BuzzFlash Reviews
October 27, 2005
Contempt:
How the Right Is Wronging American Justice
by
Catherine Crier
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Read
this book! Often overlooked in the Republican push to dominate the courts
is that their real goal is partisan, which is partly ideological, but
mostly about ensuring that the Republican Party maintains political power.
Host of Court TV's "Catherine Crier Live," Crier has penned a book that is remarkable because it is filled with outrage, anger and an allegiance to democracy. In no uncertain terms, Crier writes a clear, accessible and persuasive argument that the Republican right is out to turn the Court System into a vehicle for imposing Republican policies on America.
The greatest irony is that the GOP denounces an alleged cabal of "liberal jurist activists," when it is the goal of the Republicans to create an activist, partisan right wing federal bench.
The back of the "Contempt" book cover clues you into how far the damage has progressed. It shows the overwhelming Republican dominance of the federal Courts of Appeals in the United States. The subtitle of the book is "How the Right is Wronging American Justice."
Crier has the credentials to make the case, "Today the radical Right is winning, and they know it. Sooner rather than later, we may be living in a very different country, a country that had been ours, a country that will be theirs." Before being plucked as a legal commentator on national television, Crier was a Republican judge in Texas.
"I no longer believe things will get better," Crier concludes, "unless and until America's real majority -- the rational, pragmatic, tolerant, Constitution-loving preponderance of U.S. Citizens -- expresses its outrage and takes action against this attempted hijacking of our beloved Republic."
In many ways the ferocious GOP assault on the Federal bench is the silent coup that most Americans don't understand. Roe V. Wade, while fully supported by Buzzflash, is not the central issue at stake. What is at stake, as Crier points out, is the seizure of our judicial system for the purpose of imposing the will of a minority upon the majority. Furthermore, for the past 15 years, the D.C. Court of Appeals has shown that right wing appointees have repeatedly made partisan decisions that protect Republicans from criminal charges, grant powers to impeach a Democratic president, allow torture, deny Congress the right to legislate, and expand the imperial powers of Republican presidents.
We're not talking about picking judges for their beliefs on choice and affirmative action -- although that comes with the territory -- we are talking about the Republicans installing judges who are partisan foot soldiers. The people Bush appoints to the federal bench are mostly similar to the same crony appointments he makes to federal agencies: their only key qualification is that they are completely loyal to the Republican political machine.
This is a surprisingly defiant book that doesn't take any prisoners in alerting Americans that we are experiencing a takeover of this nation, and the keystone is the federal judiciary.
One need only look to the 2000 selection of Bush by a right wing group on the Supreme Court to realize how extensive the damage is that has already been done to democracy.
Catherine Crier pulls the fire alarm for democracy in "Contempt." Does anyone hear it blaring?
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