Sandra Day O'Connor Says US Becoming Dictatorship

[destruction]

SANDRA DAY O'Connor's remarks on the dangers of dictatorship in this country got little attention last week. Maybe that's expected when a retired U.S. Supreme Court justice speaks to a roomful of corporate lawyers.

But O'Connor's thoughts on the high court deserve prime time. In recent speeches, she has criticized political attacks on the judiciary as demeaning, dangerous and a threat to constitutional freedoms.

Last Thursday, she really got going. In a Washington, D.C., talk, O'Connor noted other nations, where dictators order up justice from a compliant bench. "It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.''

In the 1930s, it was President Franklin D. Roosevelt, "that fellow on the dime,'' who O'Connor felt tried to undermine the court by packing it with White House flunkies. Now it's the Republican right-wing who is trying to intimidate the judiciary, she indicated.

The Reagan-appointed moderate barely concealed her targets. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the former House majority leader, had trashed the courts for removing the feeding tube of Terri Schiavo in a "right to die'' case. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, drew fire for his idiotic remarks after a judge was killed in Atlanta and the family of another jurist was murdered in Chicago. An unaccountable judiciary that engages in politics, he suggested, may bring on violent attacks.

O'Connor may be retired from the bench, but she shouldn't quit the public arena where her thoughts are needed.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/03/15/EDGU9GJFCM1.DTL