How to Put a Republican in the White House.

University of Wisconsin law professor Ann Althouse opines this morning on the political tactics both parties will use to choose Justice Scalia's replacement:

But, really, does it matter what the Constitution means? (Especially now that Scalia is dead. It can mean whatever we need it to mean now. The bulwark is gone. Let creativity run wild.)

 * gently pushing back:  No Ann.  That might be what passes for the elite Ivory tower legal thinking, but it is not true.  People who practice law and understand the Constitution understand that.

She concludes:

Cassidy says:

If the Republicans block the nomination without properly considering it, which also seems likely, a huge political row will ensue, enveloping the Presidential race....

Small wonder, some senior Democrats already appear to be dancing a jig. 

Dancing a jig?! Dancing on a man's grave? Is it not obvious how the GOP will respond? That was the basis of my question yesterday: "Will liberals overreach and show too much of a raging desire to control the Court and make it solidly liberal at long last, touching off a reaction among conservatives?" The jig of raging desire is revolting to those who do not share the Democratic orientation.

 I'm sure exactly what a "jig of raging desire" is, but Ann has noted several times in her blog that one of her sons is a lawyer and the other one is gay.  Maybe she's hinting at the gays' "raging desire" here, and her willingness to throw over Constitutional interpretation to ... "Let creativity run wild" because the Constitution "... can mean whatever we need it to mean now" ... "especially now that Scalia is dead."

I'll admit I was wrong:
she didn't even wait until Monday, when the body was cold and she was back on the clock in her public university office, to start plotting her creative revenge... Oh those women professor, thinking with their emotions and not their legal brains.  God help 'em.

(Here's another one -- Linda Hirshman,* whose legal theory is that even if Obama can't get his nominee confirmed... he still makes out as a winner!  By casting out any upcoming decisions where Scalia participated in arguments and voted, the 4-4 ties could cripple litigation by making these "no decisions" and then tossing them back to the lower courts.  Presumably, in Hirshman's gameplan, once Obama gets his uber-liberal diverse nominee seated, the cases could then be reheard and revoted on, to assure the winning outcome she seeks (but is unable to compete honestly for, without such procedural trickery.  Yeah, that's a winning plan, ma'am!)

Oh those women law professors... thinking with their emotions and not their legal brains.  Truth be told:  this is the type of thinking that will continue to set women back for decades -- the need to overthrow what came before, to blaze their own trails, but with special carved-out quotas and safe spaces, since they seemingly cannot compete their ways in, without special preferences for diversity candidate -- elite white women too. )
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* Linda Hirshman is the author of "Sisters in Law: How Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg Went to the Supreme Court and Changed the World."