In his previous pre-blogging life, Glenn was a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. And based on today's post - a legal analysis of the Kucinich court decision combined with a political/philosophical analysis of the ignorant blog posts it has spawned in the right wing blogosphere - he must have been a damn good one.
My favorite bit:
That's not just wrong. It's pure nonsense. "Interstate commerce" is a term used to define the scope of Congressional power to regulate under Article I; it has absolutely nothing to do with a court's "jurisdiction." State courts can and, every day, do resolve disputes and issue rulings on "interstate commerce complaints" (whatever that might mean). Morrissey's claim that "Kucinich filed his tort in state court" is equally cringe-inducing, since Kucinich filed a contract and a statutory claim, not a "tort."
... It's literally impossible to know less about the relevant issues here than Morrissey. He just simply doesn't know what he's talking about in the slightest, yet that doesn't stop him from emphatically condemning the Judge as a stupid, corrupt activist, while accusing Kucinich of "fil[ing] the claim in the wrong court and push[ing] for government control over the speech, property, and assembly rights of NBC."
Wow. Ouch!
As always, Glenn takes todays events and uses them to make a much broader point about our political process:
The important point here is neither Morrissey nor the Kucinich decision. The court didn't yet issue a written ruling and I have no idea whether the court's decision is reasonable, defensible, or right. The contract claims require application of Nevada contract law to the specific communications between Kucinich and MSNBC, and the Section 315 claim requires all sorts of analyses as to whether its mandates apply to a cable channel such as MSNBC, whether Kucinich can be excused by the time imperatives from the statutory requirement of first seeking relief from the FCC before suing, etc.
I'm focusing here on the reaction to the decision, not the decision itself, because it's so illustrative of what happens every time there is a court ruling that conservatives dislike. They begin screaming "activism" without knowing anything other than their wish for a different outcome.The systematic erosion of the rule of law in America has many aspects, and one significant one is that conservatives have been trained that they have the right to have judges issue rulings that produce outcomes they like, and when that doesn't happen, it means the judicial process is flawed and corrupt. Put another way, those marching under the banner purportedly opposed to "judicial activism" have been taught that they are entitled to have courts ignore the law in order to ensure the outcomes they want.
What else could possibly explain how someone can be convinced that they are in a position to condemn a judicial ruling without bothering to learn anything about the laws and legal issues in play? Hence: Bush should be able to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants and any judge who rules that -- under the law -- he can't, is guilty of "judicial activism." They've been trained to believe they're entitled to have judges give them the outcomes they want, and when that doesn't happen, that alone is grounds for proclaiming that the courts and judges are not just corrupt, but illegitimate.
The rule of law isn't just one of many things that make the modern western political system unique; it is the one thing upon which everything else is based. Without it, nothing else matters. Our political rights may come from "nature and nature's god," but without the rule of law, those rights cannot and will not be protected. It's a concept so basic, so fundamental to who we are as a nation, that most of us never give it a second thought. Its existence has been taken for granted for so long that most of us don't even really understand what it means. And the results of that ignorance, as Glenn points out, can be seen far and wide across the modern conservative movement. Barry Goldwater must be rolling in his grave.
Subscribe to this blog's feed
