WHEN MEN IN BLACK SHIFT FROM BLUE TO RED:

Roberts battle highlights vast gulf between parties (Robert Bork and David Rivkin Jr., 9/21/05, USA Today)

[F]ar from being about Roberts or any future nominee, the pyrotechnics of the Senate hearings are attributable to the fact that the philosophic gulf between our two political parties has grown vast — and nowhere more so than with respect to the federal judiciary. Most Republicans want courts that are legal institutions, not political bodies. Democrats, on the other hand, insist on courts devoted to specific policy outcomes (invariably items on the liberal agenda).

Not content with helping transform the judiciary into the most important player in domestic affairs, and most certainly in cultural trends, Democrats push for courts that are activist in foreign and defense policy, micromanaging, for example, the treatment of captured enemy combatants.

The hysteria of the Democratic Left is understandable. It has lost confidence in its ability to compete in the political arena and sees a politicized judiciary as its only hope to advance its agenda. The policies it desires, and the Supreme Court has so far advanced, are ones that encourage radical personal autonomy in moral and cultural matters. Activist judges announce principles and reach results that have no plausible connection to the Constitution. Thus, it is increasingly obvious that activist judges are issuing decisions that have no basis other than the judges' personal preferences. There is more than a grain of truth in the statement that the court represents the blue states in their contest with the red states.

You think they're deranged now? Wait'll they lose their last hope.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 21, 2005 2:18 PM