Nasty Little Man

"Unelected activist judges"? UnAmerican righties

Over at America Blog, there's a thread about increasing concern amongst the judiciary for their safety as a result of the hysterical hyperbole from the Religious Wrong against judges. I posted a reply and decided to post it here, too. I just started reading Contempt: How the Right is Wronging American Justice by Catherine Crier, so I'll probably have more posts on this in the weeks to come.

Here's the post:

The Wrong's ability to get away with this rhetoric for so long shows just how ignorant the American people are about the American system of government. This weekend I watched a rerun on C-SPAN of a forum on Catholics and Public Policy with James Carville, EJ Dionne, Peggy Noonan, and Ed Gillespie. Gillespie pulled out the "unelected, unaccountable activist judges" line, and neither Carville nor Dionne responded.

Now, Gillespie can't be stupid. (Although, he is a conservative.) Surely he knows that the Framers intended for judges to be unelected to protect them from mob rule. Unless he is stupid, one can only conclude that he is completely manipulating the rank-and-file of the Wrong.

That leaves the rest of us in a clear place: Start calling them "UnAmerican" everytime they pull out that line because obviously they don't believe in the American system of government.

posted by Kinder Gentler Little Man @ 9:30 PM