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Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Methinks perhaps they reassure too much
Posted by Jill | 6:33 AM
The coverage last night of Chief Justice John Roberts' hospitalization for what is being described as a "benign idiopathic seizure" questioned the almost instantaneous reassurance that "he has fully recovered from the incident." Any time there is a brain incident like this, quick and facile diagnoses, absent a history of epilepsy, are usually not standard practice.

Because we are not a "hate site", contrary to what most wingnuts may believe, we hope for Roberts to make a full recovery. He is, after all, a relatively young man with young children. Unlike the mouthbreathers on the right, our compassion isn't contingent on liking what he does or his ideology.

Roberts had a similar incident in 1993 and has not had a recurrence since. Interestingly, a Google search on "benign idiopathic seizure" reveals nothing that occurs in adulthood. There is, however, an idiopathic generalized epilepsy of adult onset, which has a genetic component.

If in fact Roberts does have a form of adult onset epilepsy, this is still not a cause for excessive concern and should not result in talk of his resignation, particularly if Arlen Specter is truthful that the Senate Judiciary Committee knew of the 1993 incident and didn't find it important. Epilepsy is treatable with medication, and one would hope that we have progressed beyond the stigma that the syndrome used to carry with it.

If the Roberts incident causes the composition of the Supreme Court to finally become a presidential campaign issue, particularly with a third of Americans now believing that the Court is "too conservative", up from 19% in 2005, that would not be the worst thing in the world. Rudy Giuliani has already said he would appoing "strict constructionist" justices, which is code for "extremely reactionary" in the mold of Samuel Alito. The Roberts court has made clear that it favors corporations over citizens and government control over individual rights. Concerns about the Court extend far beyond Roe. Assuming that Roberts is not seriously ill, shining a spotlight on this Court is a positive development.

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