Thursday, June 28, 2007

Political Landscape

I added an update to a post below. But I'm sufficiently ticked off to want to "amplify" on the issue here.

The Supreme Court this session has made a number of decisions this term, all 5-4, that have been quite conservative. Up to today, those decisions have been surrounding issues of corporations, or non-issues (added: boy am I wrong about this last statement). And all that's bad enough. But today they've essentially repealed Brown vs. The Board of Education which outlawed desegregation in public schools. This would put the law right back to the 1940's in terms of treatment of poor and minority school children. And make no mistake, it's not rich white parents trying to get their kids into poor minority dominated schools.

So now we have a showdown between Congress and the President over executive priviledge. If, and likely when, a case goes before the Supreme Court arguing the merits of Bush's claims of executive priviledge, does anyone really think that Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Kennedy will uphold the Constitutional separation of powers doctrines? If they can stretch legal logic to overturn a milestone case like Brown, it's shooting fish in a barrel to protect executive priviledge.

Don't get me wrong. Congress still needs to fight this tooth and nail right up to the Supreme Conservative Tribunal Court to drive it home to the nation the importance of Presidential elections. The final cleansing of the damage done by terrorist on 911 won't take place until there is, again, a moderate-liberal majority on the court which may take generations, not just election cycles.

Update: David Corn thinks so too:

With Democrats comparing Bush to Nixon--which is not fair...to Nixon (he was never as imaginative in his constitutional interpretations as Cheney)--these constitutional confrontations are probably heading toward the Supreme Court. Which means Bush could end his presidency much like he began it: being saved by justices appointed by him or his father.

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