If the Court, for example, were to reverse Roe vs. Wade and return the abortion issue to the state governments to regulate as they see fit, it would not be conservative judicial activism. It would be an eradication of that gross judicial decision that usurped state authority over the issue based on a constitutional right to privacy that exists nowhere but in their imaginations.
Liberals are fond of citing the Supreme Court's decision in Bush vs. Gore as an example of conservative judicial activism. The Republican Court, they say, selected George Bush as president. But they fail to point out that the Court was correcting egregious unconstitutional decisions by the Florida Supreme Court. The liberals raised not a hint of objection in the face of those obscene decisions.
Moreover, it's a stretch to characterize this Supreme Court as conservative, even though Republican presidents appointed most of its members. A predominantly conservative court wouldn't have affirmed the grotesque practice of partial-birth abortion based on misleading information about the health of the mother.
By and large, conservatives support constitutionalist judges who will operate within their proper sphere of authority so as to preserve the vital separation of powers that is essential to our liberties.
In the presidential campaign, Republicans should welcome the opportunity to debate the issues of judicial activism and society's overall respect for the sanctity of human life. Do we want a superlegislature whose members have lifetime tenure and are unaccountable to the people? Or do we want legal scholars who will interpret the Constitution with objectivity and not through the prism of their own political preferences?
Democrats have been blocking President Bush's nominees with alarming frequency, in many cases denying them a hearing before the full Senate. While Republicans' hands are not entirely clean on this, the level of Democratic mischief in obstructing President Bush's appointees is unprecedented and threatens the president's appointment power. It truly is past time that we take steps to rein in this imperial judiciary and restore the policy-making prerogatives to the executive and legislative branches of government.
If Republicans articulate this issue clearly it will be a sure winner, because at heart it is democratic. It will restore power to the people and their elected representatives. So let the fight begin.