Of course, in the abstract, there’s no way to tell whether a decision to interpret the word “extortion” broadly is motivated by an hyper-expansive view of government power wrt a law-and-order issue or a hyper-liberal approach towards an abortion issue. But we’re not really talking in the abstract, are we? We’re not acting in the absence of other information. If Wood were the sort of judge who did the former rather than the latter, she’d have been on Bush’s short list rather than Obama’s.

But I don’t find Woods’/Steven’s/Kearse’s definition of “obtain” to be irrational.

Really? What property did the abortion protesters obtain? (Answer that question with a straight face.)

Just to be clear, my point about the Hobbs Act was not the same as yours. You are assuming that Woods gave a conservative interpretation of the criminal statute in order to further her pro-choice beliefs, but my point is one could just as easily assume — indeed, absent evidence to teh contrary should assume — that she gave a more conservative reading of the Hobbs Act because she genuinely believed that was the correct interpretation, and thus to use that as a means of calling her “too liberal” makes no sense. I guess neither of us knows what was in Woods’ heart, and absent that knowledge I choose to assume she executed her judicial duties in good faith.

But in Scheidler, the defendants weren’t attempting to obtain anything at all. They weren’t a rival abortion clinic, or a real estate developer who wanted to buy the clinics’ land, tear down the clinics, and put up McMansions.

The problem, contra Stevens, is not that the property was “intangible,” but that they weren’t trying to obtain it, and no amount of verbal gymnastics to argue that “obtain” really means “to attain the regulation of the fate of” (huh?) can change that. And as you yourself noted, if this didn’t involve abortion, no way would liberals have ever tried to read a criminal statute so absurdly broadly in order to sweep in things which didn’t clearly fall under the ordinary definition of a word. Rule of lenity and all that. (A phrase that Stevens doesn’t even once mention, even to reject.)

( (*) Or were you talking about Arena? In which case, well, it uses the bizarre definition of “obtain” that Stevens swiped.)