Liberal Unbound

Granted, not bound by reality might be a better title here than unbound. Glenn Greenwald seems to be clamoring for a great deal of attention lately. Today he calls the right Cornered Rats. He also invokes a quote from Sandra Day O'Conner's recent controversial speech:

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.

I can't recall ever hearing a more irresponsible statement from someone purported to be so intelligent. As heard on Levin's radio show - would O'Conner say the same thing about this below from Thomas Jefferson?

"This member of the Government (the judiciary) was at first considered as the most harmless and helpless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what the law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining slyly and without alarm the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt."
                  —Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1825. ME 16:114

That sounds far more provocative than anything I've heard a Republican say on the matter recently. Conservatives, as well as a majority of Americans, I would add, have significant concerns about courts that have started taking peoples land. Many Americans are fed up with liberal courts who assign more rights to criminals than victims. The movement to address it, mostly umbrellaed under conservative politics, has been going on for over a decade and remains strong.

More from Greenwald - it's so incredible, it's actually bizarre.

Jeff thinks he's going to be zapped into ash if we withdraw from Iraq. For people who have been driven to that level of personal fear and irrationality, is it really a surprise that they will start screaming for the removal of federal judges, the imprisonment of investigative journalists, and "another" American civil war - just for starters?

George Bush's Presidency is disintegrating in front of our eyes. And the Republican Party which he has dominated and controlled for the last five years is extremely weak and fragile. But they are not going to just fade quietly into the night.

Many of them have become convinced -- or convinced themselves -- that it is literally a matter of their immediate and personal survival that the country be controlled by Republicans devoted to the neoconservative mindset. Many of them actually believe that if those who deviate from that worldview gain political power, that they will be irradiated or blown up by Al Qaeda. And then still others are just so filled with rage and contempt for "liberals" (meaning anyone who is not a Bush supporter) that those sentiments are, by themselves, sufficient to push them into extreme and irrational thought as they lose more and more power.

Bush followers first gained power as part of an ugly and raucous fight. There will be few limits on what many of them will be willing, and eager, to do in order to hold onto it. Removing dissident judges, imprisoning political opponents, and calling for a "civil war" is a nice start.

What craziness. Forget the Republican Party ... a moderate to conservative agenda has held sway in American politics for the last forty years. Even Bill Clinton had to dance in time with it. And even with that, Clinton never received 50% of America's votes for President as a Dem.

What Greenwald sees as panic is nothing more than staying the course. In terms of reality, there's nothing happening which resembles the fear and surrender Greenwald suggests. Why would someone create such an image unless it is simply a projection of what he feels inside?

Feingold launched an effort to censure the President and was embarrassed. The Dems tried to gain a reputation for national security by closing down a harmless and legitimate business proposition from the UAE - and that after leasing terminals to the Red Chinese under Clinton? Is Greenwald crazy? If they constructed anything with that for themselves, it was a house of cards waiting to collapse under the prevailing wind of the next election.

As for the war and the greater war on terror, just today Bush released details of his National Security Strategy, all of it totally in line with what we have done and what we are doing. From the headlines we know what we are doing in Iraq is launching a large combined assault.

It doesn't sound like anything is cornered like a rat in America today, except perhaps a failed liberal ideology America has increasingly abandoned over the last forty or so years. And the notion that Greenwald, content to spew for some small number of other political junkies, or like-minded fringe liberals is seeing some greater trend across America in all this is simply absurd.

Conservatives are simply doing that which many liberals have never shown themselves capable of doing ... staying a course. I doubt very seriously it leads to any corner. I'm content to wait and see. It doesn't sound as though Greenwald can say the same - sounds like more than a bit of fear and panic in all that ranting, if you ask me.

Comments

[splashtc]

Some judges are nuts and need to be watched.
Some judges make very bad decisions. She sounds like judges should be above any criticism-they would then be the dictators - no?

[tester]

The scariest part is that these guys get lifetime appointments...People change over time for various reasons...what will Roberts be like when he's 80-90 yrs old?