CAUGHT up in the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, the nation has had little time to mourn the loss of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died of thyroid cancer Saturday night. But for those paying attention to the news, it's clear that the lack of mourning for Rehnquist runs deeper than the distraction of Katrina.
Of the thousands of stories listed on Google News about Rehnquist's death, few of them were obituaries. Instead, almost all of them mentioned John Roberts, Pres. Bush's choice to replace Rehnquist as chief justice, in the first few lines. Most coverage then goes on to describe the political implications of two high court vacancies and a preview of the partisan fight to come -- missing any acknowledgment of loss with the passing of a remarkable man.
In fact, if one made just a cursory comparison of the coverage after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation and Rehnquist's death, it would seem O'Connor was the one who died. After O'Connor resigned, Republicans and Democrats lavished praise on her career. The contrast could not be starker with Rehnquist. Few Republicans and almost no Democrats stood up for Rehnquist's 33-year tenure on the high court. Not that critics should be feigning praise, but traditionally politics and vitriol would be set aside out of respect for the grieving.
Our political culture has become so callous that a person's death is not a time for grief but for partisan griping. Merely hours after Rehnquist's death, renown Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz went on Fox News and called the late Rehnquist a "Republican thug." While this sort of post-mortem vitriol has been rare, the real problem is not that Rehnquist is being slandered as much as simply ignored.
It would be easy to chalk the lack of grieving for Rehnquist up to a left-leaning bias in the media, which would explain the flood of media praise for O'Connor compared to the trickle for the more conservative Rehnquist. But the real cause is that the story of Rehnquist's death is less juicy than the political fight that will follow it, thus media coverage shifts immediately to the free-for-all, leaving Rehnquist himself mostly forgotten. And it's not just liberals either.
One guest on a Fox News morning show used the occasion of Rehnquist's death to blast Democrats for obstructing the conformation process before the process had even begun-- reducing his legacy to his presupposed desire that the conformation process to replace him should move smoothly.
Bush also shares part of the blame for having picked a replacement for Rehnquist before his body has been laid to rest. It's now time to mourn, but America seems to have forgotten how.
But perhaps the reason Rehnquist's death has failed to generate any grief is because Rehnquist was left for dead long before last Saturday.
In these last years, Rehnquist cut against the grain of a culture that tends to discount the contributions of the sick and old. After being hospitalized for thyroid cancer, the media churned out stories that Rehnquist was about to give up his seat on the Supreme Court. It was as if the media hoped its gossip would be self-fulfilling, anticipating the excitement of a confirmation battle and growing bored of the familiar Rehnquist. They were wrong.
As the presidential inauguration approached, the political punditry predicted that Rehnquist would be too sick to swear in the President. But even when seriously ill, he proved them wrong.
But once again this summer, when the Supreme Court ended their term, the media erupted in rumor that Rehnquist was about to resign. Again Rehnquist confounded everyone with a sternly worded, defiant denial. In July, the ailing justice wrote, "I want to put to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement" -- as if to say "I'm not dead yet."
And he wasn't. Rehnquist's last ruling was not a legal opinion but a personal testament against the soft bigotry that tells old players to get off the stage because they've outlived their usefulness. He ignored them, and stayed until the end of the show.
There will soon be a time for the political fight, but it is not now. A man has died, and it is time to grieve him with the same grace and poise with which he ended his life.
Herb Ladley is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at hladley@cavalierdaily.com.
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