Judge-Bashing, continued

The far right wing's war against the judiciary branch was taken to a whole new level on Friday. If you thought the comments from DeLay and Cornyn last week were bad, well, you ain't heard nothin' yet. At a conference in Washington called "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith", conservative activists railed against federal judges, called for their impeachments, and made more slightly-veiled threats of violence.

Since Tom DeLay was forced to miss the conference because of a trip to Rome for the pope's funeral, he videotaped his speech, excerpts of which appeared in the Times yesterday. Charging that courts have "invented" rights such as abortion, ignored Congress' intentions (Schiavo) and "improperly" cited international law and societal norms in their decisions, DeLay remarked that "these are not examples of a mature society, but of a judiciary run amok." He continued by saying "Judicial independence does not equal judicial supremacy," and faulted Congress in part for what he called its "failure" to assert its "constitutional authority over the courts."

And DeLay's was probably one of the more reasonable speeches! Michael Schwatz, chief of staff to Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, said in a panel discussion that he was "in favor of impeachment" of federal judges for their decisions, even introducing the idea of "mass impeachments". Phyllis Schafly suggested that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy should be impeached for his recent opinion ending capital punishment for juveniles, according to Dana Milbank piece in today's Washington Post, because he has apparently not met the constitional "good behavior" requirement [Article III Section 1 of the Constitution says that federal judges shall "hold their offices during good behavior", which of course normally equals a lifetime appointment unless they really screw up].

Michael Farris, chairman of something called the Home School Legal Defense Association, called Kennedy "the poster boy for impeachment," adding "If our congressmen and senators do not have the courage to impeach and remove from office Justice Kennedy, they ought to be impeached as well." Why do they want Kennedy (a Reagan appointee, by the way) impeached? Simply for this: because he has cited international standards and legal doctrines in his decisions (i.e. noting that the only country in the world which 'officially' executes juveniles was, you guessed it, the U.S. of A., and that "the overwhelming weight of international opinion" opposed such a practice. Kennedy went on to conclude "The opinion of the world community, while not controlling our outcome, does provide respected and significant confirmation for our own
conclusions.").

Lawyer and author Edwin Vieira, citing both the death penalty decision from earlier this year and one of Kennedy's from last term which struck down an anti-gay statute in Texas, said that Kennedy "upholds Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law", and then went on to quote ... get this ... Joseph Stalin. Said Vieira, "[Stalin] had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: 'no man, no problem'". Vieira managed to leave off the first part of that slogan, which Milbank quotes in the Post this morning as "Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." Death solves all problems: no man, no problem. Regardless of whether or not he meant what he implies in that statement, Vieira's comments to me clearly indicate a poorly-veiled threat of outright violence against a sitting Supreme Court justice, and should not only be disavowed but also investigated.

The conference itself, as Milbank notes, was organized by a newly-formed coalition: the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration (that even sounds scary). Participants included "two House members; aides to two senators; representatives from the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America; conservative activists Alan Keyes and Morton C. Blackwell; the lawyer for Terri Schiavo's parents; Alabama's 'Ten Commandments' judge, Roy Moore; and DeLay, who canceled to attend the pope's funeral."

I was surprised at one line in Milbank's article, which appeared just before the list of participants I've quoted. He called them "no collection of fringe characters". I don't know what fringe is to him, but those characters certainly seem pretty out there to me!

Schafly asserted during the conference "The Constitution is not what the Supreme Court says it is". I know one thing: I'll take the Supreme Court's definition of the Constitution over that of Alan Keyes, Roy Moore and Phyllis Schafly any day of of the week.