God bless Helen Thomas, UPI reporter

If you don't know who she is, look her up, and damn you must be young!

She took good old Spanky McClellan to task today at the usual press briefing, busting his chops about saying that nominee Miers won't be the type to "legislate from the bench.

Read on, then go to the White House page to read the whole thing.

Helen, go ahead.

Q The President doesn't want anyone who would legislate from the bench. Can you define that a little bit more? For example, is Brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas -- was that legislating? Was Miranda legislating? Was the right to a lawyer legislating from the bench?

Spanky: These are great questions. I'm not the one who's going through the confirmation process. These are questions that will come up in the confirmation hearing process, I imagine. I'm sure the --

Q But I want to know what you are saying. You keep saying --

Spanky: I'm sure that members of the Senate --

Q -- you can't legislate from the bench. Would all of those rulings been wrong under your --

Spanky: And what we mean by it is that she is someone who will strictly interpret our Constitution and our laws, that will not try to make law from the bench. That's what the President means by it.

And that means that she is someone who will look at the facts of a case and apply the law, what the law says, and that's what the American people expect in a Supreme Court justice. And that's what the President has always looked for. He's nominated more than 200 people to the bench. And Harriet Miers has been very involved --

Q Is Roe versus Wade the law --

Spanky: -- has been very involved in that process.

Now, in terms of cases that could come before the Court, I don't think anyone has an expectation that a future judge should answer a question about a case that could come before that Court. A judge should be fair and open-minded and look at the facts of a case and then apply the law.

What you heard from these Supreme Court justices just now was that Harriet Miers is someone who is very fair-minded, and she is someone who will look at the facts and apply the law. And these are all questions about legal issues that she will be answering.

Q But you bring them up. I mean, you --

Spanky: That's right. And she looks forward to --

Q -- keep talking about legislating from the bench. Does that mean that nothing changes in 200 years?

Spanky: Of course not, Helen. She will be talking about these issues when she goes before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions. And she looks forward to answering their questions, and we look forward to the American people seeing her before the Judiciary Committee, where she will have an opportunity to discuss these issues and more.

HAHAHA!, loves me some Helen Thomas!

Of course, to the Repugs, legislating from the bench only means that a judge is doing so when it's something they are against.

I'm sure there were PLENTY of people who were pissed at Southern judges when race laws started to get reversed in the South. Even though the phrase wasn't invented yet, those judges would have been accused of that or my favorite "judicial activism".

Funny thing, this "judicial activism" is that almost every time, it's a judge overuling an instance of the government TAKING rights from citizens.
And yet the crazed right has a problem with that..
See, a lot of them seem to think that we have something called "majority rules" when it comes to everything, not just elections for office.
They apparently do not understand that one of the main reasons for the very existance of the Constitution is to PROTECT the minority from the majority.
When the majority of the people at one time felt that it was OK to marginalize Blacks with horrible laws and more, eventually that had to change.
That was NOT legislating from the bench!