Looks like the editors of the New York Times have quit taking their medication.

After all, that is the only way that they could have reached this conclusion in their editorial.

In placing these rulings in the larger context of the court after two appointments by President Bush — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both dedicated members of the conservative movement — it is important to note that the Guantánamo decision was 5 to 4. Anthony Kennedy, the court’s swing justice, cast the deciding vote. In other cases, like the gun-control decision, the rulings might have been more sweeping and more damaging if the conservative bloc had not needed the moderate-conservative Justice Kennedy’s vote to form a majority. One more conservative appointment would shift the balance to the far-right bloc.

If that happens, the court can be expected to push even further in a dangerous direction. It would most likely begin stripping away civil liberties, like the habeas rights vindicated in the Guantánamo case. The constitutional protection of women’s reproductive rights could be eliminated. The court might well strike down laws that protect the environment, workers’ rights and the rights of racial and religious minorities.

The court was teetering on the brink in this term. Voters should keep that firmly in mind when they go to the polls in November.

What are the horrific decisions that the editorial cites? Oh, the ones you would expect -- the Heller decision (upholding the right to keep and bear arms), the recent death penalty case (which does not require that executions be pain free), lat term's Ledbetter decision (described as "baseless" -- which is true if one does not consider the actual language of the statute when interpreting it) and the upholding of the Indiana voter ID statute.

On the other hand, it cites the tenuous victories for endangered liberty found in granting unprecedented access to civilian courts to armed combatants captured in the field and the striking down of the death penalty for child rape as positive signs.

That the American public overwhelmingly supports the "conservative" decisions and was outraged by the "moderate" ones doesn't make a difference to the Times -- it is clear that they see the Four Horsemen of the Judicial Apocalypse (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito) as dangerously out of step with the views of rightleft-thinking Americans and therefore fundamentally threatening to the liberties of Americans -- no matter how consistent with the text of the Constitution and the history of the entire Western legal tradition those conservative decisions really are.

Posted by: Greg at 01:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 444 words, total size 3 kb.