Too Strange to be Fiction ...

Following Congress' unprecedented (and ultimately useless) intrusion into the Terri Schiavo case last month, some leading Republicans in Congress seem to have begun an all-out rhetorical assault on the federal judiciary.

Following Schiavo's death, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay commented "This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." Senator Rick Santorum called the refusal of federal courts to intervene in the Schiavo legal battle "unconscionable." DeLay went on to suggest that he will push for a committee investigation into the courts' actions in the Schiavo case, and refused to rule out impeachment proceedings against the judges involved.

Other Republicans of course, including Senator McCain and Vice President Cheney, disavowed DeLay's remarks. Cheney told the New York Post "I may disagree with decisions made by judges in any one particular case. But I don't think there would be much support for the proposition that because a judge hands down a decision we don't like, that somehow we ought to go out -- there's a reason why judges get lifetime appointments." Precisely.

Yesterday, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, a former judge, took to the Senate floor to lambaste the federal judiciary. There was the usual blasting of the Schiavo judges (most of whom were appointed by Republicans) and the Supreme Court (ditto), but Cornyn went a few steps beyond the usual, going so far as to suggest that recent incidents of violence against judges (Bryan Nichols in Atlanta, the murder of Judge Lefkow's family in Chicago) were in fact somehow related to what he called 'unaccountability':

"I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country--certainly nothing new; we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that has been on the news. I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds and builds to the point where some people engage in violence, certainly without any justification, but that is a concern I have that I wanted to share."

Cornyn's remarks have sparked a flurry of remonstrances, and rightly so. The Washington Post this morning quotes PFAW leader Ralph Neas as saying that Cornyn's comments "could be seen by some as justifying inexcusable conduct against our courts." A DSCC spokesman called the comments "bizarre," noting that the recent incidents of violence "are hardly examples of people who are upset and have ideological differences with judges". [Not that they would be permissible if they were!]

What's next? Will DeLay & Co. push through a law allowing the "I didn't agree" defense for judge-killers?