O'Connor Goes After DeLay And Cornyn

From The Washington Monthly:

O'CONNOR SMACKS DOWN REPUBLICANS....Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor gave a speech yesterday at Georgetown in which she slammed Republicans--singling out Tom DeLay and John Cornyn--for undermining the judiciary. (You can listen to NPR coverage of the speech here.) She quoted DeLay's attacks on the court during Justice Sunday, and then turned on the sarcasm: "This was after the federal courts had applied Congress' one-time-only statute about Schiavo as it was written--not as the Congressman might have wished it were written. The response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint was that the Congressman blasted the courts..."

As for Cornyn, O'Connor said, "It doesn't help when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with."

When O'Connor announced her retirement last year, there was outpouring of praise for her "wisdom" and "moderation" and "thoughtfulness." That won't stop Republicans from turning around now and denouncing her comments, but it will make it harder for them to press their case. And--who knows?--maybe it will inspire some of her former colleagues across the judiciary. The pool of self-hating judges has to be fairly small.

What I liked about O'Connor's comments is how she openly suggested that certain partisan-driven suggestions for "judicial reforms" (e.g., recommendations for massive impeachments of judges, stripping certain courts of jurisdiction, the de-funding of certain courts, etc. ) are nothing more than early steps toward dictatorship.

Danimal -- it sounds like Justice O'Connor agrees with you. Here's how a reader responded to Danimal's statement that the United States is moving toward a dictatorship:

Feel free to ignore the real-world lack of evidence that this country is turning into anything like a dictatorship or theocracy. Do you know what those words mean? Because there are *actual* dictatorships and theocracies in this world, and they aren't in North America.

It saddens me to read intelligent people writing stuff like this. It is so far from reality. I hope that after a few more losses, the Democrats can finally start coming to their senses. Here's a hint: Get rid of Howard Dean.

When hardcore Bush apologists invoke Howard Dean or say stuff like "it saddens me to read intelligent people writing stuff like this," then you know you've really hit a nerve. This is because a lot of these Bush supporters are engaged in a struggle within themselves.

A lot of the intelligent Bush supporters -- and believe me, there are a few of those -- are more than willing to put up with a ton of fascist-leaning crap in exchange for the illusion of safety, even though their conservative impulses must be screaming to them that Bush is leading this country down the wrong path (as noted in an earlier post, half of Republicans now believe this country is on the wrong track).

But it isn't simply O'Connor who has made such comments. Last month, leading neocon Francis Fukuyama stated that the neoconservative position articulated by people like William Kristol and Robert Kagan -- and implemented by the Bush Regime in Iraq -- is a "Leninist" position in that "they believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will."

You know things must be bad when conservatives are saying and writing things like that.

UPDATE: Krugman had some great things to say today on this topic:

We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn't trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the beginning.

According to this view, if you're a former Bush supporter who now says, as Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that "the administration lies about budget numbers," you're a brave truth-teller. But if you've been saying that since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly shrill.

Similarly, if you're a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that "the people in this administration have no principles," you're taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred.