Goose, gander, you get the picture
Here’s house liberal E.J. Dionne in today’s WashPost: “The danger for moderates and liberals is not the end of liberal judicial activism -- those days are over -- but the onset of a new era of conservative judicial activism.”
Alas, “those days are over” said Dionne with a tear in his eye. Some of us believe the judicial branch exists to interpret law and not impose it. But for Dionne, judicial activism has been a primary force for the Left who have used the courts to make policy and subvert the democratic process (e.g. gay marriage). The honest thing would have been for E.J. to admit that judicial activism is wrong in the first place rather than curse the conservative court.
1 comment:
How asinine. Saying the Supreme Court should not engage in "judicial activism" is like saying the Congress should not engage in legislative activism. The Court's been doing so since 1793, and "activism" has been in the left or right eye of the beholder (read: loser) ever since.
You don't hear many of today's conservatives complaining about an "activist court" when it comes to Eldred v. Ashcroft (extending corporate copyright control), Boy Scouts v. Dale (OK'ing a private group's expulsion of gays), Easley v. Cromartie (which set up the Texas redistricting), Rumsfeld v. Padilla (remanded by the conservatives), Hiibel v. Nevada (upholding the "stop and identify" statute), Bush v. Gore (a minor case with no conservative consequences to speak of), and so forth.
But let the Court slip and "impose law" on the comfortable, thus "making policy" by subverting Alexander Hamilton's well-documented views on, say, internet porn? That's when we start hearing talking-point squawks about how David Souter (!) is a radical.
(Psst. Dude. You're winning. Enjoy it.) Meanwhile, if you're waiting for a Dred Scott decision to affirm that gay marriage is a "state's rights" issue, keep scooping that tide back into the ocean. And support stem cell research: you'll need to clone 3 more Scalias to get that one.
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