Enough Already
by digby
Joshua Green has a smart op-ed in today’s Globe about the usefulness of Supreme Court confirmation battles as education tools. He recounts how successful the right has been over the years ib creating the myth of the “activist judge” as a way to discredit rulings they didn’t like and notes that in the Kagan hearings the left is using the Citizens United case to make similar points.
And then he exposes typical Village punditry for the idiotically out of touch gasbaggery it is:
This sailed right past some observers. “Why the obsession with the Citizens United campaign finance case?’’ griped a Washington Post columnist. “Enough already.”
I had to see that in its entirely, and sure enough here’s a writer named Eva Rodriguez writing how silly all this boooooring back and forth about corporate power is. (Presumably she found Amy Klubuchar’s penetrating question about whether Kagan was “Team Edward or Team Jacob” yesterday to be vastly more enlightening.)
Her impatience with the topic I would guess is shared by most of the Villagers who undoubtedly see no reason to waste a minute worrying about corporate power infecting our electoral process because they believe corporations are run by normal every day Real Americans just like the Villagers themselves. Why should citizens be threatened by millionaire plutocrats when they reflect the average American’s own values and interests? They’re all jess folks who go down to the beauty parlor and shop at K-mart, right?
There is, of course, another view:
The answer is that liberals recognize that citizens’ ability to challenge corporate power is being seriously eroded, possibly with profound implications. As the elected branches of government have moved to the left, the Court has moved right. In the years ahead, it will likely hear challenges to many of the laws and regulations passed by this Congress, from new rules governing Wall Street to the health care law.
“These hearings are the first national engagement in the major constitutional debate of our time,’’ said Michael Waldman, the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “And that is, how activist will this court be in using conservative judicial theories to block regulation of business? Kagan’s is the first nomination of the Citizens United Era, as opposed to Roe v. Wade Era.’’
Oh gawd. I guess that means a lot more tedious talk about yet another topic that nobody who’s anybody really cares about. (Hasn’t anyone interesting received some unauthorized fellatio recently?) Good thing it doesn’t happen very often or villagers would just die of boredom.
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