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January 23, 2004
REPUBLICAN JUSTICE
Let's say you have a repeat offender, someone who has had multiple driving violations - who had even boasted publicly of his bad driving record... now, let's say that this person drives recklessly yet again, speeds, runs a stop sign... and kills someboday. If you're the Republicans, this seems custom made to be one of your famous "example" cases about how we need to get tougher on crime. The hallmarks are all there... repeat offender, someone who boasts of his run-ins with the law, an innocent dead victim...
Except, in this case, the perpetrator is a hard core conservative Republican politician, South Dakota's Bill Janklow... so you throw 100 days at him and hope it all gets buried on page 16 below the fold. Let's see - Martha Stewart, the Democratic contributor, fudges about when she sells some stock, and the Republican government goes after her lock, stock and barrel... Clinton tries to hide an affair, and they throw the country into Constitutional crisis... a prominent Republican kills a man, and he gets 100 days.
Yeah, that's fair.
Or how about this? You've got a judge who is going to hear a very important upcoming case - one whose outcome is critical to the defendant. A lower court has already ruled against the defendant, but the case has been appealed to this court. Now, let's say that this judge accepts an invitation from the defendant to go to dinner at his home. Six weeks later, the defendent invites the judge to go on vacation with him - and the judge immediately says yes, and the defendant hosts the judge who will hear his case, and the two of them go hunting.
If you're a Republican, how do you respond? This is a clear case of the judicial system run amok, right? A case where the judge is acting so inappropriately, and his impartiality has been called so deeply into question, that he could not possibly stay involved in the case... it must be those lily livered Democrats and their weak views on justice that allow this judge to still preside... right?
Except, in this case, the judge is Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court - the man whose decision placed George Bush and Dick Cheney in power. Coincidentally, the defendant in this case is Vice President Cheney himself, currently under court order to reveal the members of his energy task force - which he's refused to do. (What on earth could he have to hide? Why is Dick Cheney so afraid to let you know who he's taking energy advice from?) So instead, you defend the Vice President's right to host whomever he wants at dinner, and say that anyone who questions Scalia's impartiality is casting aspersions on the integrity of the Court.
Yeah, that's fair.
Does anyone else besides me get the distinct impression that "fair" plays no part whatsoever in Republican justice? That what it's really all about it just the acquisition and maintenance of power by conservatives and those loyal to the cause? That there are two standards in Republican justice - one for fellow Republicans, and one for everybody else? Or that the infractions that provoke Republican outrage when they have political gain to reap from them are the ones that Republicans dismiss as unimportant when they commit them?
Yeah. That's fair.
