A Martial Attitude Against the Courts

An article in this part Sunday's NY Times highlighted the GOP Presidential hopefuls' view of the judiciary. In short:

Gov. Rick Perry of Texas favors term limits for Supreme Court justices. Representatives Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Ron Paul of Texas say they would forbid the court from deciding cases concerning same-sex marriage. Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania want to abolish the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, calling it a “rogue” court that is “consistently radical.”

Additionally, Gingrich went on to suggest that national security officials ignore Supreme Court cases and that federal judges could be subpoenaed to explain their decisions. As the article mentions, demonizing of the courts has been part and parcel of Presidential campaigns for a number or years. These recent suggestions, however, are, legally speaking, f'ing crazy pants (you'll just have to trust me. It's a term of art). Rick Perry's suggestion is clearly unconstitutional, as judges are supposed to "[...] hold their offices during good behavior," but the others are no less dangerous. As I assume (hold your tongue about assumptions... HOLD IT) that all of the candidates have a high school education, they should be familiar with the concept of checks and balances. With said familiarity, one would think that a candidate for chief executive would find such politicization of the judiciary to be frowned upon. Personally, I simply find it unbelievably scary when people use a nod to the Constitution as a method to do things that are absolutely against the letter and/or the spirit of the document (not to mention how infantile, idiotic, puerile, un-presidential I find it). Say what you want about Mitt Romenybot, but at least he has refused to jump in the deep end of the crazy pool where his fellow nominees are playing Marco Polo Marco Polo.