Le Sequoit

I Didn't Say It, This Time

We should avoid the country falling into dictatorship at the end by avoiding these beginnings.

Who's words are these?

These words were part of a speech about the right wing's attack on the courts of America. What are we talking here? Let's start with that paragon of integrity, Tom DeLay. After the Terri Schiavo fiasco DeLay said federal judges "thumbed their nose at Congress and the president. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." And then the speaker mentioned (not by name, but clearly) Texas Sen. Joe Cornyn's remarks that violence against judges, such as the murder of a Georgia judge and the killing of an Illinois judge's family, may have been linked to "political decisions".

Consider this quote from James Sensenbrenner, Republican congressman from Wisconsin, and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee:

This does not mean that judges should not be punished in some capacity for behavior that does not rise to the level of impeachable conduct….The appropriate questions are how do we punish and who does the punishing.

"Punishing what?" you might ask, as there are already tools for unethical conduct and gross ineptitude. He doesn't say. Here's more from DeLay:

"We set up the courts. We can unset the courts. We have the power of the purse,"

How about these next two blood sucking vampires? Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, and James C. Dobson, of Focus on the Family, were caught on tape with these:

Perkins:

There's more than one way to skin a cat, and there's more than one way to take a black robe off the bench

Dobson:

Very few people know this, that the Congress can simply disenfranchise a court. They don't have to fire anybody or impeach them or go through that battle. All they have to do is say the 9th Circuit doesn't exist anymore, and it's gone.

Well, it's no surprise to find these "fundamentalists" picking and choosing their way through the law―an example in itself of the necessity of an independent judiciary―and they seem to have lost sight of Amendment III, which states:

...the Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

So who is the lefty, pinko commie who dares to utter the dictator word in the face of such enthusiasm to smack down judges? Is it a media lefty like Jon Stewart or Keith Olberman. Some blogger on Kos or the Huffington Post? The NY Times? And as this quote is from a very highly placed individual, why aren't Limbaugh, Hannity, Fox and all the other defenders of the Reich up in arms about this? Where are the ad hominum smears?

No, this time they have to stop and think for a moment. Cuz this "paranoid alarmist" is none other than generally conservative and Reagan appointed Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

posted by sequoit @ 5:39 PM