Sandra has begun to look over her shoulder

[donsu]

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/04/oconnor-says-religious-right-hate.html


O'Connor says religious right hate-speech could spur violence against judges, calls her critics "extreme"



Wow. I'm glad our old-time liberal non-profits have NOT jumped on the anti-judge hate speech issue that I've been preaching about for, oh, a good month now. Obviously I was wrong and the story has no legs whatsoever.

From this week's Newsweek:
In a speech earlier this month at Goucher College, O'Connor herself said she was surprised at all the violent threats she received. "I don't think the harsh rhetoric helps," she told the crowd. "I think it energizes people who are a little off base to take actions that maybe they wouldn't otherwise take."More from O'Connor's speech criticizing the conservative Christians, who she apparently thinks are not "thoughtful citizens" - but rather part of the "extreme" in America:
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said harsh political rhetoric could spur violence against the nation's judges, offering a veiled response last night to some national figures who in the past week have blasted the courts for failing to intervene in the case of a severely brain-damaged Florida woman.

Speaking before a crowded auditorium at Goucher College in Towson, O'Connor said she never anticipated her work as a judge would be accompanied by violent threats and said "thoughtful citizens" should demand an end to fiery extremism on either end of the political spectrum....

Political leaders, most prominently House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, said the nation's courts would have to answer for Schiavo's death.

O'Connor said tensions have historically existed between Congress and the courts, but she added: "It isn't any more pleasant today. ... And I hope that we will see an end to this, but it won't happen right away, and it will take the work of thoughtful citizens who say, 'We don't want to have this from either extreme, so let's move on.'"
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[calimary]

1. My only question about this is - has there been ANYONE on OUR end

of "the political spectrum" as she puts it, who's responded to adverse court rulings by threatening violence and the murder of judges? ANYONE? I don't claim my memory is perfect, but I CANNOT recall any such threats, EVER, from anyone on the so-called "loony left." That kind of shit seems to squirt out only from the so-called "right."

[dbt]

2. SQUIRM, Bitch.

You could have stopped this nightmare, but you voted to install that Reptile in the White House. Some damn scary chickens are coming home to roost, no?

Sleep well, Madame "Justice."

[gratuitous]

3. You want the djinn back in the bottle now, Ms. O'Connor?

Seems you might have thought about that a few years ago when you and your cohorts were busily prying the cork out.

But you just couldn't face an Al Gore presidency, so you shook hands with Fat Tony and Uncle Slappy Thomas to install the Chimpleton. Now you say you were only kidding. Great sins require great atonement, and simply whining about the toxic atmosphere you helped unleash isn't quite sufficient.

[calimary]

4. What's that about some "law of unintended consequences"?

If Mme. Justice and her four pals had not opened Pandora's Box in December 2000, perhaps we wouldn't have come to this frightful point, in the first place. All these vermin ever needed, and were waiting for, was just a leeeeeetle bit of encouragement. Once the door was left open just a crack, the Vandals and the Visigoths came rampaging in.

I'll say it again. You don't get threats of violence and insinuations about attacks against "wayward" judges from anybody on OUR side, now, do ya? Besides, the folks on OUR side tend not to be radicalized, rabid gun nuts, either. The worst we ever do is chain ourselves to some fence or old growth tree. Well, then again, maybe some of us throw pies... But somehow, I don't think it's a pie she's nervous about.

[rbking]

5. In fairness to Justice O'Connor

and her cohorts on the high court, even I didn't think Bush would be this bad. Really, I figured on four years of the simple-minded dope bumbling through the Oval Office and we'd be done with him. Never did I imagine that he could bring the country this far down in four damn years and still get re-elected.

Both O'Connor and the Chief Justice had implied that they were going to retire after Bush was appointed in 2000, and yet here they are in 2005 still on the bench. Personally I think that both were stunned at and frightened by Bush in his first term and hung around to have his successor appoint their replacements. Neither is talking about retirement now, in fact the CJ has every reason to step down and has given no indication that he will. There is a good chance that he has been so frightened by the Bush cabal that he will one day have to be carried out boots first.