Jonah, Dalia Lithwick, among the nastiest and least substantive leftwing lawyer-bloggers, doesn’t understand or accept that her side can’t make a persuasive argument for a living and breathing Constitution (i.e., rejecting the Constitution). Senators like Specter, Schumer, and Feinstein (and there are others) are presently sending letters to Roberts or making public statements questioning judicial review (which today is largely the same thing as judicial supremacy since, sadly, there are no practical challenges to the Court as the final authority). Now, they support this kind of judicial power when the result fits their political and cultural ends. But in recent days they characterize the Court striking down certain congressional legislation as activist. Today, the Left is supposedly against “judicial activism” (from its perspective), for a living and breathing Constitution (which is judicial activism) and for adherence to Court precedent — all in one breath. Their position(s) is/are incoherent because, as Jonah says, this is nothing more than result-oriented.

In his letter to Roberts yesterday, Specter took issue with the Court’s contradictory interpretation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specter felt Congress had intended it to apply more broadly, and the Court said otherwise. He labeled this judicial activism. But the Court strikes down congressional laws all the time, and frequently Specter supports it. Specter is pro-abortion, and when the Court struck down the partial birth abortion ban, he said nothing of judicial activism or supremacy. And that case was not included in his letter to Roberts as an example of judicial supremacy because it underscores both his (and the Left’s) hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty.

When conservatives question the Court’s activism and argue for congressional action to reign it in, the Left accuses us of attacking the “independence” of the judiciary. Yet, if Specter, et al, honestly believe that the Court is usurping congressional power, why don’t they stop writing letters and start urging legislative action? And why aren’t their “attacks” on the “independence” of the judiciary the subject of media concern?