Why won't the Democrats talk about judges? By Dahlia Lithwick

[fujiyama]

I usually don't read www.slate.com very much. I've been disgusted by Mickey Kaus and bored of mushy moderate Saletan, but Dahlia Lithwick is pretty good.

This is a great point she makes in this article, especially at the very end. It seems that the rule of law isn't really very important anymore in this country. Once the constitution itself is treated the way it's been treated by the republicans, especially these last several years, I'm quite fearful of where this country is going. In the last four years though there are so many things that are so disrturbing (other than the partisan selection of the presidency) -- we've had the PATRIOT Act, Guantonimo, Abu Ghraib, and other questions that should seriously be questioned by people of all political stripes.

I sort of understand why Democrats won't bring up the issue of federal judges, because people unfortunately aren't bright enough to think that far into the future. I still remember how so many idiot Naderites voted for him, when they knew very well that Bush would be picking federal judges that would be sitting on benches for a quarter century or more.

I myself think we've been lucky enough that Bush hasn't been able to appoint a supreme court justice this last term. I'm glad Gore mentioned this the other day. He understands the importance.

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In a sense, it's an unfair question to ask at this convention, because the environmentalists, the stem cell folks, and the labor people are all in the same fix: This isn't the year to get any one issue before voters, who are having enough trouble deciding what to think about the war. But, if you can ignore the war for a moment, this should have been the year in which judicial appointments mattered a whole lot. For one thing, if you cared about gay marriage, or abortion, or the right to die, or civil liberties, as much as they say you do, almost nothing else matters but who's on the federal bench.

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But more important, wasn't this election supposed to be a referendum on Bush v. Gore? Weren't the majority of American voters who felt that they'd been shafted by a partisan Supreme Court four years ago going to rise up this time and say "no" to ideological justices and their origami Constitution?

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I keep thinking that one speaker at this convention needs to stand up at that podium tonight and say: "Ladies and Gentlemen. Abu Ghraib. Thank you. Goodnight." Because shouldn't this election ultimately be a referendum on the rule of law? Shouldn't the only issue before us be whether or not there will be legal constraints on executive power? Walter Dellinger, former acting solicitor general under Bill Clinton and star Slate contributor, puts this far more eloquently when he warns that if we don't cast our votes about Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib and those torture memos, we will someday look back on this election as emblematic of a national moral failure.

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