SUPREME COURT WATCH

The Average Man is very concerned about The Supreme Court, and heaven help us if Dubya is allowed to appoint one more justice. As is the case with everything about this horrible administration, I have had to watch my childhood belief in yet another government institution be chipped away like a Rodin statue. I don't know about you, but I used to have a vision of The Supreme Court as this collection of the smartest people in the country debating the issues of our time in an attempt to promote the greater good. And there was some sort of comfort in the thought that no matter how bad things got, The Supreme Court would be there to make things right. Well, you can certainly forget about that in today's world ...

This morning I was scanning MSN and came across an article titled Top court rebukes administration on warming. I'll let you read it yourself for the specifics, but the following quote will give you the gist:

In a 5-4 decision, the court said the Clean Air Act gives the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to regulate the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from cars.

Now, the average man is worried about global warming, so this is good news indeed. However, the thing that upset me about it is exactly what I knew would be the case before I even read past the first sentence. If you want to know where I'm going with this, see if you can guess who the "4" are in this 5-4 decision. If you can't figure it out, here's another quote from the article:

The court’s four conservative justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas — dissented.

Okay, let me just say for the record that I think these four guys are really bad news. If you don't believe me, I challenge you to go back a look at the voting record of these men on any case that has a Left vs. Right feel to it. You will see that they are ALWAYS the dissenters in cases like the one above. My favorite example is the case where The Supreme Court voted 5-3 that Bush's military tribunals violate both military law and the Geneva Conventions. Here's a great quote from an article in the The New York Times about it:

Justice Thomas took the unusual step of reading his dissent from the bench, the first time he has done so in his 15 years on the court. He said that the ruling would "sorely hamper the president's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy."

Does this sound like someone who should be interpreting the law to you? Oh, and by the way, before you think one of these four had a sudden change of conservative heart, the article also notes that ...

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. did not take part in the case, since he had ruled in favor of the government as an appeals court justice last year.

That's right, he "ruled in favor of the government" already. No need to repeat himself I guess. Trust me, this is really scary stuff. I just don't know how you can look at this and say with a straight face that these four guys make decisions based on anything but politics and conservative values. And it's especially frightening considering that only one other judge has to side with them in order for their misplaced views to become the law of the land.

And another thing: I really get a laugh when conservatives complain about "activist judges." This is probably a topic for another post, but there was a great Editorial in The New York Times a while back titled Activism Is in the Eye of the Ideologist that pointed out the following:

By the third measure, overturning the court’s own precedents (for which data were available only up to 2000), the conservatives were far more activist. Justice Thomas voted to overturn precedent 23 times and Justice Scalia 19 times, while the court’s four liberals did so in 10 cases or fewer.

So, here's the thing ... Don't get excited when you here that The Supreme Court made a decision you think is solid. If it's an issue that those who Trek Left care about, then you know 5 smart justices had a thoughtful discussion about the issue based on precedent and law ... and the other 4 dissented.