Wake Up Ginsburg!

Over a month ago, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg delivered a few speeches in South Africa.

For some odd reason, the Associated Press saw fit to address her comments today.

Talk about yesterday's news! This is last month's news.

In fact, it is incomprehensible that Gina Holland's March 15 report for the AP would be deemed "news" at all.

Nonetheless, the AP posted the following news story at 4:38 PM US/Eastern.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor have been the targets of death threats from the "irrational fringe" of society, people apparently spurred by Republican criticism of the high court.

Ginsburg revealed in a speech in South Africa last month that she and O'Connor were threatened a year ago by someone who called on the Internet for the immediate "patriotic" killing of the justices.

ANY THREAT, WHETHER DIRECTED AT HIGH PROFILE PEOPLE OR AVERAGE CITIZENS, IS SERIOUS AND SHOULD BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

I'm in no way diminishing the gravity of such threats. However, the AP is being extremely unbalanced and SHOCKINGLY misleading in the account, "Justice Ginsburg Reveals Details of Threat."

Ginsburg's stale comments are not given appropriate context. It's as if only liberal judges have been threatened.

Holland goes on to chastise Ann Coulter for inflaming the public.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. Over the past few months O'Connor has complained that criticism, mainly by Republicans, has threatened judicial independence to deal with difficult issues like gay marriage.

Worry is not limited to the Supreme Court. Three quarters of the nation's 2,200 federal judges have asked for government-paid home security systems, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said this week.

What an incredibly biased article!

Holland says NOTHING about the threats directed at Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito.

I suppose she doesn't mention those because many disparaging remarks about conservative justices come straight from lib media outlets, LIKE THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, and out of the foaming mouths of Dem senators and congressmen.

The article is about security concerns among judges, yet Holland completely ignores the threats and smears coming from the radical Left. She says NOTHING about the threats that are posted daily on Lefty websites and countless discussion boards.

I've read numerous calls for the death of President Bush and Vice President Cheney on a board that I used to post on. I've read calls for the death of Pope John Paul II. I've read threats directed at participants on that same board.

Maybe I should write to Ginsburg and let her know how hateful the Internet can be.

Perhaps the AP should write an article about the plethora of threats that are bandied about daily online.

At the very least, Holland should acknowledge that security concerns are not just worries for liberal judges.


Read the complete transcript of Ginsburg's speech, "A decent Respect to the Opinions of [Human]kind": The Value of a Comparative Perspective in Constitutional Adjudication.

(I don't recommend that you read the entire speech. It's a real snooze.)

Here's the relevant portion of Ginsburg's speech at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, February 7, 2006:

These measures recycle similar resolutions and bills proposed before the 2004 elections in the United States, but never put to a vote. Although I doubt the current measures will garner sufficient votes to pass, it is disquieting that they have attracted sizable support. And one not-so-small concern - they fuel the irrational fringe. A personal example. The U.S. Supreme Court's Marshal alerted Justice O'Connor and me to a February 28, 2005, web posting on a "chat" site. It opened:

Okay commandoes, here is your first patriotic assignment . . . an easy one. Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O'Connor have publicly stated that they use [foreign] laws and rulings to decide how to rule on American cases.

This is a huge threat to our Republic and Constitutional freedom. . . . If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week.

Nearly a year has passed since that posting. Justice O'Connor, though to my great sorrow retired just last week from the Court's bench, remains alive and well. As for me, you can judge for yourself.

To a large extent, I believe, the critics in Congress and in the media misperceive how and why U.S. courts refer to foreign and international court decisions. We refer to decisions rendered abroad, it bears repetition, not as controlling authorities, but for their indication, in Judge Wald's words, of "common denominators of basic fairness governing relationships between the governors and the governed."

Ginsburg said NOTHING about threats that her colleagues have received from the "irrational fringe" on the Left. She reveals her bias as surely as Holland does.

Personally, I think Ginsburg should retire and the Associated Press should stop passing off opinion as "news."