Judge Kennedy’s Nomination

Virtually forgotten amid all the controversy surrounding the nominations of Bork and Ginsburg is the fact that, while these men have been deemed unfit to occupy that august bench, they are still federal judges sitting on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals and will remain there until they either die or choose to resign. What I want to know is, if someone is morally, ethically or legally unqualified to sit on the Supreme Court, what makes him any more qualified to sit on the second highest court in the land--a court which arguably has even more influence in shaping the constitutional interpretation of laws in this society than does the Supreme Court? Where were the background checks and heated Senate debates when these men, and others of their ilk, were appointed in the first place?

The most odious legacy of the Reagan Administration will not be its disastrous economic policies or its egregious corruption, but rather a federal judiciary packed with young ideologues who will carry Reagan’s reactionary vision well into the next century. And as the Constitution is eviscerated to conform to the gospel according to Reagan, as the government becomes more and more calloused and Orwellian at the expense of civil liberties, humanitarian principals and basic decency, it is our children and their children who will suffer most, and we will have only ourselves to blame for allowing it to happen.

DOUGLAS GRAHAM

Van Nuys