# Sandra Day O'Connor Retires
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 1, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686 "2005-07-01T14:18:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Wartime\_Consigliori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wartime_Consigliori)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/1 "2005-07-01T14:18:40Z")
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070100650\_pf.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070100650_pf.html)
Place yer bets…And they’re off!!!
Wonder how all this will shake out.
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### Author:  [@Elysian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysian)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/2 "2005-07-01T14:29:17Z")
I, for one, am looking at Canada again. I know how this will shake out and it won’t be good.
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### Author:  [@Indyellen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indyellen)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/3 "2005-07-01T14:34:39Z")
[Darth Vader]
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
[/Darth Vader]
This is going to be ugly. Really, really ugly. She didn’t always rule in a way I agreed with, but I always thought she was genuinely trying to do her best.
_pout_
☹
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### Author:  [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/4 "2005-07-01T14:37:03Z")
Goddamnit! This Fuckhead-In-Chief gets to appoint someone to the SC, and you know it’s going to be someone young and far, far to the right of mainstream, so that in most of our lifetimes, the SC is going to be a fucking rubberstamp for the ugliest, most godforsakenly mean-spirited government in American history.
God help us all.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/5 "2005-07-01T14:37:48Z")
This is not a surprise but disturbing nonetheless. O’Connor served as a moderate vote on the court. Bush badly wants to appoint some activist religious conservatives to the bench. Roe V. Wade is in danger now and so is SOCAS. I just hope the Dems have their cookbooks and encyclopedias ready to go because it’s filibuster time.
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/6 "2005-07-01T14:39:45Z")
Yo, **AnArky,** there’s already a Pit thread for this. We’re in MPSIMS, here, so lighten it up a little bit.
I hope he appoints Clint Eastwood. Or the Governator. That’d be cool.
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### Author:  [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/7 "2005-07-01T14:47:22Z")
Sorry about that!
::wipes spittle off chin::
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### Author:  [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/8 "2005-07-01T14:50:56Z")
Look for an Hispanic nominee. It’s the next token barrier to be broken.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_One)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/9 "2005-07-01T14:56:26Z")
Strategy time. Bush will throw up a nominee that is totally unacceptable as a red herring. This will force the Democrats to sputter and bitch and eventually decide that, yes indeedy, this is an “extraordinary circumstance”. Bush lets the shit hit the fan for a while and then the nominee withdraws, citing how unreasonable the Democrats are being. Then, Bush nominates the person he wanted in the first place. The Democrats will be reluctant to fight back a second time for fear of looking unreasonable and obstructionist.
That would be my evil plan anyway.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/10 "2005-07-01T15:19:02Z")
Well since the Chief Justice has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, it looks like George is going to get a twofer.
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### Author:  [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/11 "2005-07-01T15:35:05Z")
Thank you! Wheeeeeee!
Actually, I don’t really dislike O’Conner, at least not more than a great many other Supreme Court Justices. Frankly, I think the whole court ought to go, including the ones who vote how I would like them to. I find their reasoning, rightly or wrongly, tortured, incomprehensible, and increasingly arbitrary.
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### Author:  [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/12 "2005-07-01T15:45:34Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#):
>
> Yo, **AnArky,** there’s already a Pit thread for this. We’re in MPSIMS, here, so lighten it up a little bit.
>
> I hope he appoints Clint Eastwood. Or the Governator. That’d be cool.
I nominate Clinton. Hey, if Taft could do it, why not Slick Willy?
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/13 "2005-07-01T16:03:58Z")
> [@](#):
>
> I nominate Clinton. Hey, if Taft could do it, why not Slick Willy?
Maybe Hillary Clinton. That would throw off the 2008 election.
But the real sneak attack? Nominate himself. Think about it. He’s a lame duck President but a seat on the Supreme Court keeps him in a position of power for life. Plus you get Cheney as President. And Rice gets named as the new VP, so she becomes a strong Presidential candidate in 2008.
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### Author:  [@elfbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfbabe)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2005, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sandra-day-oconnor-retires/310686/14 "2005-07-01T17:09:03Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#):
>
> Maybe Hillary Clinton.
Heh. One of my grandfather’s (many) reasons for being so violently opposed to Kerry in the 2004 election was that he believed Kerry would, if president, appoint Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy to the Supreme Court.