The Breakfast Table

Vagina Monologues

Here we go again, Dan,

And since you gave us the Zoo Story, I’ll do the Vagina Monologues–that is, the Supreme Court debate on partial-birth abortion, which makes all the front pages today. At issue is a Nebraska law whose slippery language is being used to dodge the distinction between two forms of second-term abortion. Justice Scalia reveled in the scatology, but I think Sandra Day O’Connor’s simple comment, “Both are rather gruesome procedures,” will suffice.

The legal implications of the case are dispensed with by the New York TimesLinda Greenhouse and the Washington Post’s Joan Biskupic. The normally objective Greenhouse even ventures an opinion, saying the argument “appeared notably lacking in intensity, almost as if the justices went to court knowing” they wouldn’t be writing the last word on abortion. But the lively writing prize goes to Slate’s own Dahlia Lithwick. Noting that partial-birth abortion is “not a humorist’s dream topic,” she manages to explain it and still get off some great lines. I learned from her that Scalia was the first justice to say “vagina,” and that stare decisis is Latin for “we-can’t-overrule-Roe-without-looking-like-political Play-Doh.”

Now, how about an update on the seizing-child-stars-at-gunpoint scandal? As Congress ramps up for hearings, the Wall Street Journal’s editorialists treat us to a deconstruction of the search warrant. It turns out that instead of being signed by the federal judge assigned to the case, it was signed at the last minute by one Robert Rube, a federal magistrate “not familiar with the case and notoriously pro-government in his ruling.” What? A judge with a political agenda? Every time the Republicans rant about the rule of law, I think they’re exercising that other sacred principle, rule of jaw.

A few more updates: This morning I saw photos of James Dale, the exiled gay Eagle Scout, for the first time: Turns out he’s a tall, clean-cut suburban kid, not some pierced and tattooed queen of the East Village. The latest crash-test dummy is C. Everett Koop, whose drkoop.com has only enough cash to operate four more months. And finally, the Third Millennium, an advocacy group for Gen Xers, is complaining that the political campaigns aren’t targeting 18-to-24-year-olds. The argument goes something like this: Kids prefer watching Dawson’s Creek and The Simpsons to network news, so that’s where the campaign ads should run. Another case of dumbing down content, instead of promoting literacy?

Read on,

Cynthia