One of the great weaknesses of blogs, across the political spectrum, is the repeated and convulsive expression <$Ad$> of more or less contrived outrage. Of course, some of the folks are just outrage-addicts and so it’s not contrived, but more of an addiction. But same difference.
Yet at the risk of committing the sin I’ve just described or the malady I’ve just diagnosed, I invite everyone to again look at this statement today from floor of the United States senate in which Sen. Cornyn (R) Texas suggested that a slow build-up of outrage against activist judges may be the root cause of the recent rash of murders and assaults against members of the judiciary around the country.
(Bear in mind that Cornyn is a former District Court judge, a former member of the Supreme Court of Texas and a former Texas Attorney General.)
I’ll print it one more time …
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. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of courthouse violence recently that’s been on the news 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.
Let alone the fact that the statement is ridiculous on its face since violence against judges in this country is almost exclusively the work of disgruntled defendents or homicidal maniacs who manage to wrestle a gun away from a bailiff, what Cornyn is trying to suggest here seems genuinely outrageous.
I’m curious to know whether you agree.
Late Update: The Post has picked up the story. And if anything, the context of the statement some of which they provide, makes the statement even more of a stunner. The passage I quoted above was apparently preceded by this: “It causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions. [Sometimes] the Supreme Court has taken on this role as a policymaker rather than an enforcer of political decisions made by elected representatives of the people.”
Still A Later Update: Let’s not forget that Sen. Cornyn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bush White House.
