Jugde O’Connor is ‘untouchable’

WASHINGTON – Everyone wants to be on hand here this week to see Arizona Appeals Court Judge Sandra O’Connor become the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. ‘The hearings will be thronged. The senators who will question Judge O’Connor will be on their best behavior. There is a lot riding on all this. Except for the zealots of the so-called Moral Majority, Judge O’Connor has emerged as a temporarily untouchable force. She is not your ordinary political story. In this one, the Republicans are not lined up on one side and the Democrats on the other. The idea of having a woman on the Supreme Court now seems like something we just can’t do Without. So, because of the hearings which begin here on Wednesday, the name of Sandra O’Connor will be on front pages all over the country, not just in Arizona. Wherever you went in Phoenix last week, there was talk about Judge O’Connor. Nowhere did I hear anyone speak a word against the appointment. Not once did I hear anyone question Judge O’Connor’s credentials to sit on the highest-ranking court in the nation. Some stories take on this quality. It was that way when Hank Aaron was closing in on Babe Ruth. It was the same way when Secretariat had won two legs of the Triple Crown. I heard people talking about Judge O’Connor last week in places like McDonald’s and Durant’s and Fed Mart and even in the ski lodge up in Flagstaff. The man next t.o me on the plane flying here late Monday night wanted t.o talk about her. He couldn’t believe