I "learned" this morning that the United States Supreme Court is broken. Linda Greenhouse, the reporter who covers the Court for the New York Times, tells us so in an article today. Oh, the horror!
According to Greenhouse, the Court was broken when the Republicans refused to vote on the nomination by president Obama of judge Garland for the vacancy created when Justice Antonin Scalia died last Spring. Greenhouse, you see, didn't like that, and she's the Times' reporter most involved with the story. That gives her the right to tell us that the entire Court is now broken.
Perhaps a better way to say all this is that once again, a pompous self-important liberal reporter in the mainstream media has been disappointed by a political development and has described the outcome in apocalyptic terms. It's not that Justice Gorsuch is now on the bench; no, it's that the Court has been "broken". When the Trump tax cuts get passed, it won't be that a strong move to pump up the economy has been made; no, it will be that the Republicans have sent billions to rich people in order to hurt the poor. When the Trump administration made clear that it was enforcing the immigration laws on the books and focusing that effort on convicted criminals who are illegal aliens (something that Obama claimed to be doing), it wasn't that the rule of law was being returned to the process; no, it was that President Trump is following a racist and anti-immigrant policy that will destroy America.
It's not just the policies that get this treatment. Think of the statement by Sean Spicer this week that it was terrible and unacceptable that president Assad of Syria had his forces use sarin gas on innocent civilians (a war crime) and that even the despicable Adolf Hitler had not done that. Spicer explained that he was talking about the fact that the Nazis never dropped chemical weapons from planes, something which was feared from the very first day of WW II. Nope, Spicer was labeled a "holocaust denier" and a bevy of idiots called for him to resign or be fired.
Someone should try to explain to Linda Greenhouse that the Supreme Court was politicized nearly 60 years ago when the Warren Court decided to start legislating from the bench. That awoke opposition to the Court's practice in that regard which grew much larger when the decision in Roe v. Wade came down. One may like the outcome in that case or think it totally wrong. No one with an understanding of the Constitution, however, would ever argue that the right to an abortion is established in the Constitution. That decision led to the ongoing battle about the Supreme Court. When the Democrats found themselves on the losing end of that battle, they created a new tactic to try for success. It was called "Borking" a nominee; it was named after Robert Bork, the nominee of president Reagan who was hit with a tidal wave of false attacks by the Democrats in a move that successfully kept Bork off the bench. They tried that same move again against Justice Thomas when they trotted out Anita Hill to make phony charges against him. They even tried to use the practice against judge Gorsuch, but it didn't work. The politicizing of the Supreme Court is now the accepted practice of both parties. Greenhouse was fine with it when only the Democrats did it; when the GOP responded, she announces that they broke the Court.
The truth is that the only thing that is broken is Greenhouse's perception of reality.
According to Greenhouse, the Court was broken when the Republicans refused to vote on the nomination by president Obama of judge Garland for the vacancy created when Justice Antonin Scalia died last Spring. Greenhouse, you see, didn't like that, and she's the Times' reporter most involved with the story. That gives her the right to tell us that the entire Court is now broken.
Perhaps a better way to say all this is that once again, a pompous self-important liberal reporter in the mainstream media has been disappointed by a political development and has described the outcome in apocalyptic terms. It's not that Justice Gorsuch is now on the bench; no, it's that the Court has been "broken". When the Trump tax cuts get passed, it won't be that a strong move to pump up the economy has been made; no, it will be that the Republicans have sent billions to rich people in order to hurt the poor. When the Trump administration made clear that it was enforcing the immigration laws on the books and focusing that effort on convicted criminals who are illegal aliens (something that Obama claimed to be doing), it wasn't that the rule of law was being returned to the process; no, it was that President Trump is following a racist and anti-immigrant policy that will destroy America.
It's not just the policies that get this treatment. Think of the statement by Sean Spicer this week that it was terrible and unacceptable that president Assad of Syria had his forces use sarin gas on innocent civilians (a war crime) and that even the despicable Adolf Hitler had not done that. Spicer explained that he was talking about the fact that the Nazis never dropped chemical weapons from planes, something which was feared from the very first day of WW II. Nope, Spicer was labeled a "holocaust denier" and a bevy of idiots called for him to resign or be fired.
Someone should try to explain to Linda Greenhouse that the Supreme Court was politicized nearly 60 years ago when the Warren Court decided to start legislating from the bench. That awoke opposition to the Court's practice in that regard which grew much larger when the decision in Roe v. Wade came down. One may like the outcome in that case or think it totally wrong. No one with an understanding of the Constitution, however, would ever argue that the right to an abortion is established in the Constitution. That decision led to the ongoing battle about the Supreme Court. When the Democrats found themselves on the losing end of that battle, they created a new tactic to try for success. It was called "Borking" a nominee; it was named after Robert Bork, the nominee of president Reagan who was hit with a tidal wave of false attacks by the Democrats in a move that successfully kept Bork off the bench. They tried that same move again against Justice Thomas when they trotted out Anita Hill to make phony charges against him. They even tried to use the practice against judge Gorsuch, but it didn't work. The politicizing of the Supreme Court is now the accepted practice of both parties. Greenhouse was fine with it when only the Democrats did it; when the GOP responded, she announces that they broke the Court.
The truth is that the only thing that is broken is Greenhouse's perception of reality.
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