Balance of Power

Balance of Power

No, not the Star Trek episode, though I’ll give points to those who recognize the title.  IMO, the best single episode.

Anyway, I’m referring to the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive branches of government.  Apparently, Senators aren’t happy with their 1/3 of the pie and want to dictate the Judicial side as well.  Asking direct questions regarding specific cases is comparable to choosing referees for the Super Bowl based on their favorite teams.  Asking those questions and criticizing the likely future Chief Justice while knowing that confirmation is a foregone conclusion just to get some political equity and television facetime is pathetic.  

Listen, whether any of the branches choose to admit it, we’re going through a crisis of confidence in the system of government.  I’m not one (media) to point fingers (media) at who’s to blame (media), but this crisis is primarily due to the litany of muckraking and rabble-rousing from several sources (media).  I almost guarantee you that the majority of these “journalists” came from the generation that read and/or watched “All the President’s Men” and are desperately searching for their own Woodward/Bernstein moment in the sun.

C’mon, a Supreme Court Justice is supposed to INTERPRET the law, and decide whether the law/decision from the lower court is consistent with Constitutional law.  They’re not supposed to make laws and, no matter what the ignorant talking heads on TV say, they never have.  Now they’ve struck down laws, they’ve upheld laws, they’ve ignored appeals that would have struck down or upheld laws…  But they’ve never taken a pen (or typewriter or computer) and written a law.  Some legislative clerk had to do that..

So, to both sides of the aisle… take your litmus test questions and stick ‘em in your briefs.  Roberts is smarter than you, and seems like a decent, thoughtful jurist.  And you senatorial hand-wringers are the ones looking like idealogues.