I had a sense this might happen, as evidenced in an
XBIZ article written right after the '08 election cautioning people about this possibility.
The article is rather long, so I've quoted the two most relevant paragraphs below:
Quote:
Where Obama's impact on the judicial branch of the federal government is concerned, many take it as an article of faith that (1) Obama will successfully appoint liberal judges to the bench and (2) liberal judges are necessarily good news for the industry. I would say that the first assumption is probably on solid ground, as Obama is certainly left-leaning, and his candidates will be getting vetted by a Democratic Congress. The second point is not an entirely unreasonable assumption, but it is not really a safe one, either.
Why do I assert that it's not a safe assumption that a liberal judge (or liberal politician, for that matter) will be positively disposed to the expressive rights of pornographers? Many of the industry's harshest critics come from the left, especially the feminist left. These are a very different sort of liberal than, say, Lawrence Tribe. These are liberals who, like their supposed ideological opposites on the far right, feel that there are certain classes of expression that are simply and inherently wrong ? and such forms of expression should therefore be suppressed by law and official societal disapproval. A liberal judge who hails from this intellectual camp would not be a welcome sight to see on the bench from an adult-industry perspective, obviously.
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All that said, had McCain won, I sincerely doubt we would have received two "pro porn" nominees for SCOTUS from McCain. I also suspect that even a judge who consumes porn privately would be publicly critical, or at best publicly neutral on the subject, particularly if they have any ambition to climb the judicial career ladder.
