I called Cornyn’s office in DC today about the nuclear option, and his staffers were nice enough. You would never think that in an adjacent room, the flesh of infants was being eaten.
Okay, okay! I’m a professional journalist, so I shouldn’t imply that Cornyn dines on babies. My bad. He is no Tom DeLay, right? Or is he?
I can say, however, that John Cornyn is guilty of sedition against America, of dare I say it, UNAMERICAN ACTIVITIES and that Tom DeLay is too.
In case you missed it, John Cornyn and Tom DeLay have been full of things to say about the federal, independant judiciary. Here are two of DeLay’s greatest hits:
- “[need to take a] look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president.”
- “Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today.”
Now think about this for a second. What if, say, Al Franken had said that last one? Or me? What if I got up and in so many words, said “You fuckers are gonna pay.” That almost sounds like… a threat, doesn’t it? How is this not an invitation to violence against federal judges? How is this different than some other fundamentialist religious zealot in the Middle East calling his followers to war? Threatening a federal judge is a felony, and in this case, he threatened them all.
This is not only a threat, it is a naked threat. Considering that DeLay’s camp is circling the wagons and, as I mentioned earlier, threatened to crush and / or excommunicate anyone who doesn’t back up DeLay to the political death, and that he’s also trying to enlist the House Judiciary Committee to figure out why the courts, in his words, “failed,” it is clear that Team NeoCon is gearing up for war. Ideological war, political war, and sadly, the war of implication.
So once again we return to the fact that if the Neocons don’t get what they want, they get really, really mad. It is clear that DeLay and his ilk are crybabies. The system worked the way it was supposed to, in every form and fashion, and now the independant judiciary is being made out to be judicial terrorists.
So what could be more un-American? What could possibly be more un-American than openly deriding public servants carrying out the prescribed course of American governance and adhering to the rule of law? What could be more un-American than openly threatening those who do their jobs in service to their country?
Senator John Cornyn (R – Tex) provides the answer and the example:
“I don’t know if there is a cause-and-effect connection, but we have seen some recent episodes of courthouse violence in this country. . . . And I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters, on some occasions, where judges are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in, engage in violence. Certainly without any justification, but a concern that I have.”
For one thing, Republicans have zero space to argue about unaccountability. Team Neocon should have had plenty of comeuppance coming to them for their willful ignorance of international law, and the guys truly responsible for Abu Ghraib – not the least of which being one Donald Rumsfeld – give glassy eyed stares of mild confusion in response to the idea that someone other than low-level grunts should maybe end up in court. They are fundamentally unassailable and are of the opinion that accountability came in the form of the general election.
But this is beside the finer point of what John Cornyn said. This wasn’t a Senator caught off-guard at a party after a couple of beers, these were prepared remarks given on the floor of the Senate. I watched him say it, and I could tell that he knew what he was saying was dangerous. I know he understands what he said – that violence against judges is understandable because of judicial activism. By political implication, as a concern he believes that this is the natural order of things, and that this will happen again.
He gives the footnote about how these things happen “without any justification,” but he links them in a cause-and-effect pairing that says what? It gives qualifiable reason for violence against Federal judges. It says “you are getting what’s coming to you.”
So we have DeLay trashing American institutions because they function as intended and threatening any who dare to stand against his hamfisted powergrabs, even if those stands are taken in the course of doing the job you’re charged with doing. We have John Cornyn telling the American people that if judges are going to make politicized decisions, they are going to have to endure violence.
What’s the binary? If we apply the standard of violence against government officials in return for politicized decisions in matters of law, does that mean that violence against members of Congress is also understandable, even in the absence of justification? Does this mean that, along DeLay’s lines, the judiciary can openly attack the Congress when the Congress thumbs its nose at the court system? What will the judiciary do to Congress for their subsumation of jurisdiction into its decision-making progress? For Congress’ destruction of federalism and the seperation of powers?
Does this mean that the Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of the US Constitution, can visit some sort of retribution upon Congress for its disregard of the Constitutionally mandated seperation of powers?
DeLay and Cornyn represent the warriors of primacy in the Neocon assault on the fundamental way of American life and our institutions of democratic government. Like Odysseus, or perhaps even more appropriately Dr. Faustus, the tip of the Neocon spear is being wielded by classic over-reachers. They’ve gone unchecked for so long that they don’t realize they are in trouble. Mark my words: if they do not alter their present course, if they continue to act as if everything is business as usual despite the fact that they’ve raised the ire of general America, they are going to thoroughly self-destruct. Its gonna be WAY worse than Team Gingrich’s breakdown after the 94 midterms.
It has already begun. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is about to bring the Nuclear Option to the table for debate, so he had to back off, saying that he believes “we have a fair and independant judiciary today.” He can’t align with DeLay and his pals because his proposal of the Nuclear Option absolutely cannot appear to be, at least cannot OVERTLY appear to be, an attack on the judiciary.
Of course, it IS an attack on the judiciary, among other things, but what you’ve seen here is a public fracture within Republican leadership for nothing more than strategic reasons. Frist isn’t backing DeLay up in his jihad against judges, so does that mean Frist is about to get nailed?
There is no place for moderation among the Christianist political movement. It is all or nothing. If they refuse to learn, they will die out, and it will not be quiet or dignified. Political language is in no way an exact science or a zero-sum game. Politicians construct those that listen to their statements in such a way as to engage what the listener already knows. When Bush said “you’re either with us or against us” there was no question as to what the binary was between “us” and “not us.” Consider this, consider what DeLay and Cornyn have said, and you should be able to arrive at the truth concerning what kind of war they are starting to wage.
