Journalistic Apoplexy

Not suprisingly, the mainstream media was having kittens over the conference I attended, ominously implying that criticism of activist judges is only one step removed from assasinating them.

The Washington Post was particularly aggrieved. In a column today regarding the conference, Ruth Marcus writes that:

[T]he current uproar is particularly worrisome -- both because of the extreme nature of the restraints being proposed and the degree to which such sentiments are being voiced not by a powerless fringe but by those in positions of authority. It's not just Phyllis Schlafly anymore.

Dana Milbank, who is supposedly a reporter (rather than a columnist), leads his story on the conference on Friday's page 3A thusly:

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer -- and perhaps a few more bodyguards.

Nice.

This because some have dared suggest that Justice Kennedy be impeached for his reliance on foreign law in his rulings when the United States Constitution declares the Constitution the "supreme Law of the Land." But it's not as if the text of the Constitution has ever meant much to those who would defend the current judiciary. Milbank also mentions that the mother and husband of a federal judge were recently murdered, generously leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions.

The Los Angeles Times predictably wet its collective pants, sputtering:

Just when we'd think the ethically bloodied House majority leader, Tom DeLay, would try to lower his profile, he's intensifying a crusade (in every sense of the word) for congressional control over the judicial branch of government.

…He spoke by video to a conference titled "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith." Its sponsor was the Traditional Values Coalition, social-issue reactionaries who back legislation to restrict federal courts from ruling on anything involving God or basing any rulings on the precedents of foreign courts (for instance, in death penalty cases).

…Judicial independence is one of this nation's distinguishing traits and a hallmark of our constitutional scheme. To endure, our democracy requires that legislators respect the independence of the judiciary, even when it comes to decisions they don't like.

Considering that the courts have been the vehicle the Left has used for more than 50 years to shove its agenda down the throat of an unwilling public, you can see why they’d suddenly be so hot and bothered by a conference attended by, at most, 150 people in a Washington hotel discussing the available constitutional remedies to the problem. They see their entire supreme reign being jeopardized and will stop at nothing to defend it.

On the good side (and this is only fair to note), the New York Times’ story was (surprisingly enough) absolutely fair, accurate, and down-the-middle. Somebody must have had the day off.