The Rose Parade’s great ‘get’

THE NEWS was so startling that I struggled to imagine what must have gone on in the big white mansion in Pasadena the day that the men and women who run the Tournament of Roses settled on their grand marshal for the 2006 Rose Parade: Sandra Day O’Connor, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

White Suit No. 1: I’m just spitballing here, but how about Sandy O’ Connor? She’s getting out of the judge business, right? We haven’t had a woman in a long time. And frankly, we looked like a bunch of lackeys last year, picking Mickey Mouse the same year as Disneyland’s 50th. Nobody could accuse us of cross-promoting the Supreme Court.

White Suit No. 2: I’m loving that! Let’s have a show of hands? Which of you lawyers wants to make the call?

Let me count the ways I thought that the O’Connor pick was a put-on. For one, the press release was datelined Washington, D.C., not Pasadena, and it began, “In a rose garden ceremony held today.... “ Rose garden? Was this some White House stunt to try to distract the news media from lousy poll numbers, a lousy war? Would the third paragraph be a quote from George W. Bush applauding O’Connor’s choice as an important weapon in the war on terror?

As it turns out, it was not the Rose Garden, just a rose garden, and the ceremony was closed to reporters who might have asked questions that had nothing to do with roses or any other kind of flora (except perhaps medical marijuana).

Still bemused, I asked the Tournament of Roses people about the criteria for a grand marshal. There aren’t any, I was told. The choice isn’t even made by the executive committee. It’s up to each year’s T of R president, which accounts for a century of wild mood-swing marshals: a ventriloquist’s dummy (with ventriloquist); Lawrence Welk in 1972 (the year everybody was listening to “Layla” and “American Pie”); and Merlin Olsen (he played football).

The tournament president’s other prerogative is choosing the parade theme, and the 2006 theme is “It’s Magical.” (What’s magical? I’ll tell you what’s magical -- the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Bush vs. Gore.)

The Rose Parade has never been over-troubled by cognitive dissonance. Last year’s theme was “Celebrate Family,” and the parade began with a daddy stealth bomber and a couple of baby fighter jets swooping above Colorado Boulevard -- your basic nuclear family.

And call me a skeptic, but I can’t help thinking that the staff of “The Daily Show” wrote O’Connor’s acceptance: “I cannot think of a more exciting way to begin the next chapter in my life than by riding down Colorado Boulevard as grand marshal of the 2006 Tournament of Roses.”

So where does Justice O’Connor fit into the great roseate parade history?

At least she’s a woman, and women-wise, the parade was ambivalent for decades. It loved its queens but didn’t choose a woman as grand marshal until 1933, and then it was “America’s Sweetheart,” Mary Pickford. Since then, Dale Evans (with Roy, without horse), Kate Smith, Carol Burnett, Erma Bombeck, Angela Lansbury and Shirley Temple Black have waved from the lead convertible. No offense to Hollywood, but O’Connor is unquestionably an uptick in the caliber of female marshals. O’Connor is one great “get.”

But she also fits a pattern. With one exception, every grand marshal with a political identity has been a Republican -- four ex- or future presidents, a senator and a former governor. (The exception was John Glenn, a Democratic senator who got in under the Astronaut Exemption.) Maybe Democrats just can’t master that wave.

One consideration trumps any criticism of O’Connor joining the parade: stare decisis, Colorado Boulevard-style. Earl Warren, former Republican governor of California, was chief justice of the United States in 1955, the year he presided over both the draft decree implementing Brown vs. the Board of Education and the Rose Parade. The parade theme was “Familiar Sayings” -- cliches, in other words -- but that was the 1950s for you. Nothing original ventured, nothing to get blacklisted for.

Who can blame Justice Sandy for accepting? Since Reagan appointed her as the first woman on the court, she’s had all the dreck of celebrity -- headlines and hate mail, and maybe some of that on congressional letterheads -- and not much of the fun of it. Justices don’t get their faces on money. She probably still has to show ID to write a check.

I think she’s earned her New Year’s road trip. She can come out to L.A., maybe get one of those stylist-to-the-stars haircuts, ride with the top down in the winter sun, and get on TV wearing something other than that drab get-up reserved for members of the Order of St. Oliver Wendell Holmes.

O’Connor could even provide a breakout moment for her colleagues, especially once they realize the Warren precedent: David Souter in a guest turn at Cirque du Soleil, Clarence Thomas as king of Bacchus at the revived Mardi Gras. And maybe one day, Harriet Miers, former third baseman for the Dallas Junior Bar Assn. softball team, on the front of a Wheaties box.