo Alito wrote in 1985 in which he explained how the administration could use pending Supreme Court cases as tactical stepping stones towards overturning Roe v. Wade. Alito’s memo was well-reasoned and hard-hitting. “[I]t is almost incredible,” he wrote, slashing at the reasoning of an appellate court, “that the court struck down an ordinance requiring the ‘humane and sanitary’ disposal of aborted fetuses, a provision designed ‘to preclude the mindless dumping of aborted fetuses in garbage piles.’ The court found that the terms ‘humane and sanitary’ were impermissibly vague—a most remarkable conclusion in view of the countless laws containing those very terms. Congress even mandated ‘humane … disposal of excess wild free-roaming horses and burros.’”
