Tyranny of the Judiciary

Barbara Boxer at a Moveon.org rally (17 March):

Why would we give lifetime appointments to people who earn up to $200,000 a year, with absolutely a great retirement system, and all the things all Americans wish for, with absolutely no check and balance except that one confirmation vote. So we're saying we think you ought to get nine votes over the 51 required. That isn't too much to ask for such a super important position. There ought to be a super vote. Don't you think so? It's the only check and balance on these people. They're in for life. They don't stand for election like we do, which is scary.

Hugh Hewitt pointed out Boxer's amazing admission that the liberals actually do want a super-majority votes for the confirmation of the President's judges. Evidently, the Constitution's provision for a mere majority is not good enough. But instead of offering arguments and motions to amend the Constitution, the Democrats offer instead to make use of the filibuster in an unprecedented, systematic way for all the judges that they deem out of the mainstream of America.

But I wonder whether if this doesn't show another important liberal position.

The reason that such a "super important position" needs a "super vote" now is that judges are indeed more important now than they were in the Founders days. In fact, set in the context of America's recent cultural and political history--a mainstream which is moving slowly, incrementally but definitely to the right--is that, according to its conservative nature (as Boxer notes, because of the appointment for life), the judiciary is the last federal institution to follow these recent changes.

We have seen the change in the other two branches of Federal government: the House in Gingrich's so-called revolution of '94, the Senate also recently, and the moderately liberal Democratic presidency of Clinton and conservative George W. Bush. I think it helpful to also throw in the long-term trends of the MSM's (Main Stream Media) loss of influence, culminating in the recent discrediting of CBS in "Rathergate"--and, one can add this week's revelations of ABC's making hay out a doubious Republican Schiavo memo (courtesy Powerline).

The line in the sand for the judiciary has been drawn for several years, I suppose. But, it now appears to have escalated: the Democrats have invested themselves, like the Texicans in the Alamo, in such a desperate way. This desperation over the nominations to the judiciary is in fact their last position of power (even if only slight) in our country. Through the judiciary, the Supreme Court in particular, they maintain the legitimacy of their important social and political decisions--among other things, abortion on demand being one of the most important--not to mention the looming questions, "gay marriage" primary among them.

In other words, this recent appeal for a "super majority" vote is an attempt to preserve their tyranny of the judiciary. They can no longer (at least as recently as November, '04) can win a majority of support, so they fall back to their last stronghold and pull up the drawbridge of change to the judiciary, a simple rule of the majority, the means of change available to every other branch of federal government.