Latest Assault on Judges Threatens Rule of Law
Commentary by Cass R. Sunstein, appearing in LA Times
As is to be expected, any and all associated with the judiciary are actively pulling the wagons into a circle. Such is the case with Cass Sunstein's "historic" perspective of what he deems the conservative assault on judges, going back half a century.
I would be more likely to give her history lesson credence had he provided a more insightful foundation of facts. Instead we have blanket statements of motives and a dearth of specifics. Now I admit, I wasn't paying much attention to the courts back in the 50's since I was a young whipper snappette. So it would take much research for me to dispute his perceived judicial victimization with the particulars he so conveniently leaves out. And unless this law professor is way up there in years, he is more than likely doing nothing more than reciting babble he learned from his own law professors at Harvard (no surprise there).
In the end, for me to actually give this nonsense more than a passing nod, I needed a base to start from. And in this case, he avers the "third assault wave" by conservatives is nothing more than an effort to force judges to interpret the Constitution "as it fits" with the Republican Party platform.
Huh? Okay... any questions on his slant in life are taken care of now.
And, as an example he cites the Schiavo case. A case and subject we can all admit was anything BUT partisan.
The problem, as the legal battle over Terri Schiavo demonstrated, is that whatever their politics, judges are unlikely to ignore the law. In that case, the law clearly did not authorize federal judges to order Schiavo's feeding tube reinserted — but some Republicans are outraged that the judges did not have it reinserted anyway. On Wednesday, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay instructed the Judiciary Committee to investigate federal court decisions in the Schiavo case.
Alrighty.... I'll give him a pass and assume that his perspectives of the first two "assault waves" is a parroting of the work of Harvard's liberal professors. But we were all here on the same planet, paying close attention I might add, during Schiavo. And this commentary just don't wash in the scheme of events.
Judges "unlikely to ignore the law"? Au contraire, Mr. Sunstein. That's exactly what they did.
Forget the feeding tube, forget the emotions regarding the entire case. What conservatives are angry about is the ultimate hutzpah of the judiciary to ignore Congress... and Congress is the judiciary's ONLY oversight. Outside of that, judges are not accountable to anyone, and the majority of those on the bench are not elected officials.
The ultimate death of Schiavo has zippo to do with the strident call for examination of the judges. Instead the courts' behavior inre Schiavo - or should I say lack of behavior - should have EVERY member of Congress, no matter how they voted or if they voted at all, outraged. The fact is that the courts ignored a legally applied and narrowly constructed mandate to review "de novo" the Schiavo case from day one.
For the author to so flagrantly misrepresent what we as a nation witnessed in front of our eyes only weeks ago casts the rest of his so-called historical commentary into doubt. He must think those of us not in the field of law are dumber than dirt, and can't comprehend what's going on.
But the most telling of the utter arrogance of this commentary author lies in the first paragraph, the final sentence:
snip... The third attack, however, is the most worrisome: a large-scale challenge to judicial independence, and we are now in the midst of it.
In this one sentence we have what the law professors are teaching our lawyers and future judges... that the judicial branch is accountable to no one and is "independent". Using this deified view of the judiciary, they see nothing wrong with the federal judges' third finger directed at the Congressional Schiavo mandate.
But for all the pandering of the word "Constitution" in her commentary, he misses the largest point of all. And that is an "independent judiciary", in itself, is not keeping with Constitutional intents.
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